From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.lisp.guile.devel,gmane.comp.gnu.lightning.general Subject: Re: GNU Thunder Date: Wed, 03 Sep 2014 08:50:25 -0400 Message-ID: References: Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15 X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1409748652 30706 80.91.229.3 (3 Sep 2014 12:50:52 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2014 12:50:52 +0000 (UTC) Cc: lightning@gnu.org, guile-devel@gnu.org To: Ian Grant Original-X-From: guile-devel-bounces+guile-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Sep 03 14:50:48 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: guile-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1XPA1P-0005DN-Jk for guile-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 03 Sep 2014 14:50:47 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:45103 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XPA1P-0003Ow-06 for guile-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 03 Sep 2014 08:50:47 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:48379) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XPA1D-0003MY-Sn for guile-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 03 Sep 2014 08:50:37 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XPA15-0004qY-5M for guile-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 03 Sep 2014 08:50:35 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:34221) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XPA15-0004qU-1o; Wed, 03 Sep 2014 08:50:27 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XPA13-0002hD-Kp; Wed, 03 Sep 2014 08:50:25 -0400 In-reply-to: (message from Ian Grant on Tue, 2 Sep 2014 21:52:20 -0400) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Error: Malformed IPv6 address (bad octet value). X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e X-BeenThere: guile-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Developers list for Guile, the GNU extensibility library" List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: guile-devel-bounces+guile-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: guile-devel-bounces+guile-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.lisp.guile.devel:17393 gmane.comp.gnu.lightning.general:557 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. ]]] It's surprisingly hard to fundamentally change a program that big. Most changes are fairly minor and leave the basic structure unchanged. That hack recognized specific syntax. Any change in the wrong place would break it. So a trap door could look at the large-scale structure using unification to do pattern matching, Then it would be able to adapt automatically to many localised changes. Who knows. It is an imponderable. The reason I am not interested in focusing on this problem, which is conceivable, is that (1) it seems unlikely and (2) we face other problems that are just as bad and that are real for certain. -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation 51 Franklin St Boston MA 02110 USA www.fsf.org www.gnu.org Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software. Use Ekiga or an ordinary phone call.