Facetious reply:

> However, GNU software tends to work very hard to avoid arbitrary limits [1].

Yes? The quote says "tends to", and you still can cd into that directory, albeit not in a single invocation. Windows has similar limitations [0], it's just that their MAX_PATH is just 260 so it's somewhat more noticeable... and IIRC the hard limit of 32 K for paths in non-negotiable.

[0] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/fileio/maxim...