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Linux 6.19 Gets Rid Of The Kernel's "Genocide" Function (www.phoronix.com)

submitted 5 days ago by cm0002@lemmy.cafe to c/linux@programming.dev

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While the Linux kernel has inclusive terminology guidelines for the past five years to replace phrases like master/slave and blacklist/whitelist, there has surprisingly been a "genocide" function within the kernel that was questioned when it was first submitted for inclusion but now removed in Linux 6.19.

Introduced to the Linux kernel back in 2023 was the d_genocide() function as part of various dcache updates to the kernel. The genocide name was questioned when the patches were first posted by longtime Linux developer Al Viro

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[–] psycotica0@lemmy.ca 43 points 4 days ago (8 children)

I know it doesn't matter, and is fully a side issue to this post, but I hate that "blacklist" gets brought into this. It's never been used to be "a list of black people" or something; that wasn't the original meaning, and that's not the modern intention. It's just a word that sounds like maybe it could have been racist in origin, but it wasn't. And that one makes me grumpy just as an annoying word person.

The real hot take was that we used the term black and white for people at all! If we could go back to the past and make it so we call it, like, Affo and Euro or something, whatever, it would have cleared up a lot of unrelated term confusion.

I mean, if we could go back and change things there's maybe some other stuff that would be more important to change... but among the changes I would make are those!

[–] fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 15 points 4 days ago

I did have a very real work experience where people went "a what list" when I mentioned we had a black list of software built. I am kind of glad to move past black is bad, white means good phrasing tbh because some people are turned off by it.

If we could just end racism, as in the fucking stupid idea of race at all, it wouldn't matter. People are even black and white...

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