Messages in this thread | | | Date | Thu, 18 Dec 2008 16:58:56 -0800 | From | Rick Jones <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH] Stop scaring users with "treason uncloaked!" |
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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 <foo>" needs to be changed I cannot say, but if it does it shouldn't come as a surprise.
rick jones
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