A "joke" in the glibc manual [LWN.net]

By Jake Edge
November 7, 2018

A "joke" in the glibc manual—targeting a topic that is, at best, sensitive—has come up for discussion on the glibc-alpha mailing list again. When we looked at the controversy in May, Richard Stallman had put his foot down and a patch removing the joke—though opinions of its amusement value vary—was reverted. Shortly after that article was published, a "cool down period" was requested (and honored), but that time has expired. Other developments in the GNU project have given some reason to believe that the time is ripe to finally purge the joke, but that may not work out any better than the last attempt.

The joke in question refers to a US government "censorship rule" from over two decades ago regarding sharing of information about abortion. It is attached to documentation of the abort() call in glibc and the text of it can be seen in the patch to remove it. One might think that an age-old US-centric joke would be a good candidate for removal regardless of its subject matter. That it touches on a topic that is emotionally fraught for many might also make it unwelcoming—thus unwelcome in documentation. But, according to Stallman, that's not so clear cut.

The GNU project recently adopted the "GNU Kind Communications Guidelines", authored by Stallman, that seek to help maintain a welcoming tone in the project's communications. With that in mind, Matthew Garrett re-proposed removing the joke:

As documented in https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/kind-communication.html, GNU projects should aim to communicate in ways that are not unwelcoming. Multiple people have indicated that they found this joke unwelcoming, and in addition it is an unrelated and off-topic political issue: as the Guidelines say, "Please don't raise unrelated political issues in GNU Project discussions, because they are off-topic".

Carlos O'Donell, who is one of the glibc maintainers and who called for the cool-down period, was supportive of the patch (as he was back in May). He praised the new guidelines and said that he expected them to "cover all forms of communication including the manual, website, and social media, and not just email". But he studiously avoided talking about the content of the joke as a reason for removing it; instead he noted the confusion that it has caused along the way and that it "does not support the present intent of the manual, which is to provide accurate technical information for the GNU C Library".

O'Donell said that wanted to hear from Alexandre Oliva, who had reverted the change back in May, to see if he still had objections. Oliva replied that he did not think the guidelines should cover manuals, just interactive discussion forums, such as email, IRC, and social media. But he did concede that he may have misunderstood the intent of the guidelines and wanted to hear what Stallman had to say on that.

For his part, Stallman seems to agree with Oliva:

More precisely, the guidelines are about how we communicate in our discussions, not what ideas we communicate (as long as they are pertinent to the topic of the list and support the goal of the project).

These guidelines as such do not apply to manuals. Kindness as a general principle surely does apply to manuals, but precisely how remains to be decided.

He noted that he had recently added a statement into the GNU maintainer guide that "humor is welcome _in general_" and that the project rejects "the idea of 'professionalism' which calls for deleting humor because it is humor" (though that does not yet appear in the guide at the time of this writing). In order to even consider the question of the abort() joke, there are several "broader issues" that need to be resolved first, he said.

According to Stallman, the joke "opposes censorship", which is also a position of the GNU project, so the joke is "not an unrelated political issue". However, the oblique reference to a gag rule on abortion information, which was imposed on organizations receiving US aid off and on since 1984, may not really come through in the joke. Even many US-based glibc users might be hard-pressed to link it to the Mexico City policy that it is targeting. Even if they did, a joke buried in a manual for an unrelated C library is not likely to have any real impact on the rule (which has been rescinded by Democratic presidents and reinstated by Republican presidents since it was first enacted).

When pressed for more information about what these larger issues are, as O'Donell did, Stallman counseled patience. He did not offer any more information than that; perhaps the discussion has moved to a private mailing list or the like.

For many, including me, it is a little hard to understand why there is any opposition to removing the joke at all. It is clearly out of place, not particularly funny, and doesn't really push the GNU anti-censorship philosophy forward in any real way even if you grant that anti-censorship is a goal of the project (which some do not). There are, of course, those who oppose removing it because they are opposed to "political correctness" and do not see how it could be "unwelcoming", but even they might concede that it is an oddity that is poked into a back corner of a entirely unrelated document. And it is not hard for many to see that tying the topic of abortion to a C function might be upsetting to some; why waste a bunch of project time defending it when it has effectively no impact in the direction that Stallman wants, while putting off some (possibly small) percentage of glibc manual readers?

As was noted in the article back in May, the GNU project is run by a (hopefully benevolent) dictator in Stallman. Ultimately, he gets to decide what goes into project communications and can dictate the tone for its community (thus the guidelines). It is a bit weird to claim that all project communications except the manuals need to be "kind"; Stallman hasn't exactly said that, but that is kind of how it comes across. Digging in his heels, for unclear reasons, on this particular issue just seems like something a benevolent dictator might find a way to avoid.

to post comments

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 7, 2018 22:15 UTC (Wed) by jhoblitt (subscriber, #77733) [Link] (7 responses)

While putting off users is never a good thing, alienating your devs may be fatal to a project. Does GNU currently provide financial support for glibc development other than hosting?

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 8, 2018 13:34 UTC (Thu) by civodul (guest, #58311) [Link] (6 responses)

> While putting off users is never a good thing, alienating your devs may be fatal to a project. Does GNU currently provide financial support for glibc development other than hosting?

No, GNU doesn't exist as a formal organization (I'm a GNU maintainer). Rather it's a loose group of people supposedly sharing values and goals and willing to work on consistent pieces of software. So as you write, this heavy-handed behavior of Stallman's is strategically a very bad idea.

RMS keeps saying "we" or "the GNU Project" when he really means "I". This new episode is another instance of that. Phrases like "the GNU Project adopted these guidelines" make little sense: they were written by RMS alone and put on-line without discussion. Even though they come from the project's founder, I see little legitimacy in those guidelines. For me, governance of a project of this size cannot be left to a single person.

Stallman's announcement of these guidelines was itself controversial, attacking codes of conduct and disregarding their motivations. This, also, does not represent GNU. Many like me are at odds with this vision.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 8, 2018 16:21 UTC (Thu) by SEJeff (guest, #51588) [Link] (2 responses)

But as a BDFL, is there any way to maintain GNU while still directly opposing him? Do you ever forsee a fork of GNU as an idea / collection of devs due to him not staying current with the thoughts of the overall project?

Shortened: At what time does RMS become too toxic for GNU to exist and as a result the entire thing is forked?

