Why is Thread::terminate() protected?

[Byrial Jensen]

Hallo,

I am using threads in CommonC++ and have a situation
where I want one thread to create another thread and
later terminate it again. I thougt it would be possible
to do it as outlined in the example code below:

class MyThread : public Thread
{
public:
        MyThread () {};
        virtual ~MyThread () { terminate (); };

protected:
        virtual void run ()
        {
                while (1)
                {
                        setCancel (cancelImmediate);
                        do_something ();
                        setCancel (cancelDeferred);
                        do_something_else ();
                        testCancel ();
                };
        };

        virtual void final () { delete this; };
};

int main ()
{
        MyThread *mt = new MyThread ();
        mt->start ();
        wait_for_something ();
        mt->terminate ();
        wait_again ();
        return 0;
}

However, that does not work because Thread::terminate() is
declared protected. Neither can I just delete my MyThread
object because then I cannot control that it does not happen
while cancellation is deferred.

Would it do any harm just to declare Thread::terminate()
public, or is there another preferred way to do what I
intend to do?

Thank you for your help.

Best regards
Byrial Jensen