[r6rs-discuss] [Formal] nothing is said to be safe

[William D Clinger]

I am posting this as an individual member of the Scheme
community.  I am not speaking for the R6RS editors, and
this message should not be confused with the editors'
eventual formal response.

Mike Sperber wrote:

> This is an editorial oversight, and I believe that the consensus of
> the editors was that all programs are intended to be safe as per the
> report.  (I've made the corresponding change.)  Please let me know if
> you disagree.

If the report requires all programs to be safe, then
R6RS-conforming implementations will be forbidden to
execute programs that link with libraries written in
unsafe languages such as C, C++, and assembly language.

That may well be the consensus position of the editors,
but I regard that position as a radical change to the
Scheme programming language, and as a mistake of truly
epic proportions.

Will