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 9, 2018 16:23 UTC (Fri) by civodul (guest, #58311) [Link]

In practice GNU maintainers are fairly autonomous, which creates little incentive to "fork." However, at any time, RMS might show up and dictate his own will, as he did in this case. High-profile projects like the toolchain or Emacs are likely "targets."

Over the years many GNU packages have taken steps to protect their independence: some have their own infrastructure, and some like GNOME left GNU for all practical purposes. This is collateral damage of authoritarianism.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 9, 2018 16:26 UTC (Fri) by SEJeff (guest, #51588) [Link]

Yeah for someone who always proclaims freedom, I find his dictatorial tendencies a bit alarming. This is why I’m glad that as a general rule the “open source” crowd won over the “free software” crowd. He’s too overbearing to be pragmatic and get along with people at times like these, and it literally hurts his own cause by creating totally avoidable drama.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 13, 2018 0:09 UTC (Tue) by IanKelling (subscriber, #89418) [Link] (2 responses)

> without discussion

There's been quite a lot of discussion on GNU internal mailing lists and just based on a cursory glance, it seems that significant parts of the GNU kind guidelines came directly from what maintainers suggested. Are you on those lists?

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 13, 2018 22:49 UTC (Tue) by civodul (guest, #58311) [Link] (1 responses)

> There's been quite a lot of discussion on GNU internal mailing lists and just based on a cursory glance, it seems that significant parts of the GNU kind guidelines came directly from what maintainers suggested. Are you on those lists?

There _has_ been a lot of discussion on that list, no doubt about it. Perhaps Richard was somewhat influenced by these discussions and some maintainers do like these guidelines, but saying that the text "came directly from what maintainers suggested" is a bit of a stretch given the disagreements we've seen. It's unfortunate that that mailing list is private.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 14, 2018 23:57 UTC (Wed) by IanKelling (subscriber, #89418) [Link]

Sure. I didn't word that well, I didn't mean to imply there was a consensus.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 7, 2018 22:24 UTC (Wed) by admalledd (subscriber, #95347) [Link]

As last time, I don't particularly *care* that there is humor/jokes in my software. In general I support it actually, dull "professionalism" removes a significant human element in my opinion.

With that said, regardless of the content of this instance, I can agree on the confusion it can cause. Most other humor in software (admittedly I only strangely have seen in the proprietary space, quite ironic...) is in footnotes or other such with language akin to "Flavor text: <joke here>" or "Aside: ..." and so on. The idea being that it specifically is extra/separate from the main content be it documentation or tooltips or annotations or so on. The specific lingua franca though on how to place/call it: meh, not important to me so long as it fits.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 7, 2018 22:49 UTC (Wed) by vstinner (subscriber, #42675) [Link] (35 responses)

It reminds me my change in Python to avoid master/slave terms: https://bugs.python.org/issue34605 I modified 7 lines in comments or the documentation, and it created a giant worldwide shitshort.

I concur with the author, I don't see the point of keeping the joke, as it clearly hurt some people, and it adds nothing useful to the abort() manual page. I don't think that a manual page is the right place to express your political opinions. There are better places than that which have more impact.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 8, 2018 2:22 UTC (Thu) by Yui (guest, #118557) [Link] (18 responses)

> as it clearly hurt some people

When it comes to jokes and other such things it's good to remember that offense is taken, not given.

> I don't think that a manual page is the right place to express your political opinions.

The joke is at the expense of the US government. I don't buy that people are upset about it because it doesn't suit their political views. This all just seems like a very weak attack against GNU.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 8, 2018 10:28 UTC (Thu) by Funcan (guest, #44209) [Link] (17 responses)

> When it comes to jokes and other such things it's good to remember that offense is taken, not given.

The people who make claims like that are generally not the people who are the butt of jokes all day, not the people with PTSD, and not the people who're systematically discriminated against by the society they live in.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 8, 2018 11:37 UTC (Thu) by hkario (subscriber, #94864) [Link] (14 responses)

exactly since when are the Republicans under-represented in government and discriminated against?!

the joke is about _people that make the rules about abortion_ not anybody else

and in general, you can claim outrage and offence about everything, but somehow we don't treat people seriously that are offended by being served by a sinister waiter (as in left handed)

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 8, 2018 11:45 UTC (Thu) by Funcan (guest, #44209) [Link] (11 responses)

It is potentially painful to any victim of the anti-abortion crusade too. If you're not one of those victims, you get zero say in how painful it is. If you are one of those people, you don't get to say none of them are hurt.

Pain happens, and every single person has their triggers. If you're lucky then they are few and obscure.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 8, 2018 20:44 UTC (Thu) by kklimonda (subscriber, #60089) [Link] (9 responses)

Pretty much anything is potentially painful to someone out there - where do we draw a line in a public space? Is the only satisfying answer to follow large corporations, where everyone walks on eggshells in public, but them shit talks other people in private? That's a serious question, I've been wondering that since the entire Linux CoC thing went down.
That being said, I agree that the joke is rather stupid and out of place, but it seems it, and discussion around it, is becoming yet another front in the political correctness war.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 10, 2018 4:41 UTC (Sat) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (8 responses)

> Pretty much anything is potentially painful to someone out there - where do we draw a line in a public space?

Drawing this line can indeed be a difficult question. Yet I bet most people would place abortion on the same side of this line no matter what are their opinions about it.

How about removing the joke because... it's not funny? That could be easier to demonstrate.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 10, 2018 15:27 UTC (Sat) by Yui (guest, #118557) [Link] (5 responses)

>it's not funny

It is funny to some.

>That could be easier to demonstrate

It is entirely subjective so that is obviously not true.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 10, 2018 17:29 UTC (Sat) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (2 responses)

> > It's not funny. That could be easier to demonstrate

> It is entirely subjective so that is obviously not true.

I enjoy dark humour and I know many people who do. However that's always been in private with close friends and typically late at night under some "influence". I have never, ever met anyone who would find dark humour funny completely out of blue and alone while reading software documentation. The only way to find this joke funny in such a situation is to be completely foreign and oblivious to the _psychological_ pains of abortion. That's consistent with the absurd comparison with childbirth that was made at some point.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 10, 2018 22:01 UTC (Sat) by Yui (guest, #118557) [Link] (1 responses)

>I have never, ever met anyone who would find dark humour funny completely out of blue and alone while reading software documentation.

Now you have.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 11, 2018 1:57 UTC (Sun) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]

> > I have never, ever met anyone who would find dark humour funny completely out of blue and alone while reading software documentation.

