bug#7943: white background is color #e5e5e5 in terminal window

[Drew Adams]

> For compatibility with 8-color text terminals that cannot produce the
> bright colors, IIRC.

My wondering is only about the _names_.  Why call a dark or dim red "red" or
call a light gray "white"?

Which colors the terminal can produce is one thing; what we call them is another
- no?

> Some text terminals can produce bright white by combining white with
> another text attribute (bold, if I'm not mistaken).  Having 8-color
> terminals without "white" would be confusing.

If you say so.

But isn't it also confusing that we call gray "white"?

> We do use "gray" on terminals that don't have this historical
> precedent, see w32console.el, for example.

Again, I was just wondering.  No complaint from me.