Re: Bug Report Nice Documentation by David MacKenzie

[Paul Eggert]

Len Umina <address@hidden> writes:

> I would suggest the following change:

Thanks for pointing out the wording problem, but the proposed change
is too much: it contains many details that may be true for your system
but are not true in general.  For example, on some systems users other
than the superuser can decrease the niceness.  And 10 is not the
default on many systems.  The documentation should describe only what
we know is true in general for "nice".

More important, we shouldn't use the word "priority" when talking
about niceness.  From the coreutils manual:

   A niceness should not be confused with a scheduling priority, which
   lets applications determine the order in which threads are scheduled
   to run.  Unlike a priority, a niceness is merely advice to the
   scheduler, which the scheduler is free to ignore.

If you can think of a less-confusing phrase than "most favorable
scheduling" please let us know.  Perhaps "most preferred scheduling"
would do?