[Zlib-devel] Avoiding WIN* macros in GNU code

[Greg Roelofs]

Cosmin wrote:

> On Thu, 12 Jun 2003, Richard Stallman wrote:

>>     By the way, what is the problem with using WIN32?
>>
>> It includes the word "win", and we don't want to call Microsoft
>> Windows a win.

This is the kind of ideological lunacy that gives the FSF and FLOSS
in general a bad name.  I suppose Richard will also want to change
his e-mail address ASAP since it includes the abbreviation MS, which,
as everyone recognizes, stands for Microsoft....

> I understand. Should we do the same in zlib?

What exactly made either of you imagine that the FSF's peculiar
guidelines have anything at all to do with zlib?  It was written by
two people, Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler, and is still maintained
by some linear combination of them.  It has never been GNU software
or under a GNU license, nor did the FSF or the GNU project have any-
thing to do with its initial development (or even with the project
that spurred its development, namely PNG).  All coding decisions,
stylistic or otherwise, are solely up to the authors and copyright
owners unless and until they decide otherwise (or unless/until some-
one decides to fork it--but then the fork is arguably not "zlib,"
proper noun, but rather some derivative-with-a-different-name, one
would hope).

Anyway, my point is that this discussion really doesn't belong on
the zlib-devel list, which, after all, is about zlib development--
not gzip, Info-ZIP, PNG, CVS, or Emacs, and certainly not GNU coding
standards.  (K&R, maybe...)

Thanks,
  Greg