Bug#803519: lintian: Search for the string "legal" in every file, as it is gererally misused

[Bjarni Ingi Gislason]

On Sat, Oct 31, 2015 at 06:12:53PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Bjarni Ingi Gislason  writes:
> 
> >   It is not enough to check just the Debian part of a package.  The
> > part that comes from upstream should be scrutinized.  
> 
> If you want to try to teach various upstreams to use the word "illegal"
> the way that you want them to do so, feel free.  You already have all the
> tools that you need to take this on personally.  But this is not the
> purpose of the Lintian tool.
> 

  One can't teach people, who do not want to learn and unlearn, anything.

  "What is good teaching?  One can teach manipulations without
understanding; the present students have had so much of this
that they almost demand that this be done in at least all of the
"elementary" courses.  This is encouraged by the present
elementary and secondary schools.  The products of such
education no longer have their original thinking abilities."
[1]

">what is the point of HAVING them [teachers]?

The best statement in that respect came from one of my eldest
daughters' advisors: "I'm not here to teach you. You are here to
teach yourselves. I'm here to show you where the good stuff is,
and to wipe the cobwebs off your minds"."
[2]

">THE BEST WAY TO HELP A COLLEGE STUDENT IS TO GET THEM TO HELP
>THEMSELVES - professional life will be a lot less forgiving.

THIS should start in first grade, if not earlier.  The teacher
does not teach the student; the teacher can only help the
student learn."
[1]

"But a large proportion of college students have had the ability
to think about what they are doing destroyed.  Should we teach
students to act like machines?  This is how they have been
taught what the schools call "mathematics", but which does not
make it any easier for them to understand mathematical concepts
than when they started out, AT BEST."
[1]

###

  And too many programmers do not generally want to unlearn anything,
to be able to learn something better.  They also show me, that they do
not understand, can't think, reflect on some things, lack discernment.

  They, as too many people, are controlled by their opinions, beliefs. 
They, as too many people, are not in control of their opinions, beliefs;
otherwise it would be easy for them to inspect, investigate them fully
and to change them easily to better ones; ones which do not cause wrong
positives (negatives), misunderstanding, incomprehension,
misleadingness or any other flaws or harm.

  They show me a corrupt/corrupted mind.

  They show me, that they do not show professional attitude.

  They show me, that they do not know or ignore their own ignorance.

  "Illegal character" is a corrupt term.

  Isn't it illegal to state something is illegal, when it is not
illegal?

###

  I see the purpose of "lintian" to report violations of defined
quality requirements.  As a side effect, it can show learn-willing
(teachable) readers better "behaviour".

  What is of higher quality, "illegal" or "invalid", "legal" or
"valid"?  In which context?

  Can they be swapped without any loss of meaning and in any context?

###

"This second radical novelty shares the usual fate of all
radical novelties: it is denied, because its truth would be
too discomforting.
I have no idea what this specific denial and disbelief costs
the United States, but a million dollars a day seems a modest
guess."
[3]

  "Since breaking out of bad habits, rather than acquiring new
ones, is the toughest part of learning we must expect from that
system permanent mental damage for most students exposed to
it."
[4]

  "The problems of the real world are primarily those you are
left with when you refuse to apply their effective solutions."
[5]

##

[1] Herman Rubin in the Usenet forum "misc.education.science".

[2] Alberto Moreira in the Usenet forum "misc.education".

[3] Page xxix in:

On the Cruelty of Really Teaching Computing Science

Edsger W. Dijkstra

SIGCSE Bulletin 1989, 21(1), pp. xxv-xxxix.
Also "www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/"

[4] Page xxxvii in:

On the Cruelty of Really Teaching Computing Science

Edsger W. Dijkstra

SIGCSE Bulletin 1989, 21(1), pp. xxv-xxxix.
Also "www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/"

[5] Page xxxviii in:

On the Cruelty of Really Teaching Computing Science

Edsger W. Dijkstra

SIGCSE Bulletin 1989, 21(1), pp. xxv-xxxix.
Also "www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/"

-- 
Bjarni I. Gíslason

Bug#803519: lintian: Search for the string "legal" in every file, as it is gererally misused

[Russ Allbery]

Bjarni Ingi Gislason  writes:

>   b) They use themselves the wording illegal/legal (and do not really
> know (understand) why), continue to use it (and do not really know
> (understand) why), and do not state this from the beginning and in all
> their contributions thereafter.

>   What would a teacher of the English language, writing, or literature
> say about this?  What do you (plural) expect, want him to do (say)?

>   Is such use semantically correct?

Yes.  Illegal has multiple meanings in common English usage, one of which
is "prohibited by accepted rules."  WordNet, for example, says:

>From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:

  illegal
  adj 1: prohibited by law or by official or accepted rules; "an
 illegal chess move" [ant: {legal}]

The FSF's position on this is very nit-picky from an English language
perspective, and is splitting a hair that doesn't really exist in common
usage.  They are doing this for partly political reasons: it's a method to
draw attention to the abuse of copyright law.  Not everyone shares this
motive or wants to try to nit-pick this detail of language usage and may
view this as intrusive and irritating.

