To avoid that requirement there should be some way to do that same
    installation without an already existing system. Sort of a "GNU
    Installer." Such a program could be made to know about all GNU
    packages and their dependencies, and then handle the whole process
    of configuring, compiling and installing everything necessary to
    make the system work. I suppose that people could still do that
    same work manually if they wanted but it would no longer be
    mandatory.

To require everyone installing the system build it from source
would be inconvenient, and I see no benefit from it.

For packages, we separate building from installation.
We should do this for the whole system as well.
It would be good to be able to built binaries for the entire system
with `./configure; make', but installation would be a separate step.

--
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin St
Boston MA 02110
USA
www.fsf.org  www.gnu.org
Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software.
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