> Now you have.

Depends how you understand "to meet", let's say I "found" a few. Clearly anything can be found in the Internet.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 12, 2018 10:14 UTC (Mon) by jond (subscriber, #37669) [Link] (1 responses)

> It is entirely subjective so that is obviously not true.

Weirdly, professional comics somehow determine what of their material to cultivate, and what to cull. So there is some basis upon which jokes can be evaluated.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 12, 2018 22:31 UTC (Mon) by lsl (subscriber, #86508) [Link]

And yet, even the output of those "professional" media establishements can result in a reception that is accompanied by attacks on embassy buildings, flag burning ceremonies and even the death of people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_ca...

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 15, 2018 11:55 UTC (Thu) by Zolko (guest, #99166) [Link] (1 responses)

> Yet I bet most people would place abortion on the same side of this line

and how would the removal of a hidden joke about abortion change this if the name of the function remains abort() ? This thing is *NOT* about hurting people but about political correctness, in other words censorship, self-censorship in this case, which is clearly a core motive behind GNU and LibC. Stallman is right in defending this issue.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 15, 2018 15:02 UTC (Thu) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]

If you're actually interested in the answers to your question (I doubt it) jut try to read what most other people wrote. You won't agree with any of it but make at least a genuine effort to understand bits of what others think.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 9, 2018 0:24 UTC (Fri) by clicea (guest, #75492) [Link]

Won't anybody think of the potential victims?!

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 12, 2018 10:13 UTC (Mon) by jond (subscriber, #37669) [Link] (1 responses)

> the joke is about _people that make the rules about abortion_ not anybody else

and if it was a better joke that would be clear, and there wouldn't be the collatoral damage that there is.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 19, 2018 1:05 UTC (Mon) by Yui (guest, #118557) [Link]

What collateral damage are you talking of exactly?

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 8, 2018 16:00 UTC (Thu) by Yui (guest, #118557) [Link] (1 responses)

>not the people with PTSD

Find a person whose PTSD was triggered by this joke and you might have an argument. Not a single such person has come forward so far so using the hypothetical existence of them to attack a simple joke is kind of ridiculous.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 9, 2018 11:01 UTC (Fri) by nilsmeyer (guest, #122604) [Link]

This is a gripe I often have with these pre-emptive changes. A lot of political capital is expended and a lot of conflict created by these things without showing a real benefit.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 8, 2018 2:45 UTC (Thu) by Yui (guest, #118557) [Link] (14 responses)

>For diversity reasons, it would be nice to try to avoid "master" and "slave" terminology which can be associated to slavery.

What are these "diversity reasons" exactly?

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 8, 2018 3:52 UTC (Thu) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link] (12 responses)

Master and slave have a negative effect on people with an identification as a group who were enslaved within a scope of relatively recent history. Feel free to read more about this in sources like "Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?"

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 8, 2018 14:08 UTC (Thu) by cpitrat (subscriber, #116459) [Link]

Thanks for the book reference, I didn't know it.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 8, 2018 16:16 UTC (Thu) by Yui (guest, #118557) [Link] (10 responses)

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 8, 2018 18:14 UTC (Thu) by jubal (subscriber, #67202) [Link] (2 responses)

I would recommend either educating yourself or, to put it mildly, fornicating off in the general direction of being a gobshite somewhere else. Last enslaved person died in the US in 1971. It's not even two generations away. And that's not even taking into account Jim Crow and the shit that's still happening stateside.

This is a good stopping point

Posted Nov 8, 2018 18:16 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

I think we can safely say that this particular subthread has gone far enough afield at this point; can we please stop it here?

Thanks.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 8, 2018 18:45 UTC (Thu) by Yui (guest, #118557) [Link]

> Last enslaved person died in the US in 1971

So likely born in the mid 1800s. That would be around 5 generations from me, possibly only 4 from you.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 8, 2018 19:19 UTC (Thu) by raegis (subscriber, #19594) [Link] (6 responses)

The black Americans aren't that affected by slavery compared to many other ethnic groups around the world. There is still quite a large number of people who live in effective slavery like conditions. If you care more about people's feelings about their grandgrandparents having been slaves than the people who live in effective slavery even today then I can't really take your concern about it seriously.

I'm African American, and the effects of slavery on me, my family, and most other African Americans I know are still present. A good example: the average net worth of African Americans is somewhere close to zero. And no, this is not the result of laziness or some other nonsense you were taught. My mother watched semi-literate white dudes get promoted above her for years. So I won't be getting that inheritance of $100,000+ you will get from your parents, precisely because of discrimination which has continued since slavery.

Back on topic: I never participated in the master/slave discussion, but I do remember rolling my eyes when I learned about the master/slave hard drive assignments to ATAPI. Back then it seemed silly, and inaccurate-- primary/secondary might have been better, since master/slave suggests complete control of one by the other. Regardless, I'm glad people are removing it.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 8, 2018 22:02 UTC (Thu) by vstinner (subscriber, #42675) [Link]

> Regardless, I'm glad people are removing it.

You're welcome :-) Sadly, the terms commonly used in Unix and IT in general, like master_fd, slave_fd for openpty() or the SLAVE command of the NNTP protocol, cannot be easily changed. I only changed the terms where better terms could be used and easily replaced. Again, I only modified 7 lines, whereas Python is around 500K lines :-)

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 8, 2018 23:31 UTC (Thu) by Paf (subscriber, #91811) [Link] (3 responses)

FWIW, as a minor detail, I believe in ATA the “master” device specifically controlled the bus and could decide what happened to the bus w/r/t the “slave” device. That doesn’t mean we have to keep using those terms, but it’s not exactly just “primary” and “secondary” either. (Though those would do fine, the level of information communicated by the different choice of terms is minimal, and it’s not like they communicated enough extra info to really aid in understanding. But there was a little bit of reason for the choice.)

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 8, 2018 23:39 UTC (Thu) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link] (2 responses)

Wikipedia has the following to say on the subject:

----

Although they are in extremely common use, the terms "master" and "slave" do not actually appear in current versions of the ATA specifications. The two devices are simply referred to as "device 0" and "device 1", respectively, in ATA-2 and later.

It is a common myth that the controller on the master drive assumes control over the slave drive, or that the master drive may claim priority of communication over the other device on the same ATA interface. In fact, the drivers in the host operating system perform the necessary arbitration and serialization, and each drive's onboard controller operates independently of the other.

