Richard Stallman’s Exit Heralds a New Era in Tech

Re:Richard Stallman’s Exit Heralds a New Era in Tech by bjourne on Sunday September 22, 2019 @02:26PM (#21042971)

"Future Change Warning: Proposed Federal censorship regulations may prohibit us from giving you information about the possibility of calling this function. We would be required to say that this is not an acceptable way of terminating a program."

Is the above comment in the glibc manual something to be upset about? I don't understand why.

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Re:Richard Stallman’s Exit Heralds a New Era in Tech by pseudalopex on Sunday September 22, 2019 @05:09PM (#21043968)

The glibc maintainers removed it because a dated oblique joke didn't help anyone use glibc. People got upset when Stallman demanded they revert the change and refused to compromise.

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Re:Richard Stallman’s Exit Heralds a New Era in Tech by bjourne on Sunday September 22, 2019 @05:39PM (#21044129)

Makes sense. When reading the article I thought it implied that the joke was offensive. Apparently, it was Stallman's insistence on preserving the joke that was the problem, not the joke itself.

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Re:Richard Stallman’s Exit Heralds a New Era in Tech by pseudalopex on Sunday September 22, 2019 @09:21PM (#21045198)

Some maintainers thought it could bring up painful memories or seem like it was mocking the reader's beliefs. That came up after Stallman insisted on putting it back in, though. The original consensus was just that it was badly written and out of place.

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