>   What (specific) harm do you expect them to do?  What harm have other
> false positives (negatives) from "lintian" done?  Are they still doing
> it?

Lintian maintenance in general tries to avoid false positives because too
high of a level of false positives lead people to stop running a lint
program completely, which then significantly reduces its usefulness to the
project as a whole.

-- 
Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org)   

Bug#803519: lintian: Search for the string "legal" in every file, as it is gererally misused

[Bjarni Ingi Gislason]

On Fri, Oct 30, 2015 at 05:54:35PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Axel Beckert  writes:
> 
> > I'd restrict it to packaging (i.e. the debian/ directory) and explicitly
> > exclude the file debian/copyright as any appearance of the word "legal"
> > or "illegal" in there is very likely a valid (sic!) usage.
> 
> Indeed, encouraging people to get into arguments with upstream about this
> seems like a bad idea.  The wording choice portions of the GNU coding
> standards are highly controversial, to say the least.
> 

  I see no need to argue with maintainers upstream.  If somebody wants
a clarification, it suffices to ask them to explain their use in a way
others can understand.  And facts should not be ignored by them in their
answers.

  I can't see why the wording of using invalid/valid versus
illegal/legal is (highly) controversial.  The only explanation I can
find is

  a) The people do not understand (comprehend) the issue.

  From "The GNU coding standards", last updated April 23, 2015:

   "Please do not use the term "illegal" to refer to erroneous input to
a computer program.  Please use "invalid" for this, and reserve the
term "illegal" for activities prohibited by law."

  b) They use themselves the wording illegal/legal (and do not really
know (understand) why), continue to use it (and do not really know
(understand) why), and do not state this from the beginning and in all
their contributions thereafter.

  What would a teacher of the English language, writing, or literature
say about this?  What do you (plural) expect, want him to do (say)?

  Is such use semantically correct?

> I'm worried about false positives from a rule like this.  "Illegal" is a
> valid English word that frequently is the word intended.  (For example,
> consider intrusion detection systems designed to look for illegal activity
> from one's local system.)  The GNU usage recommendation is in a specific
> context around actions in software, and Lintian is not bright enough to
> read for context.
> 

  False positives (negatives) are a common (general) side effect of
decisions, so it also includes "lintian" (it decides (tests), does
neither advise nor not advise).

  What (specific) harm do you expect them to do?  What harm have other
false positives (negatives) from "lintian" done?  Are they still doing
it?

  Are there no countermeasures?

###

  When programmers began to use illegal/legal, it was not a decision,
but was (is) distributed through

SEEING IS BELIEVING

  which is an automatic behaviour, when people have not learned
otherwise.  (Are children biologically programmed not to believe what
they see (notice with their sense organs?)

NB.  If it was a decision to use illegal/legal, how was it done?  Were
there alternatives, conditions to consider?  What criteria were used?

-- 
Bjarni I. Gislason

Bug#803519: lintian: Search for the string "legal" in every file, as it is gererally misused

[Russ Allbery]

Bjarni Ingi Gislason  writes:

>   It is not enough to check just the Debian part of a package.  The
> part that comes from upstream should be scrutinized.  

If you want to try to teach various upstreams to use the word "illegal"
the way that you want them to do so, feel free.  You already have all the
tools that you need to take this on personally.  But this is not the
purpose of the Lintian tool.

-- 
Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org)   

Bug#803519: lintian: Search for the string "legal" in every file, as it is gererally misused

[Bjarni Ingi Gislason]

On Sat, Oct 31, 2015 at 01:02:00AM +0100, Axel Beckert wrote:
> Him
> 
> Bjarni Ingi Gislason wrote:
> >   The word "(il)legal" is too often used in a wrong sense, both in
> > documentation, diagnostic messages, and in a code as a part of a name
> > of an identifier.
> [...]
> >   "Lintian" should therefor search for this text string in every file
> > and report it.  Files with all correct use of "(il)legal" can then
> > later be put on the "overrides" list, if they are unchanged from the
> > last run of "lintian".
> 
> I think that "every file" is a little bit overzealous.
> 
> I'd restrict it to packaging (i.e. the debian/ directory) and
> explicitly exclude the file debian/copyright as any appearance of the
> word "legal" or "illegal" in there is very likely a valid (sic!)
> usage.
> 

  The "copyright" file deals with legal matter so its use of the words
"(il)legal" should be correct.

  It is not enough to check just the Debian part of a package.  The
part that comes from upstream should be scrutinized.  

  Example for manuals in "/usr/share/man/man1" (CentOS 6.7), number of
man-pages that contain each word.

number
lines from "ls" 2050
with "valid"354
with "legal"105


  Binaries in "/usr/bin":
number
lines from "ls" 1737
with "valid"659
with "legal"212


  From "/usr/share/info":
number
lines from "ls" 195
with "valid"139
with "legal"112*

  *)
  Misuse is lower as legal matter is also there, but the word is used
in both meanings in some files.

