simon-git: putty (main): Simon Tatham

Sat Jan 10 11:39:26 GMT 2026

TL;DR:
  c494fe86 Clarify the LLMs FAQ entry.
  fd08a775 Weed the FAQ.

Repository:     https://git.tartarus.org/simon/putty.git
On the web:     https://git.tartarus.org/?p=simon/putty.git
Branch updated: main
Committer:      Simon Tatham <anakin at pobox.com>
Date:           2026-01-10 11:39:26

commit c494fe86d63fb2f2b2f842513e0b07c63f075186
web diff https://git.tartarus.org/?p=simon/putty.git;a=commitdiff;h=c494fe86d63fb2f2b2f842513e0b07c63f075186;hp=8cdd0bbfe3662f6e747b15a2127070578631aa70
Author: Simon Tatham <anakin at pobox.com>
Date:   Sat Jan 10 08:55:28 2026 +0000

    Clarify the LLMs FAQ entry.

    I just re-read it and realised that "No AI or LLM code is included in
    PuTTY" can be read two ways. I meant it to be about code that
    _implements_ an LLM, because that was what the person asking me this
    question was concerned about. But the way I worded it, it could also
    be misread as a promise that none of PuTTY's code was _generated by_
    an LLM. That wasn't what I meant, so I've clarified the language so
    that it's clearer that it means the former.

    I'd _like_ to be able to give the latter promise too! Certainly I have
    never used an LLM to generate code to go into PuTTY (or into anything
    else I've written). But I can't make the same promise on behalf of all
    our contributors, because I'd have no way to know.

 doc/faq.but | 6 +++---
 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

commit fd08a7754bbc94ec7fb841c4858897d8ea9f448c
web diff https://git.tartarus.org/?p=simon/putty.git;a=commitdiff;h=fd08a7754bbc94ec7fb841c4858897d8ea9f448c;hp=c494fe86d63fb2f2b2f842513e0b07c63f075186
Author: Simon Tatham <anakin at pobox.com>
Date:   Sat Jan 10 09:15:09 2026 +0000

    Weed the FAQ.

    It's finally time to clear up some of the hilariously outdated
    questions, like things about PocketPC, or warnings about behaviour
    changes in some prehistoric version like 0.5x, or warnings about
    things that went wrong in Windows XP SP2.

    Apart from straight-up deletions, I've also updated the questions
    about what ports exist, including updating the status of the
    non-Mac-port to explain that it's not only unfinished but now also
    bit-rotted. And I've replaced the "why is there even a Unix PuTTY when
    OpenSSH exists?" with a more general "why use PuTTY when OpenSSH
    exists?", now that OpenSSH exists for Windows too.

    The terminal-types question now acknowledges that a 'putty' terminal
    type exists; the copy-paste question now starts 'by default' and
    explains that these days you can reconfigure if you prefer more
    Windows-like behaviour.

    The _two_ FAQ entries about "Out of memory" are gone, as is the text
    about it in errors.but. Nowadays PuTTY won't just pass an arbitrary
    32-bit packet size field to malloc at all: both SSH and SFTP will cap
    at some idea of the maximum sensible size, and if they see a larger
    value than that, report some other more specific error message.

    It's possible that some new material might be useful. For example,
    I've deleted both questions about SSH-2 and SSH-1 support, but there
    _is_ still something to say about SSH-1 support (namely, the fact that
    PuTTY still provides it for talking to legacy devices with firmware
    SSH-1 servers). But I'm working on the principle that if in doubt I
    interpret "FAQ" in the literal sense: once we find out what questions
    people actually do ask frequently, we can put those questions back in.

    And, with some nostalgic regret, I've included Crazy Aaron's Putty
    World among the garbage-collected questions. He managed to get a link
    from us by sending us free samples which caught us in a whimsical mood
    back when PuTTY wasn't as famous as it now is, and I'm sure it proved
    to be a good investment for him. But even if that business is still
    around, it's not true any more that people run across the PuTTY web
    site and mistake it for actual putty.

 doc/config.but |   5 +-
 doc/errors.but |  27 ---
 doc/faq.but    | 699 +++++++++++++--------------------------------------------
 doc/index.but  |  23 +-
 doc/using.but  |   4 -
 5 files changed, 156 insertions(+), 602 deletions(-)