Re: [OT] Re: Cosmetic Changes: ensuring decency of the Linux Kernel Source.

Tethys (tethys@ml.com)
Tue, 13 Oct 1998 10:51:06 +0100


>If it really matters that much, then we can replace all the offensive
>words with consonants and strategically placed asterisks (eg fuck -> f*ck,
>shit -> sh*t, etc). :)

Now *that* would offend me. Profanity is a part of life, and at times,
it helps express things the way you intended :-) If people really find
it offensive, I'd suggest that maybe they have a problem and need to
think about it a bit... after all, who does it *really* harm if a
comment in the code says "fuck" occasionally?

If nothing else, some of the comments are rather amusing -- after all,
Linux is meant to be *fun*.

FWIW, in linux-kernel way back on Fri, 19 Jul 1996, Linus wrote:

> In short, in the _occasional_ comment it's perfectly ok to
> say "Fucking Sun blows me", because that may actually tell
> something of the state of mind of the person when he wrote that
> special case.. And let's be honest, writing code is not all
> about "specifications", and comments aren't just "technical
> explanations".
>
> Now, I have to admit that the profanities seem to show up a
> lot more in the sparc code than in the rest of the kernel, and
> Davem might want to clean some of that up, but because I hate
> politically correct so much I will _not_ accept patches from
> others that just change this kind of stuff.

So the matter's pretty much closed. Fortunately, our illustrious
leader has enough sense to ignore those so easily offended...
I say, keep up the good work, Dave :-)

Tet

--
``Live free or die; death is not the worst of evils'' - General George Stark
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tethys@ml.com       |  Micro$oft:  | Linux,  the choice of a GNU generation.
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