Re: [PATCH] manual: Remove warning in the documentation of the abort function

[Carlos O'Donell <carlos at redhat dot com>]

On 10/7/19 1:32 PM, Florian Weimer wrote:
> The warning is confusing to those who do not understand the context,
> and the warning is easy to misunderstand:

I agree. I made the same comments myself in the original post about the issue,
and backed that up with a stackoverflow and reddit post showing confusion over
the statement in the manual.

> 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.)

Ageed.

> 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.

Agreed.

> 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.

Agreed.

> This reinstates commit 340d9652b9d0e1d4136588f18b726662d195777c
> ("manual/startup.texi (Aborting a Program): Remove inappropriate
> joke."), effectively reverting the revert in commit
> ffa81c22a3ac0fb75ad9bf2b1c3cdbf9eafa0bc9 ("Revert:").

This looks good to me.

Reviewed-by: Carlos O'Donell <carlos@redhat.com>

> 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
> -

OK. Removes the entire cartouche.

>  @node Termination Internals
>  @subsection Termination Internals
>  
> 


-- 
Cheers,
Carlos.