ATA master/slave

Posted Nov 11, 2018 3:45 UTC (Sun) by giraffedata (guest, #1954) [Link] (1 responses)

I always wondered what the relationship between the two devices on an ATA bus is.

While the spec may call them device 0 and device 1, that belies the actual relationship because I've seen the rules that you can't have just device 1 on a bus. If you have any device at all, you have to have device 0.

Does anyone know what the actual role of device 0/master is?

ATA master/slave

Posted Nov 11, 2018 12:34 UTC (Sun) by farnz (subscriber, #17727) [Link]

Look at section 9.16 Single device configurations in the ATA-5 draft. The only thing that's problematic is that device zero is supposed to identify the state of the PDIAG- and DASP- signals it sees, while device 1 asserts DASP- during reset; without device 0's presence, the host cannot determine the state of PDIAG-, and thus may have trouble identifying the cable type (as it cannot distinguish "faulty device 0" from "no device 0 present").

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 9, 2018 7:23 UTC (Fri) by Yui (guest, #118557) [Link]

>My mother watched semi-literate white dudes get promoted above her for years.

This is probably not because of slavery but just people having an unconscious preference to people that look closer to themselves.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 8, 2018 3:58 UTC (Thu) by me@jasonclinton.com (subscriber, #52701) [Link]

Please stop.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 15, 2018 11:48 UTC (Thu) by Zolko (guest, #99166) [Link]

> the joke, as it clearly hurt some people, and it adds nothing useful to the abort() manual page

it clearly doesn't add anything useful to the abort() manual, but in what way does it hurt people ? It's not clear at all for me. If people are hurt by the *concept* of abortion, in either way — pro or contra — then it's the very *name* of the function that is hurting them, not some obscure joke. Do you support a proposal to rename the function ? (like terminate() or end() or whatever() )

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 7, 2018 23:02 UTC (Wed) by neilbrown (subscriber, #359) [Link] (6 responses)

The Gnu Kind Communication Guidelines are presented as a guide to communicators, describing how to communicated most effectively.
They are *not* presented as a guide to an enforcement agency explaining how other people should be communicating.

There is a profound difference between "I will communicate better" and "You will communicate better". The guidelines appear focused on helping people who wish to adopt the first attitude (an attitude that it encourages), not on helping people who wish to adopt the second. You could argue that Richard's announcement contains language which condemns the second approach - though it isn't a precise parallel.

Given this, it seem inappropriate to me for the GKCG to be used to promote this patch. It may well be an excellent and long overdue patch, but the end doesn't justify the means.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 8, 2018 11:40 UTC (Thu) by niner (guest, #26151) [Link] (5 responses)

Why should someone who is a part of the GNU project not use the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines for deciding how the project communicates? In other words: who do you think are the "I" and "You" in this instance?

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 9, 2018 1:11 UTC (Fri) by neilbrown (subscriber, #359) [Link] (4 responses)

> Why should someone who is a part of the GNU project not use the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines for deciding how the project communicates?

Because a project doesn't communicate - individuals communicate on behalf of a project. Possibly several individuals will team together to create a communication on behalf of the project.
In such cases, it would be entirely consistent with the apparent purpose of the Guidelines for those individuals to use the guidelines in determining how they, personally, will communicate.

I don't think it is consistent with the stated purpose of those guidelines to use them to judge how other people are communicating. Were you to wish to guide people how they might judge others, you would create a very different document. Such a document may well be related the "broader issues" that RMS is apparently considering - it is certainly a "different" issue, though it is related.

> In other words: who do you think are the "I" and "You" in this instance?

"I" is always the individual who is creating the text or speech. It is also a person who approves a text or speech (as they are effectively repeating the text/speech and making it their own responsibility too).
So if I write a patch to the documentation, I would consider it appropriate to follow the guidelines.
If I were asked to review a patch, and found that the communication style of the patch (or the result of the patch) did not fit my understanding of the guidelines, I would think carefully about whether I should approve it.
I wouldn't say "you cannot say that, it contravenes the guidelines".
I might say "I don't want to approve this because I feel it speaks in a way that is discouraged by the guidelines".

Thanks for asking.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 9, 2018 1:54 UTC (Fri) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (2 responses)

So "I would like to change this document in order to ensure that the communication it embodies is kinder" is fine?

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 9, 2018 5:13 UTC (Fri) by neilbrown (subscriber, #359) [Link] (1 responses)

I think that is much better, yes.
It takes ownership of the opinion, and declares an intention and desire to follow a particular path that is known to be welcome, without suggesting that anyone else is required to make the same choice.
If someone has a different position, that need not be seen, in itself, as contradicting the guidelines.
The guidelines guide your conduct, but do not resolve your disagreements - you still need to do that yourself.

BTW, while rereading the guidelines I noticed "If other participants complain about the way you express your ideas, please make an effort to cater to them." and wanted to thank you for making the effort. I think that is really valuable, and it is appreciated.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 15, 2018 18:21 UTC (Thu) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> It takes ownership of the opinion, and declares an intention and desire to follow a particular path that is known to be welcome, without suggesting that anyone else is required to make the same choice.

Which is why the linux raid wiki editing guidelines state pretty much "please write in the *first* person and take *personal* responsibility for what you write".

Imho there's far too much emphasis on third-person impersonal writing that takes responsibility for nothing. (Plus 1st-person is much nicer to read :-)

Cheers,
Wol

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 9, 2018 6:57 UTC (Fri) by niner (guest, #26151) [Link]

Thanks for clarifying! It's a very subtle issue and I think I now understand what you mean.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 8, 2018 0:53 UTC (Thu) by karim (subscriber, #114) [Link] (3 responses)

Can't we just add a "jokes from the good old days" GNU project document that collects *all* such jokes and gives them context:
"An older version of the glibc manual had this to say about the abort():
.....
This was a reference about X. After community debate it was agreed to remove it from the official document and put it here so that I can be appreciated in its full context."

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 8, 2018 12:40 UTC (Thu) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (1 responses)

That's a really good proposal. "man gnu-jokes" if you want to read them.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 8, 2018 22:22 UTC (Thu) by JFlorian (guest, #49650) [Link]

You obviously meant "info gnu-jokes".

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 12, 2018 10:16 UTC (Mon) by jond (subscriber, #37669) [Link]

Great idea. Stallman could even quote from it at dinner parties.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 8, 2018 2:25 UTC (Thu) by Yui (guest, #118557) [Link]

>Even many US-based glibc users might be hard-pressed to link it to the Mexico City policy that it is targeting.

