Use the Source Luke

Use the Source Luke

(humour, programming)(UTSL) (A pun on Obi-Wan Kenobi's "Usethe Force, Luke!" in "Star Wars") A more polite version ofRTFS. This is a common way of suggesting that someone wouldbe better off reading the source code that supports whateverfeature is causing confusion, rather than making yet anotherfutile pass through the manuals, or broadcasting questions onUsenet that haven't attracted wizards to answer them.

Once upon a time in Elder Days, everyone running Unix hadsource. After 1978, AT&T's policy tightened up, so thisobjurgation was in theory appropriately directed only atassociates of some outfit with a Unix source licence. Inpractice, bootlegs of Unix source code (made precisely forreference purposes) were so ubiquitous that one could utter itat almost anyone on the network without concern.

Nowadays, free Unix clones are becoming common enough thatalmost anyone can read source legally. The most widelydistributed is probably Linux. FreeBSD, NetBSD,386BSD, jolix also have their followers. Cheap commercialUnix implementations with source such as BSD/OS from BSDIare accelerating this trend.