3 ms·

Is this in response to BLM? I also heard a couple of years ago people were trying to rename slave harddrives to something else too (maybe "secondary"?).

geofft 6y ago
Yeah, "primary"/"secondary" is common. For hard drives "master"/"slave" isn't even an accurate metaphor, since both are driven by the host computer, it's only that the secondary is physically wired to the primary and can't use the communications channel when the primary is in operation. The primary doesn't send commands to the secondary or anything. See also this comment I wrote a couple days ago re ZFS avoiding the use of "slave" (which was used in a different sense from "slave" hard drives, and both of which are different senses from the "master" boot record): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23521392 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23521392 In general I think it's good that people are picking more meaningful terms.
- maallooc 6y ago
  Master/slave is a model of asymmetric communication or control where one device or process controls one or more other devices or processes and serves as their communication hub. From wikipedia. Primary/secondary does not accurately depict the meaning. >inb4 we can sacrifice accuracy over feeling You're welcome.
  - geofft 6y ago
    > Master/slave is a model of asymmetric communication or control where one device or process controls one or more other devices or processes and serves as their communication hub. Exactly. That's why it's a bad choice of name for IDE controllers and for the main boot record, where the master does not control the slave. > inb4 we can sacrifice accuracy over feeling Firmly agree that we should not sacrifice accuracy over feeling. I have no sympathy for people whose feelings are hurt because they're told that "master"/"slave" terminology is inaccurate. Facts don't care about your feelings.
    - maallooc 6y ago
      Actually it makes sense because the slave always ask the master whether they're currently communicating with the controller. Master boot record also, because the program from the record controls the boot process of associated partitions.
      - geofft 6y ago
        Oh, sorry, you're right - when a slave wants to go talk to someone, he can do so at any time as long as the master isn't currently talking to someone. And the slave gets no orders from the master, both the master and the slave get orders from someone else. And yes, the master makes no decisions on his own, the master simply sees which of the slaves has indicated that he wishes to be passed control, and then the master passes all control onto that slave and leaves. I completely forgot what slavery means. I thought that slavery meant that masters controlled the slaves and the slaves didn't have freedom. Thanks for correcting my misunderstanding.
        maallooc 6y ago
        I'm glad you got it. Because the behavior is similar to slavery in humanity, it's named that. You're not saying we should eliminate slavery-like behavior in computing, right?
        jb0x168 6y ago
        Ask that same question again after we have self-aware machines/software. Inherent in the negative concept of slavery is the removal or limitation of self-determination. If the components don't have free will, this isn't an imposition. However, in the larger context, there are very much thinking, feeling entities that are negatively impacted by the use of this terminology. In contrast, it costs next to nothing to update the terminology to use similar terms that don't cause psychological harm to a significant portion of the populace.
        dang 6y ago
        Would you please stop posting flamewar comments to HN? You do it often enough that I wince when I see your username in threads like this, even though you're generally a good HN contributor. Comments like this do not help, regardless of how right you are on the underlying issues. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - dang 6y ago
    Would you please stop using HN for ideological flamewar? You've been doing it a lot, it's not what this site is for, and we ban such accounts. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
selykg 6y ago
Very likely in response to awareness of systemic racism in our culture. Frankly, if it makes this field and career path more welcoming to people I am absolutely fine with it.
- cczizou 6y ago
  Agreed.
  - selykg 6y ago
    Given the downvotes I’m getting I think this industry is a lot more racist than I thought.
    - geofft 6y ago
      The good news is that the downvotes aren't necessarily representative of the industry, in the sense of people who actually get things done. You'll notice that this change (see also the bit about being sponsored by Mellanox), the recent OpenZFS change, etc. were all made by core contributors to the projects. (It's also why the Contributor Covenant was fairly rapidly adopted by the actual contributors to so many projects, despite so many people being angry about it.) But yes, the open source fandom is distressingly racist.
      - selykg 6y ago
        The response to this is actually making me not want to even be a member of this site anymore. Amazing. What a sad group of people.
        KryDos 6y ago
        Unfortunately, I can't understand why people who downvote and don't agree with you are considered racist. They just have different opinion and they probably affected by the rename in the same way as someone may be affected by word "Master" for example.
      - 6y ago
eesmith 6y ago
The first I heard about it 17 years ago, in news articles about "a black employee of the county’s Probation Department filed a discrimination complaint with the Office of Affirmative Action Compliance after spotting “master” and “slave” labels on a videotape machine." - https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/masterslave/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/masterslave/ . Projects started changing terminology at least 6 years ago, like Django at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7801646 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7801646 .

