Re: Why "daemon" is not like "deity"
bruce@va.debian.org writes:
> Were I Ken Thompson, designing Unix in 1969, with _prescience_ about
> what would happen to it, I would not have called them daemons.
No offense, Bruce, but in this case, I'm glad you weren't. Unix has a
great deal of character that I'd hate to lose, and not all of it is
politically correct enough to satisfy *every* sub-group.
(Didn't we recently have this same arguement about offensive fortunes,
the bible, and doom?)
Has anyone read Fahrenheit 451 recently? It makes a good point
concerning where too many artistic concessions designed to prevent
offense might get you. Among other things, when carried too far,
these concessions leave you with with some sort of homogenous,
eviscerated, uninspired crap.
My experience is that no matter what do you, you're going to offend
someone. I think the "chmod 666" issue is a perfect example of that.
Now the current "crisis" is obviously not that big a deal, and I don't
really care if we name it pm, trove, or deity. However, I'd like
poeple to consider this issue for the future, because sooner or later
we are going to have to decide where we draw our lines.
Finally, it's free software. If a particular group doesn't like the
name, they can change it to whatever they like within their
distribution.
Rob
who's not too happy with Rupert Murdoch at the moment for yanking the
ex-prime minister of Hong Kong's book so as to avoid endangering his
potential satisfaction of greed when China becomes more open.
(Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one -- Leibling?)
--
Rob Browning <rlb@cs.utexas.edu>
PGP fingerprint = E8 0E 0D 04 F5 21 A0 94 53 2B 97 F5 D6 4E 39 30
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