Re: Is hate code speech?

17 Dec 2003

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In <Pine.SUN.3.91.980825155854.3483A-100000@baker>, on 08/25/98 
   at 04:19 PM, Xcott Craver <caj@math.niu.edu> said:
...
On Tue, 25 Aug 1998, William H. Geiger III wrote:
...
...
<sigh> Now we have to worry about PC variable and function names. What a
crock.
...
Oh, yeah, you really have to worry about *accidentally*
  calling your variables getwatermelons and somefriedchicken.
  Reminds me of this one guy in our neighborhood who was just
  jogging by our house, bent down to tie a shoelace, lost 
  his balance and accidentally planted a huge burning cross
  in our front lawn.  Woops!  Those damn PC-mongers are 
  making it a crime to jog!
Yes and if I want to name my variables getwatermelons and somefiredchicken
who are you to tell me I can't?
...
One note:  I don't see why this lawsuit would be hard to win
  on the grounds that source code isn't necessarily "speech."
  If co-workers left a big wooden swastika on her desk it 
  wouldn't be speech either, but I'd call that actionable.
But they didn't. There is no proof that any of theses variable names were
written to be directed at her and the majority of them were written
*before* she ever started working there!!

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