10 ms·

Linux 5.8 Formally Adds the Inclusive Terminology Guidelines

50 points by caution 6y ago

KaiserPro 6y ago
I actually like blocklist/passlist its far more descriptive. Personally I'd like master/apprentice to be more popular. but all of this is pointless if we don't actually remove some barriers to entry for IT. I doubt people are put off by the use of master/slave, Its the barrage of abuse one gets for being different[1]. [1]no this isn't from most people, but the minority is vocal and toxic, and the majority don't really do enough to keep a lid on the tedious pricks who insist on making IT creepy for anyone who isn't a young bloke.
- hiccuphippo 6y ago
  I wonder where does that leave derivate words like greylisting (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greylisting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greylisting).
  - NateEag 6y ago
    Watchlist? Suspectlist? Not sure I like either of those options, just the first things that came to mind. I think I'm in favor of changing these terms, because the proposed replacements are clearer about what happens with the list's contents, and the original phrases are rooted in some analogies that are definitely problematic. No, they don't really have those meanings any more, but changing them sends a signal to the people who could be hurt or offended by the terms that we want them to be welcome.
    - zeeZ 6y ago
      If b-word is no and white is yes, then something like "maybelist" or "perhapslist".
- _hl_ 6y ago
  Can you share some examples of what you believe to be toxic or exclusive behaviour? Personally (as a young bloke) I find IT to be extremely inclusive for those who want to learn, there's so much freely available information and material on the internet it's literally unbelievable. That's how a lot of us young blokes got into this space, and I don't see why minorities would be less likely to go down that path as well (although empirically minorities and women obviously are less likely to do so because they are massively underrepresented).
  - KaiserPro 6y ago
    My women friends constantly get creepy messages in a professional setting. I was staggered when I was shown the abuse they would get after a tech talk. Half of it was "u r cute :D" the rest was "you don't know what you are talking about because obscure hair splitting point x" For example I gave a talk where I was critical about the networking schemes of kubernetes. Had I been a woman I would have had a barrage of hostile questions. I know because my more experienced female co-worker raised the same points in her talk. Another example is that person who did the visualisation for the black hole. She was abused simply for being a young woman. Those little shits who combed through the git repor to work out exactly which line she had touched. _Its just not healthy_ It wasn't until I worked at a place where the gender ratios were almost 50:50 that I saw the problems up close. _Every_ woman has a story where they were creeped on in the most toecurling way. These were people who'd only been in the industry for less than two years. I have a daughter, and I want her to follow in my foot steps, but I don't want her to deal with the horrid shit the small but very vocal minority shart out.
    - enriquto 6y ago
      > "you don't know what you are talking about because obscure hair splitting point x" I'm a man and have been told that countless times. Are you sure it is a sex-specific issue? Some people just need to gatekeep their precious fields and feel attacked when a newcomer works on them. I would not go as far as calling that "abuse", I even find it mildly amusing when I'm on the receiving end of ridiculous critique. > I have a daughter, and I want her to follow in my foot steps, but I don't want her to deal with the horrid shit the small but very vocal minority shart out. I also have a daughter and a son, and I'm trying to teach both of them that the world is a horrible, hostile place, and that they are out to have an epic fight for survival. Petty creepers will be the least of their problems. There's also a few beautiful things in the world, and I'm also teaching them to appreciate them when these are found, but never to expect or somehow think that they are entitled to them.
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  Master and slave [in humans] aren't tied to any identity, race, nationality. Most modern slavery (that I've heard of) seems to be same-nationality. How is apprentice a good analogy, the slave computing system is directed what to do, or works for the master; it's not training to be a master. No-one is black nor white: anyone who thinks colour-named lists relates to skin colour is a moron. Presumably such people think night-time is racist.
  - XorNot 6y ago
    People are rescued from slavery all the time. Bring mindful of casually using a term which they know to describe their years to decades of abuse and torture doesn't seem like a particularly difficult ask.
    - blub 6y ago
      They're probably not rescued by those renaming branches though. Those people have more important things to do. I can see the upside though: after the former slaves have been rescued from their "decades of abuse" which they lost an immense chunk of their life to and almost certainly left them mentally and physically scarred for the rest of their life, they'll take solace in the fact that some people somewhere on Earth have renamed their virtual thingamabobs. Then they will finally know peace.
