From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Rick Jones Subject: Re: [PATCH] Stop scaring users with "treason uncloaked!" Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 16:58:56 -0800 Message-ID: <494AF1D0.8060400@hp.com> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Herbert Xu , davem@davemloft.net, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, netdev@vger.kernel.org To: davids@webmaster.com Return-path: Received: from g4t0017.houston.hp.com ([15.201.24.20]:14737 "EHLO g4t0017.houston.hp.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751884AbYLSA67 (ORCPT ); Thu, 18 Dec 2008 19:58:59 -0500 In-Reply-To: Sender: netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: David Schwartz wrote: >>Most people won't actually think their printer is on fire. But most >>people WILL think there is serious cause for concern when they see this >>for the first time in dmesg. Many will search the net for explanations >>and come away confused and not entirely reassured. And at least one >>clueless guy will call the police because he still thinks he's under >>attack. > > > Messages about something or other being "illegal" occur about 345 times in > the Linux kernel source code. Are we going to start patching those too? > > We have "illegal norm", "illegal input", "illegal call", "illegal type", > "illegal bits", "illegal root port number", "illegal host number", "illegal > DMA data", "illegal dimensions" (who do you call about that one?), "illegal > phase", "illegal page number", "illegal seek", and on, and on, and on. > > I suspect that if I submitted a patch to change all of those to "invalid", > I'd be considered a kook. (Well, more of a kook, anyway.) All issues of your kookiness aside :) I suspect that the continuing spread of "linux" among the masses will mean a need for greater care in message wording. Whether that means that "illegal " needs to be changed I cannot say, but if it does it shouldn't come as a surprise. rick jones