Re: GNU coding standards

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

     * K&R C compilers (i.e. compilers that don't support ANSI C from 1989)
       are not in use any more. 

Yeah they are.  I maintain plenty of such code.

       In Gnulib, we have dropped support for such
       compilers in 2011, and no one complained.

No, but I had to fix bunch of such code so that it works with legacy.

     * The most recent gcc and clang compilers, when used with option 
-std=gnu23,
       warn about K&R C functions definitions:

Sorry, but 2023 is just last year, and what clang does is more or less
irrelevant.

       This option -std=gnu23 will become the default in the future, like
       -std=gnu99 and later -std=gnu11 became the default.

       Therefore the harm of this section is that it suggests a code style
       that we know is not future-proof.

It is plenty future proof, seeing that it has worked for much longer
than the years elapsed since 2023.  There is literally no harm in
keeping a section that is _optional_.  The GNU Coding standards are
not mandatory, enforced, or otherwise enforced so to call this harm is
absurd.


Feel free to suggest a patch instead of exaggeration though.