[TUHS] etymology of cron

[Clem Cole]

Marc - thank you for bird dogging this.  I think the email from Ken to
Brian, and the email from Doug should be enough to close the issue for ever.

This is of course how history gets rewritten - which is a sad statement.
As I a wise man said ( Ben Franklin maybe??), history is often written by
those that were never there.

On Sat, Jan 2, 2016 at 2:56 PM, Marc Rochkind <rochkind at basepath.com> wrote:

> To update this thread:
>
> The wording from my last edit to the Wikipedia article on cron is still
> there, although one of the references has been removed, and the phrase
> "better source needed" has been added. That part is OK with me, and I
> actually agree with it--a better source *is* needed.
>
> But at least the article at this point no longer says that cron is an
> acronym.
>
> [To Greg Lehey: As anyone can edit the article, you could could add a
> paragraph about bogus claims as to what cron means if you want, but, in my
> opinion, the article is better without this distracting discussion.]
>
> On Fri, Dec 25, 2015 at 3:22 PM, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On Friday, 25 December 2015 at 10:41:54 -0800, David wrote:
>> > It has been updated again:
>> >
>> >  The origin of the name cron is from the Greek word for time,
>> > ???????????? (chronos).[2][3] (Ken Thompson, author of cron, has
>> > confirmed this in a private communication with Brian Kernighan.)
>>
>> Yes, but you've removed the reference to the incorrect expansions.  As
>> I noted at some length earlier in this thread, that's not appropriate.
>> It ignores the fact that people have made these claims, it removes the
>> comment that they're unsubstantiated, and it prepares the field for
>> somebody else to make the claim again, with possibly even more bizarre
>> expmanations.  I won't back it out yet, because I can see further
>> changes coming from other directions.  Once again this Tedickey
>> character has been very active.
>>
>> Greg
>> --
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>
>
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