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

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ 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what is outdated.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
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.''

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org)
Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.