The specific ruling or policy is not at all necessary for one to understand the implications of the joke. It sounds plausible enough that even if no such ruling or policy was ever made it would still be funny.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 8, 2018 2:31 UTC (Thu) by balkanboy (guest, #94926) [Link] (1 responses)

I am very much pro-life, however, I'm also pro-free speech. The joke, while tasteless to many - me included, does not actually cause abortions.

And if you think that's a bad joke, you should watch/listen to Anthony Jeselnik.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 8, 2018 3:19 UTC (Thu) by luto (subscriber, #39314) [Link]

I’m pro-choice, but that doesn’t mean I want to have abortions in mind when I read the abort(3) manpage, let alone when I call abort(). I’m not really convinced there are many people who think the joke belongs there.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 8, 2018 2:48 UTC (Thu) by em-bee (guest, #117037) [Link]

> It is a bit weird to claim that all project communications except the manuals need to be "kind"; Stallman hasn't exactly said that, but that is kind of how it comes across.

does it? i am reading his quote differently:

> These guidelines as such do not apply to manuals. Kindness as a general principle surely does apply to manuals, but precisely how remains to be decided.

i read this as:
the guidelines do not apply to manuals because they were not written with manuals in mind. but then he explicitly states that kindness does apply, and it does so without depending on the guidelines to make it so. so the way i see it there is no exception to kindness for manuals. but rather that the new guidelines do not specify how that kindness is to be applied.

greetings, eMBee.

Global Gag Rule

Posted Nov 8, 2018 10:19 UTC (Thu) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link] (12 responses)

"Even many US-based glibc users might be hard-pressed to link it to the Mexico City policy that it is targeting"

As a non-American I will say that this "policy" is much better known as the "global gag rule" and that rather than pretending it's about something from "two decades ago" it's actually central to modern Republican philosophy and was, on schedule, re-instated by Trump soon after becoming President and then expanded, the US currently spends _billions_ of dollars covered by the gag.

The reason it's "sensitive" is that tens of millions of Americans prefer to live in a dream world where their decision to vote for awful things doesn't make them responsible for awful things happening. Some people might insist that it matters whether these voters actually believe in awful things or not, but actually it doesn't matter at all. Your beliefs die with you, your actions continue to have consequences.

The global gag rule is very real today, a complete repudiation of the American pretence to believe in "freedom of speech" since it literally prohibits speech. If you wish it was an irrelevance that could safely be forgotten about _stop voting for Republicans who reinstate it_. Let's revisit this "joke" when it stops being a reality.

Global Gag Rule

Posted Nov 8, 2018 10:41 UTC (Thu) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] (3 responses)

a complete repudiation of the American pretence to believe in "freedom of speech" since it literally prohibits speech.

It doesn't prohibit speech in the USA, because that would make it unconstitutional. But the Bill of Rights does not extend to black or brown people elsewhere in the world, whose freedom of speech the US government may suppress at leisure.

Global Gag Rule

Posted Nov 8, 2018 16:40 UTC (Thu) by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106) [Link] (2 responses)

> It doesn't prohibit speech *in the USA*, because that would make it unconstitutional.

There is no such qualifier anywhere in the Constitution. It would violate the 1st Amendment for Congress to make any law abridging anyone's freedom of speech, domestically or abroad. In the latter case, of course, there is the further issue of jurisdiction: Congress has no power to make laws for non-citizens outside US territory, so any law which attempted to prohibit speech by non-citizens abroad would be null and void. The same applies to the executive and judicial branches; anyone attempting to enforce such a rule cannot claim any authority to do so based on the US Constitution. Any special status they might claim as an agent of the US government (which would include members of the military as well as diplomats) is conditioned on adhering to the restrictions set down in the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights; Congress authorizing or directing anyone to abridge the freedom of speech—anywhere in the world—would constitute passing an unconstitutional law in violation of the 1st Amendment.

Of course, a person could act *without* any blessing from Congress or the Constitution, but at that point they they're just acting as private individuals outside US jurisdiction on their own initiative and without any special protection, not as representatives of the US government.

Global Gag Rule

Posted Nov 8, 2018 18:01 UTC (Thu) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link]

Of course the “global gag rule” doesn't try to limit freedom of speech directly. What it does instead (in its most recent, Trump-enacted, version) is withdraw US government funding from any non-US health organisation that promotes voluntary family-planning activities, including but not limited to abortion, even in jurisdictions where, e.g., abortion is legal. This amounts to almost $9 billion/year, and can reasonably be considered an indirect damper on freedom of speech for those organisations.

Global Gag Rule

Posted Nov 18, 2018 20:59 UTC (Sun) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> Congress has no power to make laws for non-citizens outside US territory,

So how come UK citizens have been extradited to, charged, and imprisoned, in the US for crimes against US law, which were perfectly legal when they were committed *in the UK*.

Cheers,
Wol

I'm tired of the one-sided political baloney in too many discussions here

Posted Nov 9, 2018 8:20 UTC (Fri) by jensend (guest, #1385) [Link] (1 responses)

Look, the Mexico City policy does not "literally prohibit speech." Any organization can say what they want, they just aren't guaranteed US funding. Freedom of speech doesn't entail the freedom to tax United States citizens to pay your organization to advise people to have abortions.

You deride at length others' "decisions to vote for awful things." I did vote for a third party rather than vote for Trump. But I and many others feel that jabbing a person through the skull, sucking his or her brains out, crushing the skull, and tossing the body in a dumpster qualifies as an "awful thing." I don't want to be compelled by the threat of violence and incarceration to pay for foreigners to receive advice to do such things.

LWN comments are supposed to provide a forum for civil technical discussion. It's not supposed to be a forum for off-topic bashing of others' political views, nationalities, &c. Quit it.

I'm tired of the one-sided political baloney in too many discussions here

Posted Nov 15, 2018 12:37 UTC (Thu) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129) [Link]

> I did vote for a third party rather than vote for Trump.
That makes you a Trump enabler, because it was clear that the third-party candidates weren't going to win.

> But I and many others feel that jabbing a person through the skull, sucking his or her brains out, crushing the skull, and tossing the body in a dumpster
The typical abortion boils down to taking a pill, taking another pill a few days later and then menstruating. It says something about you that you choose to argue in such a dishonest way.

