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I would certainly welcome changing master/slave to leader/follower. It's no less clear, and it doesn't associate my software with something I'm deeply against.

I would certainly welcome changing master/slave to leader/follower. It's no less clear, and it doesn't associate my software with something I'm deeply against. People might have different reactions to this thing so what's a stupid change to you might be a crucial change to someone else. (I agree that changing man is a little silly as it's obviously short for manual)

rewqfdsa 11y ago
How about kill(2)? Why does the POSIX committee endorse murder?
- tangent128 11y ago
  "kill" as a term for the forcible cessation of life carries no baggage tying it to historical atrocities. It can and is used to refer to deaths of stars, bacteria, plants, abstract concepts, and humans, without any connotation that these deaths carry equivalent moral weight. genocide(2), on the other hand, would be in very poor taste.
kbenson 11y ago
I don't know, to me master/slave embodies teh relationship of the devices better than leader/follower, and also has less alternate meanings when viewed as a verb to confuse what is going on. Is the leader "out front"? Is the leader "first"? Is the follower doing the same thing, but delayed in some manner (which doesn't fit standby situations very well). A master controls. A slave is controlled. Additionally, I think it's worth looking at the issue with a wider perspective. Slavery is bad, but really what most people in the west think of when thinking of slavery is racial slavery, which is a more recent issue (at least at scale), and is a much more pernicious problem,since it's not really slavery that was the base problem, but extreme racism. Historically slaves could be anyone, and as such it was much more acceptable to have people into and out of the ranks of slavery. Historical slavery is more akin to indentured servitude. That said, I imagine with a few hundred years experience, assuming we can drastically reduce the still present racism we have in our societies, we might have an different response to the words master and slave, one more in line with historical context, and not the short but all to horrible period where it meant something worse. That's not to say it's good, just that we often use words that aren't pleasant in reality without thinking twice, such as steal, clobber, etc.
- DasIch 11y ago
  You do realize that slavery is a current problem, right? Slavery is a multi-billion dollar industry and there are tens of millions of people enslaved today in the entire world.
  - kbenson 11y ago
    Yes, but I also believe it's less as a proportion of population than it's ever been in the history of the world. There are approximately 7.3 billion people in the world[1], and there are over 35.8 million people in slavery[2]. That's less than half of one percent. But that doesn't matter, because slavery is bad, so any slavery, regardless of the amount is bad. So it could be 100 people in the world are enslaved, and we would still need to do something about it. But that's irrelevant. This is about terminology and wording. Do you really think anyone that's an actual subject of slavery cares if master and slave are used in some esoteric context to describe the relationship between inanimate objects and processes? Do you think they would prefer people spend their time arguing over this instead of actually doing something about the problem? The last thing we need is to cleanse our vocabulary of these terms. If we actually want to make a change, hiding is not the correct thing to do. Armchair terminology censoring isn't actually doing anything to help the problem, it's just providing a way to make people feel like they are helping without actually addressing any part of the real problem. Ultimately it's not just ineffective, but since it fulfills people's desire to feel like they are making a difference it's actual harmful in that it prevents some people from actually getting to the point they would do something. To make my point absolutely clear, using master/slave as a terminology to describe non-sentient processes is in no way condoning slavery, does not affect slavery, and does not harm anyone. Artificially linking the this concept with actual human slavery and the slave trade for the purpose of denouncing it is selfish, dishonest, and harmful. That said, I don't think most people are necessarily conscious of what they are doing when doing so, but that still leaves us with harmful. 1: http://www.worldometers.info/ http://www.worldometers.info/ 2: http://www.globalslaveryindex.org/ http://www.globalslaveryindex.org/
    - DasIch 11y ago
      You question a change to a status quo but ignore that the status quo deserves to be questioned just the same. The terms are clearly, obviously and unquestionably inspired by actual human slavery. That's in bad taste at best. Using the master/slave terminology so casually further weakens their original meaning. Not using the terms master/slave in a technology concept in no way erases awareness of the problem. Frankly to defend usage of these terms by suggesting using them in anyway promotes awareness and helps the victims of slavery, is disgusting. That's clearly not the case and not the goal of those defending the usage of these terms.

