I doubt anyone who has responded in favour of removing the comment was
offended, but I think there is excessive concern that the comment will be
bad for Linux's "image" (no pun intended...) Since Linux is free, there
should be less of a need to be paranoid about this kind of thing. Curse
words in the bootup messages would be unprofessional and rightfully bad
for Linux's reputation. However, curse words in the comments don't seem
like the kind of thing anyone should worry about. Besides, anyone who is
offended by a little cursing obviously has no experience programming, and
no good reason to look at the kernel sources in the first place (other
than to find out what C code looks like).
-- Adam
On Fri, 19 Jul 1996, Robert L Krawitz wrote:
> Date: Thu, 18 Jul 1996 12:15:14 -0700
> From: Beyond Repair <beyond@lightspeed.net>
>
> I personaly think that the "rude" comments in the code, shoudl be left as
> they are.. I dont know about any one else, but wen I write a prog it is
> downright amazing if I comment it at all, and if some one is going to
> tell me what to and what not to put in my comments, then I may as well
> not comment it at all.. and with most a great loss for those of us who
> scan through linux source and would be totaly lost were it not for thoes
> comments.. I vote they stay.
>
> I disagree. A big advantage of Linux is the source availability, and
> as such we operate in a glass house that other OS's don't. As such,
> those "impurities" will be very visible with Linux, and will make us
> look bad.
>
> --
> Robert Krawitz <rlk@tiac.net> http://www.tiac.net/users/rlk/
>
> Member of the League for Programming Freedom -- mail lpf@uunet.uu.net
> Tall Clubs International -- tci-request@aptinc.com or 1-800-521-2512
>
>