> It's not supposed to be a forum for off-topic bashing of others' political views, nationalities, &c. Quit it.
Some political views deserve to be bashed, like most republican views these days. And most US citizens understand this, as can clearly be seen from the results of the popular votes over the last 20 years.

REPUBLICANLY_CORRECT

Posted Nov 9, 2018 9:37 UTC (Fri) by roblucid (guest, #48964) [Link] (5 responses)

Surely GNU should allow the user to choose not to have abort(3) call, to have the documentation for it hidden and be allowed to break their systems in unspeakable ways, by setting an ENV variable analogous to POSIXLY_CORRECT.

This could provide convenience features like ensuring CAPS Lock is on, spell check disabled and any facts to be displayed with a fake news warning too...

REPUBLICANLY_CORRECT

Posted Nov 9, 2018 15:04 UTC (Fri) by XTerminator (subscriber, #59581) [Link] (4 responses)

lwn should have a thumbs-up button for comments just like this one.

REPUBLICANLY_CORRECT

Posted Nov 11, 2018 17:22 UTC (Sun) by roblucid (guest, #48964) [Link] (3 responses)

Thanks :)
Couldn't resist it

REPUBLICANLY_CORRECT

Posted Nov 12, 2018 5:41 UTC (Mon) by mtaht (guest, #11087) [Link] (2 responses)

Yes, that was funny.

I am perpetually pointing people at george carlin's riffs on language when these threads go on.

I *NEED* a good joke after writing OR reading documentation. *anything* to break the monotony. I reach for george carlin, or henry rollins, or bill hicks.

I'm kind of sad I can't tell blond or pollack jokes anymore without people taking offense. about the only stereotypical jokes I feel I can make anymore are drummer jokes...

... because they're all true. :)

What do you call a drummer without a girlfriend?

Homeless.

REPUBLICANLY_CORRECT

Posted Nov 12, 2018 18:04 UTC (Mon) by johannbg (guest, #65743) [Link] (1 responses)

Given that I have a permanent place in hell and prairs for my soul according to Jehova witness who made the unfortunate mistake knocking on a vikings front door thus I have already been deemed to hell for those people that might take offense by this joke so I must be able to repeat it for eternity ;)

Q: Do you know the difference between Jesus and a picture of Jesus?

A: It only takes one nail to hang up the picture... ;)

Drum solo plz

REPUBLICANLY_CORRECT

Posted Nov 12, 2018 18:35 UTC (Mon) by XTerminator (subscriber, #59581) [Link]

I'm glad we are still allowed to say things without being arrested or it being censored. (that's not a jab at lwn, but a general remark on the insanity that is contemporary pc )

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 8, 2018 15:47 UTC (Thu) by lkundrak (subscriber, #43452) [Link] (18 responses)

Everyone would be better off if abortion was less of a taboo.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 8, 2018 15:53 UTC (Thu) by Yui (guest, #118557) [Link] (17 responses)

The babies that would end up aborted because of that wouldn't be better off.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 8, 2018 21:58 UTC (Thu) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (4 responses)

This is an interesting take (PDF)

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 9, 2018 7:31 UTC (Fri) by Yui (guest, #118557) [Link] (1 responses)

Less crime or dead babies. Tough choice.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 9, 2018 11:15 UTC (Fri) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link]

Fetuses. FTFY.

Not on topic for LWN

Posted Nov 9, 2018 8:18 UTC (Fri) by jensend (guest, #1385) [Link] (1 responses)

If we thought killing people was justifiable any time someone thought it would reduce crime, one could just as well start by indiscriminately slaughtering the prison population rather than by killing the innocent. I hope you can understand that some of us see either of those as morally repugnant.

Can we please have less of such propagandizing on LWN?

Not on topic for LWN

Posted Nov 9, 2018 11:19 UTC (Fri) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link]

You obviously didn't read the paper. The authors were certainly not advocating abortion as a crime control measure, as indeed neither am I. They were simply making statistical observations.

If anti-choice people really want to be pro-life, they'll consider the lives of women and their children through adulthood rather than just focusing on embryos and fetuses.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 9, 2018 9:09 UTC (Fri) by lkundrak (subscriber, #43452) [Link] (11 responses)

If you insist that you're aborting a "baby" instead of a fetus and prefer tabooing the subject to discussing it, you've sort of supported my point.

Whatever you take on the subject is, not talking about it doesn't help anyone. You may still want to reconsider your stance on taboo though: Countries where abortion is more openly talked about tend to have lower abortion rates, if that is what you care about.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 9, 2018 11:25 UTC (Fri) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link]

This is true. Fascinating.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 12, 2018 17:38 UTC (Mon) by johannbg (guest, #65743) [Link] (9 responses)

Not sure how high or low the termination of pregnacy is here in Iceland and I dont think any one cares except for perhaps few extremists but there is new legislation in discussion in which the time that a woman can decide to terminate her pregnacy is being inreased from 12 weeks in pregnacy up to the 22 week of pregnacy as well as the transalation of the word/termology "abortion" will be abolished due to it being considered too judgmental/influencial for women in their decition making regarding their own pregnacy.

Long story put short all done to further emphazise and support the fact that this is entirely a womans choice at her own free will if she wants to proceed with or terminate her pregnacy.

Her body,her life,her choice it's as simple as that after all we live in the 21 century not the middle ages anymore. . .

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 19, 2018 1:04 UTC (Mon) by Yui (guest, #118557) [Link] (8 responses)

>Her body,her life

Well, abortion concerns more than just the woman's body and life. It ends another life.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 19, 2018 2:07 UTC (Mon) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (3 responses)

> Well, abortion concerns more than just the woman's body and life. It ends another life.

In practice, the significance/importance of that "another life" ends the moment that life is actually born.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 19, 2018 18:17 UTC (Mon) by Yui (guest, #118557) [Link] (2 responses)

I suppose you mean "begins" instead of "ends". But this fundamental difference is why people who are against abortion and those support it don't and never will see eye to eye. Personally I think the life begins well before the child is born.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 19, 2018 18:47 UTC (Mon) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link] (1 responses)

It's an observation that those who call themselves "pro-life" for a fetus tend to also complain about things like social welfare to help those who have gone through with the birth actually raise the newborn.

Let's stop here, please

Posted Nov 19, 2018 21:08 UTC (Mon) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

This is increasingly off-topic for LWN; perhaps this particular discussion could be moved elsewhere if it really needs to continue?