      - Huggernaut 6y ago
        > Then they will finally know peace. No one's claiming that.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - curiousgal 6y ago
      The word Abd in Arabic means slave/servant [0], so should we ask anyone named Abdullah (God's slave) to change their name because it has the word slave in it? It's not about using a word casually, it's about using it in an irrelevant context. 0.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd_(Arabic) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd_(Arabic)
- raspyberr 6y ago
  The reason I don't think that it's "far more descriptive" is because we had a pair of words that meant exactly what they meant. You can't get more descriptive that what they meant. And if you say the actual words have in them the description, I don't think that's relevant because most words aren't like that unless you account for etymology but you don't do you.
- helixhelix 6y ago
  If people get swayed away from an entire profession because of a few words, how can they have the mental capacity for constructive criticism? For being told directly that their work is sub-par and they need to improve? And how do they have the capacity to do their job if they are constantly annoyed by a few words?
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > If people get swayed away from an entire profession because of a few words, how can they have the mental capacity for constructive criticism? First, you probably mean emotional capacity. Second, very easily, especially if they have other lucrative and rewarding alternatives, which people with the mental capacity for software development probably do. Having the capacity to deal with necessary unpleasantness to improve one’s quality of work doesn’t imply the lack of self-respect necessary to voluntary put up with completely unnecessary unpleasantness just to work in one of the very many fields one has the facilities to successfully perform in. But thanks for bringing out the classic hazing defense.
    - helixhelix 6y ago
      What lucrative alternatives? Is there another Linux kernel I'm not aware of? Another Google? If you can't sit down and do a good job instead of having inequality living rent-free in your head [1], who would prefer you over someone who can? Remember, there's a reason these people are a minority. Companies turn down applicants all the time so this special case isn't that influential. [1] The girl who started the cancel movement of Dr. Stallman was admittedly too frustrated to do her job.
      - KaiserPro 6y ago
        > Remember, there's a reason these people are a minority. Companies turn down applicants all the time so this special case isn't that influential. such a wholistic view. My female colleagues would love to sit down and do a good job, but they have to put up with men stalking them because they had the brass bollocks to give a speech at a conference without possession of a penis
curiousgal 6y ago
<rant> > blacklist/whitelist Thanks for bringing race into something that has absolutely nothing to do with it. As a person of color I also don't see how this is "inclusive" at all, like yeah, the only reason I don't commit to the Linux kernel is because of the presence of words such as master/slave... Maybe I'm wrong but why do we have to shame everyone into changing things when there isn't proof that those things were actually harmful to minorities. But oh well, I guess we'll call this a win and continue to ignore the root of the problem. </rant>
- techntoke 6y ago
  What is the new name for the dark web?
  - eps 6y ago
    This is actually a valid comment. Black/white in black/whitelist has to do with something being illuminated rather than with the color. Same with the dark web.
  - rapnie 6y ago
    opaque web? obscure web? cloaked web? There is a rationale for different terminology here, other than race-related. Tor is encouraging more 'regular folks' to become users, rather than mostly usual suspects such as journalists, activists, opsec etc. But the connotation of dark web is too much related to sinister / criminal / illegal / dangerous (and yes there is a lot of that too).
  - sebazzz 6y ago
    Dark matter could be renamed to invisible matter. And before we know it we can't say anything.
- hrktb 6y ago
  > nothing to do with it It never has to do with race until il does. The same way slave/master wasn’t about race in different contexts, being free or not would just a lineage or economic status. But the moment it takes a specific cultural context, you can’t argue it’s wrong because it was different originally. Things change.
not_the_fda 6y ago
Great job folks, you did it, you solved 1000s of years of racism. Surely not a single POC will be killed by a cop with these changes. Such ineffectual liberalism. So much effort that fixes nothing.
- cerberusss 6y ago
  Some words simply don't feel right anymore. As an example, I used to live on the Dutch countryside. The owner of the farm would be called the "boer", and his assistant would be called "knecht" (ranch hand? It curiously is pronounced not unlike knight). I completely forgot all of that until recently, the farms around our city were opened to the general public. My kid wanted to go, and while they were enjoying themselves looking at the animals, I struck up a chat with the owner of the farm and asked on a whim if the "knecht" was still called that. No, he answered, that position is now called "medewerker" (operator? colleague? contributor? I dunno.) I think the time for words like master/slave and blacklist/whitelist is simply past. This is just an observance, I don't have an opinion either way.
aboringusername 6y ago
Note: This thread was removed from the front page of HN, presumably by the mods. I guess this topic is too spicy for them to handle. Great, now everyone can pat themselves on the back and relax now we've fully embraced cancel culture and find instances of these very naughty words to be outraged about. Oh, and I find subordinate offensive, just because. Congratulations to the Linux kernel for fixing a systemic issue by changing some words, now we can pretend the issue doesn't exist at all! :-) Maybe we should just replace Linus Torvalds whilst we're at it with someone black, just like they did over at Reddit, which clearly fixed all the problems when a white man retired in protest. (How can I flag my own post before anyone else does? By tomorrow I'm expecting to come back and see this text replaced with [flagged] as you can't post anything controversial anymore. I see as of this edit I'm on 12 points, that'll be -10 I am sure when the dust settles. Feel free to cancel me and my account if you want HN crowd, I'll just make another).
