Renaming "killall" and forever symlinking the old name to the new name (was: Suggestion: rename ...)

[Jason Spiro]

Xin LI <delphij <at> delphij.net> writes:

> killall is used for instance, shutdown scripts.  Yes you get the warning 
> message on your console but not the remote ssh.
[snip]
> It's way too late to say something a "mistake" after about 15 years.
[snip]
> FreeBSD users are already get used 
> with our killall behavior, changing the behavior/semantics after ten 
> years just make a mess, so please drop this.
[snip]
> Please talk with the authors of Linux pkill.  In open source world a 
> well written patch would say more than a thousand of sayings.

Xin, I've already sent a message to the authors of Linux pkill suggesting that.
:)

Dear Xin and everyone else:  Your messages, and the other messages that other
people have posted in this thread, are full of good points.  I'm now convinced
that my original idea is not worthwhile.  Thank you all for your replies.

Less than an hour ago, I've thought of another idea:

You could rename killall to something else, and update the manpage to show the
new name, then symlink or hard link "killall" to the new name forever.  This
would encourage people to use the new name, but it would never force them to.

Xin, what do you think?