geofft 6y ago

Yeah, "primary"/"secondary" is common. For hard drives "master"/"slave" isn't even an accurate metaphor, since both are driven by the host computer, it's only that the secondary is physically wired to the primary and can't use the communications channel when the primary is in operation. The primary doesn't send commands to the secondary or anything. See also this comment I wrote a couple days ago re ZFS avoiding the use of "slave" (which was used in a different sense from "slave" hard drives, and both of which are different senses from the "master" boot record): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23521392 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23521392 In general I think it's good that people are picking more meaningful terms.

maallooc 6y ago
Master/slave is a model of asymmetric communication or control where one device or process controls one or more other devices or processes and serves as their communication hub. From wikipedia. Primary/secondary does not accurately depict the meaning. >inb4 we can sacrifice accuracy over feeling You're welcome.
- geofft 6y ago
  > Master/slave is a model of asymmetric communication or control where one device or process controls one or more other devices or processes and serves as their communication hub. Exactly. That's why it's a bad choice of name for IDE controllers and for the main boot record, where the master does not control the slave. > inb4 we can sacrifice accuracy over feeling Firmly agree that we should not sacrifice accuracy over feeling. I have no sympathy for people whose feelings are hurt because they're told that "master"/"slave" terminology is inaccurate. Facts don't care about your feelings.
  - maallooc 6y ago
    Actually it makes sense because the slave always ask the master whether they're currently communicating with the controller. Master boot record also, because the program from the record controls the boot process of associated partitions.
    - geofft 6y ago
      Oh, sorry, you're right - when a slave wants to go talk to someone, he can do so at any time as long as the master isn't currently talking to someone. And the slave gets no orders from the master, both the master and the slave get orders from someone else. And yes, the master makes no decisions on his own, the master simply sees which of the slaves has indicated that he wishes to be passed control, and then the master passes all control onto that slave and leaves. I completely forgot what slavery means. I thought that slavery meant that masters controlled the slaves and the slaves didn't have freedom. Thanks for correcting my misunderstanding.
      - maallooc 6y ago
        I'm glad you got it. Because the behavior is similar to slavery in humanity, it's named that. You're not saying we should eliminate slavery-like behavior in computing, right?
        jb0x168 6y ago
        Ask that same question again after we have self-aware machines/software. Inherent in the negative concept of slavery is the removal or limitation of self-determination. If the components don't have free will, this isn't an imposition. However, in the larger context, there are very much thinking, feeling entities that are negatively impacted by the use of this terminology. In contrast, it costs next to nothing to update the terminology to use similar terms that don't cause psychological harm to a significant portion of the populace.
      - dang 6y ago
        Would you please stop posting flamewar comments to HN? You do it often enough that I wince when I see your username in threads like this, even though you're generally a good HN contributor. Comments like this do not help, regardless of how right you are on the underlying issues. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dang 6y ago
  Would you please stop using HN for ideological flamewar? You've been doing it a lot, it's not what this site is for, and we ban such accounts. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

selykg 6y ago

Very likely in response to awareness of systemic racism in our culture. Frankly, if it makes this field and career path more welcoming to people I am absolutely fine with it.

cczizou 6y ago
Agreed.
- selykg 6y ago
  Given the downvotes I’m getting I think this industry is a lot more racist than I thought.
  - geofft 6y ago
    The good news is that the downvotes aren't necessarily representative of the industry, in the sense of people who actually get things done. You'll notice that this change (see also the bit about being sponsored by Mellanox), the recent OpenZFS change, etc. were all made by core contributors to the projects. (It's also why the Contributor Covenant was fairly rapidly adopted by the actual contributors to so many projects, despite so many people being angry about it.) But yes, the open source fandom is distressingly racist.
    - selykg 6y ago
      The response to this is actually making me not want to even be a member of this site anymore. Amazing. What a sad group of people.
      - KryDos 6y ago
        Unfortunately, I can't understand why people who downvote and don't agree with you are considered racist. They just have different opinion and they probably affected by the rename in the same way as someone may be affected by word "Master" for example.
    - 6y ago

eesmith 6y ago

The first I heard about it 17 years ago, in news articles about "a black employee of the county’s Probation Department filed a discrimination complaint with the Office of Affirmative Action Compliance after spotting “master” and “slave” labels on a videotape machine." - https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/masterslave/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/masterslave/ . Projects started changing terminology at least 6 years ago, like Django at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7801646 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7801646 .