rewqfdsa 11y ago

How about kill(2)? Why does the POSIX committee endorse murder?

tangent128 11y ago
"kill" as a term for the forcible cessation of life carries no baggage tying it to historical atrocities. It can and is used to refer to deaths of stars, bacteria, plants, abstract concepts, and humans, without any connotation that these deaths carry equivalent moral weight. genocide(2), on the other hand, would be in very poor taste.

kbenson 11y ago

I don't know, to me master/slave embodies teh relationship of the devices better than leader/follower, and also has less alternate meanings when viewed as a verb to confuse what is going on. Is the leader "out front"? Is the leader "first"? Is the follower doing the same thing, but delayed in some manner (which doesn't fit standby situations very well). A master controls. A slave is controlled. Additionally, I think it's worth looking at the issue with a wider perspective. Slavery is bad, but really what most people in the west think of when thinking of slavery is racial slavery, which is a more recent issue (at least at scale), and is a much more pernicious problem,since it's not really slavery that was the base problem, but extreme racism. Historically slaves could be anyone, and as such it was much more acceptable to have people into and out of the ranks of slavery. Historical slavery is more akin to indentured servitude. That said, I imagine with a few hundred years experience, assuming we can drastically reduce the still present racism we have in our societies, we might have an different response to the words master and slave, one more in line with historical context, and not the short but all to horrible period where it meant something worse. That's not to say it's good, just that we often use words that aren't pleasant in reality without thinking twice, such as steal, clobber, etc.

DasIch 11y ago
You do realize that slavery is a current problem, right? Slavery is a multi-billion dollar industry and there are tens of millions of people enslaved today in the entire world.
- kbenson 11y ago
  Yes, but I also believe it's less as a proportion of population than it's ever been in the history of the world. There are approximately 7.3 billion people in the world[1], and there are over 35.8 million people in slavery[2]. That's less than half of one percent. But that doesn't matter, because slavery is bad, so any slavery, regardless of the amount is bad. So it could be 100 people in the world are enslaved, and we would still need to do something about it. But that's irrelevant. This is about terminology and wording. Do you really think anyone that's an actual subject of slavery cares if master and slave are used in some esoteric context to describe the relationship between inanimate objects and processes? Do you think they would prefer people spend their time arguing over this instead of actually doing something about the problem? The last thing we need is to cleanse our vocabulary of these terms. If we actually want to make a change, hiding is not the correct thing to do. Armchair terminology censoring isn't actually doing anything to help the problem, it's just providing a way to make people feel like they are helping without actually addressing any part of the real problem. Ultimately it's not just ineffective, but since it fulfills people's desire to feel like they are making a difference it's actual harmful in that it prevents some people from actually getting to the point they would do something. To make my point absolutely clear, using master/slave as a terminology to describe non-sentient processes is in no way condoning slavery, does not affect slavery, and does not harm anyone. Artificially linking the this concept with actual human slavery and the slave trade for the purpose of denouncing it is selfish, dishonest, and harmful. That said, I don't think most people are necessarily conscious of what they are doing when doing so, but that still leaves us with harmful. 1: http://www.worldometers.info/ http://www.worldometers.info/ 2: http://www.globalslaveryindex.org/ http://www.globalslaveryindex.org/
  - DasIch 11y ago
    You question a change to a status quo but ignore that the status quo deserves to be questioned just the same. The terms are clearly, obviously and unquestionably inspired by actual human slavery. That's in bad taste at best. Using the master/slave terminology so casually further weakens their original meaning. Not using the terms master/slave in a technology concept in no way erases awareness of the problem. Frankly to defend usage of these terms by suggesting using them in anyway promotes awareness and helps the victims of slavery, is disgusting. That's clearly not the case and not the goal of those defending the usage of these terms.