From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Windows emacs-25.1 i686 vs x86_64? Date: Mon, 07 Nov 2016 09:43:23 -0500 Message-ID: References: <6e2cffe5-942b-48d4-9ed5-ef39803bcd30@googlegroups.com> <87mvhgsf21.fsf@russet.org.uk> <8360o4monq.fsf@gnu.org> <87vaw4gq0j.fsf@russet.org.uk> <83oa1vlnkk.fsf@gnu.org> <87d1iba6od.fsf@russet.org.uk> <83ins2jq88.fsf@gnu.org> <87eg2p8swx.fsf@russet.org.uk> <831sypjmst.fsf@gnu.org> <83wpggip8j.fsf@gnu.org> <05ba947a-970a-178c-8036-bcdf84485384@cs.ucla.edu> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=Utf-8 X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1478529917 5020 195.159.176.226 (7 Nov 2016 14:45:17 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2016 14:45:17 +0000 (UTC) Cc: eliz@gnu.org, phillip.lord@russet.org.uk, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Paul Eggert Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Nov 07 15:45:10 2016 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1c3lA2-0004rC-Pb for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 07 Nov 2016 15:44:34 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:54425 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1c3lA5-0003Fz-Oi for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 07 Nov 2016 09:44:37 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:53146) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1c3l8w-0003E5-UJ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 07 Nov 2016 09:43:28 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1c3l8w-0005hu-3B for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 07 Nov 2016 09:43:26 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:37075) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1c3l8u-0005hN-Ji; Mon, 07 Nov 2016 09:43:24 -0500 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1c3l8t-0007ih-Og; Mon, 07 Nov 2016 09:43:23 -0500 In-reply-to: <05ba947a-970a-178c-8036-bcdf84485384@cs.ucla.edu> (message from Paul Eggert on Sun, 6 Nov 2016 13:54:24 -0800) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:209247 Archived-At: [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > In GNU projects, we typically stop worrying about an underlying > platform when its original supplier stops supporting it. For > example, Emacs no longer worries about IRIX because SGI stopped > supporting IRIX in 2013. In the GNU Project, the question that matters, for a system version of no particular importance to us (such as any version of Windows), is whether users care about that version enough to maintain support for it. If they do that, we may as well not delete their code unless it is getting in the way rather badly. If we have no direct evidence about whether users care about a certain version, by default we can suppose that they won't care about a version that is no longer being maintained. But that's not the criterion, just a default way to guess. Given that Windows is so widely used, and that so many users stick to old versions of it, it is plausible to me that millions of people still use Windows 98. Maybe tens or hundreds of millions. That number may still be growing. ISTR that even a few years ago people were still installing unauthorized copies of Windows 98 on PCs, because Microsoft made it harder to install subsequent Windows versions. It would not surprise me if Windows 98 was installed on millions of new PCs this year. -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org) Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.