From: Theo de Raadt <deraadt@cvs.openbsd.org>
Subject: Re: Miscellaneous LibreSSL portability fixes
To: deraadt@openbsd.org, sortie@maxsi.org, tb@theobuehler.org
Cc: tech@openbsd.org
Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2024 05:01:46 -0700

>> Where does it say this?  If true the number of portability issues this
>> will create, adjacent to security, is assuredly non-zero.  I don't believe
>> this to be true nor practical. 
>
>POSIX.1-2024 <sys/types.h> "All of the types shall be defined as
>arithmetic types of an appropriate length [...] Additionally: nlink_t,
>uid_t, gid_t, and id_t shall be integer types."
>
>We've basically always been allowed to pick our ABI here, it's the same
>language allowing 64-bit time_t and off_t.
>
>I'm doing an experimental operating system to explore designs
>and their consequences. I will bear the full burden of my choices,
>review all the security implications, and I'm happy to carry the
>patches I need. It's totally ok that you're saying no :)
>
>I would never suggest such changes for the wider OpenBSD, only the one
>portable file I had issues with, and it turns out I didn't know about
>the patches feature.
>
>(Btw the breakage for 64-bit uid_t and gid_t has been small. It's mostly
>just printf issues which are caught with -Werror=format. I am unaware of
>any security issues so far although yes I am concerned about silent
>truncation.)

I don't believe your interpretation here.  The "appropriate length"
is obviously not 64, because that blocks the creation of portable code.
I didn't know your operating system was popular enough to have that many
users.  Ours is not.