Thanks.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 19, 2018 2:23 UTC (Mon) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (1 responses)

So if the fetus is a life then fetus could be sued for aggravated battery, sex crimes and harassment at least.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 19, 2018 13:42 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

God, I'm glad that's not true. I'd be a murderer by proxy at least. (I arguably crowded out my identical twin, though he didn't actually die until after he was born, an action done by conscious choice of medical staff and parents which I completely agree with even though it *was* technically probably murder: he could have been kept alive indefinitely but would likely never have regained consciousness and would have had a dreadful quality of life even if he had. It's the sort of edge case that makes the law scream, but frankly it is better that I live for him. Even more horrifying is what happens to twins sharing a placenta if one twin dies in utero -- do you prosecute the twin that died first for murder after it in effect vampirically sucks the other twin's entire blood supply into its own body, on account of not having a working heart to pump it out again? Parasitic necromurder! Biology is often horrible and does not care about our legal niceties.)

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 19, 2018 5:43 UTC (Mon) by lkundrak (subscriber, #43452) [Link] (1 responses)

> It ends another life.

So does many people's lunch. And that would be a self-sustaining life, unlike that of a fetus.

That actually makes me worry whether a significant part of the "pro-life" crowd is merely in the business of inventing twisted definitions of what life is in order to make women lives miserable.

A side note: the free software community doesn't usually seem to care either. I remember that Seth Vidal objected addition of a meat joke to Yum (which he maintained), but nobody seems to have seriously protested the whole "Fedora Beefy Miracle" joke.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 19, 2018 11:41 UTC (Mon) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

>That actually makes me worry whether a significant part of the "pro-life" crowd is merely in the business of inventing twisted definitions of what life is in order to make women lives miserable.

Punishing women is usually the primary intention, and occasionally you see it explicitly stated as such. After all, the pregnancy is proof positive that the woman "sinned" -- and any suffering she experiences as a result is not only (obviously richly) deserved, but that any sort of social assistance for said mothers would be rewarding her for her sins.

Consequently, there's a substantial overlap between political pro-lifery [1] and those who are actively trying to dismantle the social safety net that is often the only thing keeping these mothers and their "every life is sacred" new babies from being kicked to the curb. (It seems that "life" is only sacred when it's in foetal form, and said sacredness ceases the moment it pops out of its mother. Similarly, the mother's "life" is only sacred when it's carrying said fetus within it)

I do find this attitude rather curious, given that the lion's share of pro-lifers [1] claim to follow a religion that was founded by an individual they claim was born out of wedlock, and whose highly revered mother suffered all manner of depredations as a result.

Okay, this is _way way way_ off topic. I'll shut up now.

[1] In my country. I can't comment on how this plays out elsewhere.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 9, 2018 0:40 UTC (Fri) by Rudd-O (guest, #61155) [Link] (4 responses)

At this pace, and based strictly on what most "codes of conduct" require from contributors' behaviors *in their private lives*, pretty soon there will be few open source or free software projects that will take your patches, if you've ever dared post a zany joke on Twitter or your blog.

With that, your chances to use your OSS/FS work as leverage into the software industry are dead. Unless, of course, you become, in every aspect of your life, an unfunny automaton who cheers for conventional wisdom and caves to sentimentality, and never says what it's actually on his mind.

Do not forget, freethinker, that they want you broke, mum or dead to others, your contributions stillborn or defaced, and they think it's funny.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 9, 2018 1:08 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (3 responses)

> At this pace, and based strictly on what most "codes of conduct" require from contributors' behaviors *in their private lives*, pretty soon there will be few open source or free software projects that will take your patches, if you've ever dared post a zany joke on Twitter or your blog.
Care to post an example?

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 12, 2018 11:37 UTC (Mon) by LtWorf (subscriber, #124958) [Link] (2 responses)

Remember this? https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 12, 2018 12:30 UTC (Mon) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (1 responses)

I don’t see him being a pariah for life. There’s also a way to, you know, apologize for bad tweets rather than just confirming that you’re a bigot.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 13, 2018 13:14 UTC (Tue) by LtWorf (subscriber, #124958) [Link]

Do you have to apologise to everyone that disagrees with you? See, that's the problem we were talking about.

What joke?

Posted Nov 9, 2018 5:03 UTC (Fri) by ncm (guest, #165) [Link] (4 responses)

Why does everybody persist in calling this emission a joke?

It isn't funny, never was funny, and never was meant to be funny. It's just a snide remark, directed at nobody who will ever end up reading it, or even hear about it from anybody who did.

It makes me think of cars plastered with shrill bumper stickers bemoaning developments of modern life. The owner knows no one would ever read what they have to say without being forced, for a fractional minute, by a red light.

The only effect will ever be readers' irritation at the project's inability to stay on topic, and not waste their time. In particular, it never generates irritation directed at the US government. (Anyway, if the US govt cared who was irritated at it, we wouldn't be where we are now.)

What joke?

Posted Nov 9, 2018 7:29 UTC (Fri) by Yui (guest, #118557) [Link]

>It isn't funny, never was funny

This is subjective. It did get a decent chuckle from me for example. I'd say it is at least moderately funny. Certainly more funny than a lot of the comedy I've seen from stand up comedians and sketch shows in the recent times.

>and never was meant to be funny.

Surely you as the author would know. Oh right, you aren't the author. The author, RMS, calls it a joke. This clearly indicates that the intention is to be funny.

What joke?

Posted Nov 9, 2018 8:34 UTC (Fri) by jensend (guest, #1385) [Link]

You're right that this is hardly a joke.

Having a self-expressive bumper sticker does seem more benign to me than putting an irrelevant, potentially confusing, US-centric snide remark in basic system documentation and instigating a turf war to keep it.

What joke?

Posted Nov 9, 2018 15:32 UTC (Fri) by hummassa (guest, #307) [Link] (1 responses)

> Why does everybody persist in calling this emission a joke?

Because it is a joke, regardless of your sense of humour, or lack thereof, and regardless if you find it funny or not.

> It isn't funny,

Yes it is

> never was funny,

Yes it was funny since it was written

>and never was meant to be funny.

And yes, it was meant to be funny and worked. The fack that it isn't funny for you do not change it.

> It's just a snide remark, directed at nobody who will ever end up reading it, or even hear about it from anybody who did.

Because there are nor will ever be any software developers amongs policymakers in DC? That's your argument?

> It makes me think of cars plastered with shrill bumper stickers bemoaning developments of modern life. The owner knows no one would ever read what they have to say without being forced, for a fractional minute, by a red light.

