this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2025
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Linux 6.19 Gets Rid Of The Kernel's "Genocide" Function (www.phoronix.com)
submitted 1 day 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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[–] fruitcantfly@programming.dev 32 points 1 day ago

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 kill command and/or the kill function, 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 that kill is a poor name, adding non-standard aliases doesn't really offer much benefit