Re: [PATCH 1/2] BZ#10375: Configure magic to use -U_FORTIFY_SOURCE if needed.

[Roland McGrath <roland at hack dot frob dot com>]

> On Mon, May 7, 2012 at 7:06 PM, Roland McGrath <roland@hack.frob.com> wrote:
> > +CPPUNDEFS=
> > +dnl Check for silly hacked compilers predefining _FORTIFY_SOURCE.
> 
> Please keep the tone professional.

It is my considered professional opinion as an expert in the field
that the hacking of the compiler to default to -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE
and -fstack-protector is silly.  Others are welcome to disagree,
and to express their relevant views in the comments of the code
they contribute.

Please keep the censorship of hackers' opinions out of my community.
There is nothing uncivil or ad hominem about my comments.
My wholehearted endorsement of the rejection of meanness does not mean
that I will accept enforcement of uptightness.

I would rather be an honest hacker than an unblemished professional.
I would rather see glibc fail utterly than to see its community
drained of any glimmer of personality.

When I wrote the C Library under the auspices of the GNU Project, the
term "professional" was considered a pejorative.  It meant someone who
was concerned more with credentials and with ostentatious displays of
decorum than with programming or with open collaboration.  Times have
certainly changed, but not that much.  Good programming and good
collaboration require honest and forthright self-expression.  Good
collaboration also requires mutual respect and friendly interaction.
Neither requires slavish adherence to imagined protocols of decorum
beyond essential friendliness, which does not need to be codified.

I certainly welcome friendly disagreement with material details of my
code, including the contents of its comments and even their flippancy.
If arguments against certain comments are based on real concerns about
the maintainability of the code by a varied community over a long time
and make that argument in persuasive detail, then I will concur.  If
objections are stated in terms of vague thought-crime bogeymen, then
they will draw nothing but strident anti-bureaucratic responses like
this one.


Thanks,
Roland