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
That’s a false choice. And kind of silly. If you read the article, Linux has already changed commands somehow without blowing up everyone’s scripts.
The article is about an internal kernel API: They can easily rename those, since they are not exposed to user-space.
But you seem to be talking about the
killcommand and/or thekillfunction, that are part of the POSIX and C standards, respectively. Renaming either would break a shit-ton of code, unless you merely aliased them. And while I agree thatkillis a poor name, adding non-standard aliases doesn’t really offer much benefit