And still some of them can be funny jokes.

> The only effect will ever be readers' irritation at the project's inability to stay on topic,

As RMS stated, properly, only if you think a Free Software project has nothing to do with Free Speech values.

> and not waste their time. In particular, it never generates irritation directed at the US government. (Anyway, if the US govt cared who was irritated at it, we wouldn't be where we are now.)

It's not directed at the US government, it's directed the US policy makers. Not the same thing.

What joke?

Posted Nov 12, 2018 3:08 UTC (Mon) by ncm (guest, #165) [Link]

"Because there are nor will ever be any software developers amongs policymakers in DC? That's your argument?"

Yes, policymakers in DC do not read glibc man pages (never mind info pages!), nor pay attention to those few among software developers who do, and might accost them with, "hey you gotta read this snide remark I found on a software manual page, maybe it will change your mind". If they did listen, it might well change their mind: it would lead them to shun that software developer, if they had any sense.

"Supreme executive power derives from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!" That's funny and effective. It wasn't in a glibc info page.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 9, 2018 23:52 UTC (Fri) by flussence (guest, #85566) [Link] (6 responses)

*sigh*

If only 1% of the hours spent blowing hot air over this charade were put toward improving musl…

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 9, 2018 23:57 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (5 responses)

Please don't improve musl. Apart from missing functions here or there it's almost perfect as it is.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 11, 2018 19:08 UTC (Sun) by tao (subscriber, #17563) [Link] (2 responses)

Wouldn't implementing those missing functions count as improving musl?

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 12, 2018 5:43 UTC (Mon) by mtaht (guest, #11087) [Link] (1 responses)

does musl do a glibc-like optimization for getting kernel time yet?

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 12, 2018 22:19 UTC (Mon) by lsl (subscriber, #86508) [Link]

If clock_gettime and friends using the VDSO instead of doing the customary syscall dance is what you mean, then yes, musl does that (and has done so for some time).

It's mostly a kernel arch support thing, though. The libc side code is straightforward:

http://git.musl-libc.org/cgit/musl/tree/src/time/clock_ge...
http://git.musl-libc.org/cgit/musl/tree/src/internal/vdso.c

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 12, 2018 0:40 UTC (Mon) by andresfreund (subscriber, #69562) [Link] (1 responses)

At least the string functionality is absurdly slow. Like more than 2-3x slower than glibc. Which isn't fast either. Sure, that makes the code easy to manage, but also means that applications have to reimplement libc functionality to defend against regressing significantly when used on musl.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 15, 2018 17:01 UTC (Thu) by dalias (guest, #95815) [Link]

If this is really the case, please don't reimplement the functionality in applications, but rather make a report of exactly what is slow, ideally in terms of bad typical or worst cases in real usage rather than just microbenchmarks.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 15, 2018 11:39 UTC (Thu) by Zolko (guest, #99166) [Link]

tying the topic of abortion to a C function might be upsetting to some

it's not *a* C function but *the* C function called abort() !!!

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 16, 2018 9:13 UTC (Fri) by ledow (guest, #11753) [Link] (1 responses)

I am far more concerned about the time wasted DISCUSSING whether something is suitable on not, when those people could be coding instead.

Literally, this would be a "sigh, okay... people are upset, and this serves literally no purpose whatsoever... it takes two seconds to revert it without affecting anything whatsoever, or we can discuss it for weeks on end... <applies patch to remove it>. Done. Real work now?"

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Nov 19, 2018 13:38 UTC (Mon) by jezuch (subscriber, #52988) [Link]

That's... how (us) (computer?) nerds roll. If something is not 0/1 black/white, discuss increasingly minute minutia until it is. I hate it too sometimes.

Overstanding Pro-Choice

Posted Dec 8, 2018 8:06 UTC (Sat) by Garak (guest, #99377) [Link] (2 responses)

For many, including me, it is a little hard to understand why there is any opposition to removing the joke at all.

Though you wrote a significant article on the issue, I can only advise- "dwell on it more". It shouldn't be that hard to understand _any_ opposition. Really.

It is clearly out of place,

I call B.S. The person who put it there in the first place thought it fit there.

not particularly funny

clearly not particularly funny to you is clearly not the same thing as clearly not particularly funny to anyone.

and doesn't really push the GNU anti-censorship philosophy forward in any real way even if you grant that anti-censorship is a goal of the project

Oh, au contrair, I'd have to say the article you wrote about it is proof that its existence furthered pushing that philosophy, using you as an instrument. Imagine how much more visibility the philosophy has now, than a year ago. This scenario I consider a wonderful display of the liberty of F(L)OSS. For goodness sake, if anybody cares enough they can fork, call it mylibc, and allow any others who share the preference to follow their fork. I think the real issue is that people were under the illusion that there was some magical democracy-like community in charge of glibc, when in fact it's a (debatably optimal/malignant/benign) dictator. And the related issue of certain F(L)OSS factions that see many slightly differing forks and competition and _choice_ among them as net-negative due to userbase confusion, instead of net-positive due to maximal choice for the userbase.

Overstanding Pro-Choice

Posted Dec 11, 2018 11:11 UTC (Tue) by tao (subscriber, #17563) [Link] (1 responses)

Whether or not it's funny doesn't really feel relevant, to be honest. I don't read manual pages for jokes,
there are plenty of better sources for such.

Code Politics

Posted Dec 17, 2018 8:31 UTC (Mon) by Garak (guest, #99377) [Link]

Whether or not it's funny seems relevant as far as how many people choose to go with that particular branch/fork/implementation vs an alternate one. Code choice is way more political and importantly so than is often implied by the mainstream media covering the issue.

A "joke" in the glibc manual

Posted Jul 8, 2020 13:16 UTC (Wed) by ceving (guest, #140015) [Link]

For many, including me, it is a little hard to understand why there is any opposition to removing the joke at all. It is clearly out of place, not particularly funny, and doesn't really push the GNU anti-censorship philosophy forward in any real way even if you grant that anti-censorship is a goal of the project (which some do not).

This sounds right.

But consider this: I have never read about the Global Gag Rule. An article about RMS brought me to this article. And a few clicks further I have read the Wikipedia article about Global Gag Rule.

So the joke created a controversy. The controversy created an article about the controversy. The article got referenced by others. And in the end a reader like me knows the Global Gag Rule.

You have to admit: the joke pushed many things.