Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [Tech-board-discuss] [PATCH] CodingStyle: Inclusive Terminology

James Bottomley <[email protected]> Thu, 09 Jul 2020 09:32:50 -0700

Newsgroups	org.linuxfoundation.lists.ksummit-discuss,dev.linux.lists.ksummit,dev.linux.lists.tech-board-discuss,org.kernel.vger.linux-kernel
Message-ID	<[email protected]>

On Thu, 2020-07-09 at 17:13 +0100, Mark Brown wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 09, 2020 at 10:01:18AM -0600, Shuah Khan wrote:
> > On 7/9/20 4:43 AM, Mauro Carvalho Chehab wrote:
> > > For coherency, if "blacklist/whitelist" won't be used anymore, an
> > > alternative to graylist should also be provided.
> > What is "graylist"? Does it mean in between allow/deny?
> 
> Yes.  Typically it's used in situations where you don't want to deny
> something but might for example want to do extra checks to verify
> that things are OK.

greylisting was originally pioneered by email.  It's where you
initially reject an email but remember you did so and then let it
through if the retries follow an RFC mandated pattern.  The technical
use spread from there since the technique (treating something as
untrusted until it proves trust) is very useful.  It has its origin in
the English idiom "grey area" expressing doubt or lack of clarity.

The etymology of "grey area" is a grey area, but I'd bet it has to do
with not having the clarity of black and white ... but is equally
likely to be tied to Yin and Yang.  Grey is also used in England to
describe the lack of clarity given by mist or fog (he woke up and saw
the world was very grey).  I'd say we just leave it alone as too
distantly related to any problematic uses.

James

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