nice value, niceness - не пріоритет, це "люб'язність" процесу. Вона обернена до пріоритетності: більш люб'язні процеси "поступаються чергою". Ще не звертав уваги, щоб десь було таке пояснення. Натомість навіть у рідному man renice вона "alters the scheduling priority", що хоч і відповідає дійсності, але не пояснює походження назви і наштовхує на неправильне розуміння.
P.S. Окрема подяка Кирилу, який вперше наштовхнув мене на renice :)
LOU: linux.org.ua/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1329755076/0
FB: facebook.com/#!/questions/326986530670994
Launchpad: bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/util-linux/+bug/938390
Оновлення:
$ info coreutils 'nice invocation'
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. Also, as a point of terminology, POSIX defines the behavior of `nice' in terms of a "nice value", which is the nonnegative difference between a niceness and the minimum niceness. Though `nice' conforms to POSIX, its documentation and diagnostics use the term "niceness" for compatibility with historical practice.
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. Also, as a point of terminology, POSIX defines the behavior of `nice' in terms of a "nice value", which is the nonnegative difference between a niceness and the minimum niceness. Though `nice' conforms to POSIX, its documentation and diagnostics use the term "niceness" for compatibility with historical practice.