-- 
Bjarni I. Gislason

Bug#803519: lintian: Search for the string "legal" in every file, as it is gererally misused

[Bjarni Ingi Gislason]

Package: lintian
Version: 2.5.30+deb8u4
Severity: wishlist

Dear Maintainer,

  The word "(il)legal" is too often used in a wrong sense, both in
documentation, diagnostic messages, and in a code as a part of a name
of an identifier.

  This should be changed to a correct name, like "(in)valid", which is
mentioned in the "GNU Coding Standard" and which is just common sense.

  "Lintian" should therefor search for this text string in every file
and report it.  Files with all correct use of "(il)legal" can then
later be put on the "overrides" list, if they are unchanged from the
last run of "lintian".

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 8.2
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (990, 'stable'), (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 
'proposed-updates')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 3.16.7-ckt11-u5 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=is_IS.iso88591, LC_CTYPE=is_IS.iso88591 (charmap=ISO-8859-1)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: sysvinit (via /sbin/init)

Versions of packages lintian depends on:
ii  binutils   2.25-5
ii  bzip2  1.0.6-7+b3
ii  diffstat   1.58-1
ii  file   1:5.22+15-2
ii  gettext0.19.3-2
ii  hardening-includes 2.6
ii  intltool-debian0.35.0+20060710.1
ii  libapt-pkg-perl0.1.29+b2
ii  libarchive-zip-perl1.39-1
ii  libclass-accessor-perl 0.34-1
ii  libclone-perl  0.37-1+b1
ii  libdpkg-perl   1.17.25
ii  libemail-valid-perl1.195-1
ii  libfile-basedir-perl   0.03-1
ii  libipc-run-perl0.92-1
ii  liblist-moreutils-perl 0.33-2+b1
ii  libparse-debianchangelog-perl  1.2.0-1.1
ii  libtext-levenshtein-perl   0.11-1
ii  libtimedate-perl   2.3000-2
ii  liburi-perl1.64-1
ii  man-db 2.7.0.2-5
ii  patchutils 0.3.3-1
ii  perl [libdigest-sha-perl]  5.20.2-3+deb8u1
ii  t1utils1.38-4

Versions of packages lintian recommends:
pn  libperlio-gzip-perl 
ii  perl5.20.2-3+deb8u1
ii  perl-modules [libautodie-perl]  5.20.2-3+deb8u1

Versions of packages lintian suggests:
pn  binutils-multiarch 
ii  dpkg-dev   1.17.25
ii  libhtml-parser-perl3.71-1+b3
ii  libtext-template-perl  1.46-1
pn  libyaml-perl   
ii  xz-utils   5.1.1alpha+20120614-2+b3

-- Configuration Files:
/etc/lintianrc changed [not included]

-- no debconf information

-- 
Bjarni I. Gislason

Bug#803519: lintian: Search for the string "legal" in every file, as it is gererally misused

[Axel Beckert]

Him

Bjarni Ingi Gislason wrote:
>   The word "(il)legal" is too often used in a wrong sense, both in
> documentation, diagnostic messages, and in a code as a part of a name
> of an identifier.
[...]
>   "Lintian" should therefor search for this text string in every file
> and report it.  Files with all correct use of "(il)legal" can then
> later be put on the "overrides" list, if they are unchanged from the
> last run of "lintian".

I think that "every file" is a little bit overzealous.

I'd restrict it to packaging (i.e. the debian/ directory) and
explicitly exclude the file debian/copyright as any appearance of the
word "legal" or "illegal" in there is very likely a valid (sic!)
usage.

Regards, Axel
-- 
 ,''`.  |  Axel Beckert , http://people.debian.org/~abe/
: :' :  |  Debian Developer, ftp.ch.debian.org Admin
`. `'   |  4096R: 2517 B724 C5F6 CA99 5329  6E61 2FF9 CD59 6126 16B5
  `-|  1024D: F067 EA27 26B9 C3FC 1486  202E C09E 1D89 9593 0EDE

Bug#803519: lintian: Search for the string "legal" in every file, as it is gererally misused

[Russ Allbery]

Axel Beckert  writes:

> I'd restrict it to packaging (i.e. the debian/ directory) and explicitly
> exclude the file debian/copyright as any appearance of the word "legal"
> or "illegal" in there is very likely a valid (sic!) usage.

Indeed, encouraging people to get into arguments with upstream about this
seems like a bad idea.  The wording choice portions of the GNU coding
standards are highly controversial, to say the least.

I'm worried about false positives from a rule like this.  "Illegal" is a
valid English word that frequently is the word intended.  (For example,
consider intrusion detection systems designed to look for illegal activity
from one's local system.)  The GNU usage recommendation is in a specific
context around actions in software, and Lintian is not bright enough to
read for context.

-- 
Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org)