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[PATCH] manual: Remove warning in the documentation of the abort function
- From: Florian Weimer <fweimer at redhat dot com>
- To: libc-alpha at sourceware dot org
- Cc: rms at gnu dot org, Alexandre Oliva <oliva at gnu dot org>, Raymond Nicholson <rain1 at airmail dot cc>
- Date: Mon, 07 Oct 2019 19:32:32 +0200
- Subject: [PATCH] manual: Remove warning in the documentation of the abort function
The warning is confusing to those who do not understand the context,
and the warning is easy to misunderstand:
A reader needs to know that it was written by someone who is generally
skeptical of government influence and control, otherwise it reads as
an affirmation of the U.S. government's role as the ultimate editor of
the manual. This is precisely the opposite of what the warning
intends to convey. (Reportedly, it criticizes that several
U.S. administrations have tried to restrict the medical advice that
U.S.-funded health care workers can provide abroad, considering that
censorship.)
The warning is also misleading on a technical level. A reader who
makes the connection to pregnancy termination will get the wrong
impression that calling the abort function will terminate subprocesses
of the current process, but this is not what generally happens.
Finally, for both GNU and the FSF, it is inappropriate to use female
reproductive health as mere joke material, since these organizations
do not concern themselves with such issues otherwise, and the warning
is purportedly about something else entirely.
This reinstates commit 340d9652b9d0e1d4136588f18b726662d195777c
("manual/startup.texi (Aborting a Program): Remove inappropriate
joke."), effectively reverting the revert in commit
ffa81c22a3ac0fb75ad9bf2b1c3cdbf9eafa0bc9 ("Revert:").
2019-10-07 Florian Weimer <fweimer@redhat.com>
* manual/startup.texi (Aborting a Program): Remove warning.
diff --git a/manual/startup.texi b/manual/startup.texi
index 7395d32dd0..21c48cd037 100644
--- a/manual/startup.texi
+++ b/manual/startup.texi
@@ -1005,14 +1005,6 @@ This function actually terminates the process by raising a
intercept this signal; see @ref{Signal Handling}.
@end deftypefun
-@c Put in by rms. Don't remove.
-@cartouche
-@strong{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.
-@end cartouche
-
@node Termination Internals
@subsection Termination Internals