Re: [bug-diffutils] bug#24311: bug#24311: bug#24311: [PATCH] maint: accommodate LP64 systems

[John Darrington]

On Sun, Sep 24, 2017 at 03:49:25PM -0400, Richard Stallman wrote:
     [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
     [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
     [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
     
     I've written this replacement text for that part.  It corrects
     what is outdated.  I think you will be disappointed by it,
     but rejecting any responsibility to support nonfree platforms
     is a crucial necessity to avoid granting them moral legitimacy
     they do not deserve.
     
     
     You need not cater to the possibility that @code{long} will be smaller
     than pointers and @code{size_t}.  We know of one such platform: 64-bit
     programs on Microsoft Windows.  If you care about making your package
     run on Windows using Mingw64, you would need to deal with 8-byte
     pointers and 4-byte @code{long}, which would break this code:
     
     @example
     printf ("size = %lu\n", (unsigned long) sizeof array);
     printf ("diff = %ld\n", (long) (pointer2 - pointer1));
     @end example
     
     Whether to support Mingw64, and Windows in general, in your package is
     your choice.  The GNU Project does say you have any obligation to do
                                    ^^^^^^
I think there is a typo here.

     so.  Our goal is to replace proprietary systems, including Windows,
     not to enhance them.  If people pressure you to make your program
     run on Windows, you can respond with, ``Switch to GNU/Linux --- your
     freedom depends on it.''
     
     

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