- calt 6y ago
  >now we've fully embraced cancel culture Is this cancel culture? No. No one is being canceled here. > Oh, and I find subordinate offensive, just because. Not good enough. > Congratulations to the Linux kernel for fixing a systemic issue by changing some words, No one claimed that. > you can't post anything controversial anymore. This isn't "controversial." It's snide and deliberately obtuse.
- viraptor 6y ago
  > Note: This thread was removed from the front page of HN, presumably by the mods. No need for tinfoil. Posts with high comments-to-points ratio are automatically nerfed as noisy / low quality. Regardless of topic.
sillysaurusx 6y ago
In an effort to make this thread more interesting: I think we should get used to the idea of just letting stuff like this happen. What's the downside? Is it really so hard to type "main" instead of "master"? I get the argument that historically, language has been used to control populations, and therefore it's good to resist attempts to control language. But every time someone complains about master vs main, I can't help but think thoughts that would be rude to repeat. I recently made a tool for managing TPUs, called tpunicorn (tpudiepie was "clever, but risks legal issues"): https://github.com/shawwn/tpudiepie https://github.com/shawwn/tpudiepie The tool lists a bunch of info about the TPUs, including their master IP address. It's the IP of host 0, in charge of TPU configuration. If someone were to open an issue "Please change master to main," and they were genuine about the request, I'd be like ... ok. And that would be the end of it. It's a s/master/main/g. Sure, whatever. So, my question for you, dear readers: why not just say ok and be done with it? Is the spirit of rebellion really so ingrained in everyone that this is the battle we want to fight? You can mock it, ridicule it, fight it, but ultimately it's a big bikeshed that people want to paint. Why not let them? And, you know, maybe it might help. A female dev I know recently expressed frustration about being called a "guy" constnatly. "Hey guys, ..." It's why I say ya'll. She also feels bad about mentioning it, because she doesn't want to be an imposition. From my point of view, this is a big ball of "whatever, who cares, just do it." But my mind is open: can you convince me that it's important to resist this trend? Without invoking slippery-slope arguments?
- nyberg 6y ago
  > I think we should get used to the idea of just letting stuff like this happen. What's the downside? Is it really so hard to type "main" instead of "master"? > If someone were to open an issue "Please change master to main," and they were genuine about the request, I'd be like ... ok. And that would be the end of it. It's a s/master/main/g. Sure, whatever. Not at all, it's just a question of who will pay to update all code and documentation to follow the new naming standards. That's not only the documentation of the project in question but also resolving issues when refering to external sources which also use master/slave terminology such as the MBus and related tooling. > Why not let them? Will they pay someone to make the changes or do they expect smaller places to shell out money to fix a non issue to avoid being associated with something they've never had any relation to? No? No change unless they either do the work themselves or pay for the cost of changing it. > From my point of view, this is a big ball of "whatever, who cares, just do it." But my mind is open: can you convince me that it's important to resist this trend? Without invoking slippery-slope arguments? There isn't really much of an argument for implementing it other than being pushed into exile by others if you don't. Resisting it would mostly come down to the cost of yet another cosmetic change that does nothing other than cost hours of work with no real reason than some being "offended" by well established terms. In the end, this is a change where I just don't see the merit of. In the end it seems to be the practice of banning being easier than understanding what it's actually used for and comming up with a solid argument for change. It's not the burden of those sitting on `master` branches to explain why not but rather those suggesting this change to provide at least something which hints to the change being worth the effort.
mfrager 6y ago
Switching to FreeBSD in 5, 4, 3...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
0xy 6y ago
This is lazy pandering and does absolutely nothing to address actual POC issues. It also paints words with zero history of racism in a "bad" light because it's somehow associated with a color? Now we've bulkanized terminology all in the name of progress, ironically making it even harder for newcomers to learn. Overall, it's just a disgusting ineffective move by crusaders determined to police, rewrite and erase language. I can't fathom how anyone decides this is what we should be doing to promote inclusivity.
- skytreader 6y ago
  Would be really great if downvoters can chime in on their disagreements with this. I find this perfectly reasonable. > ironically making it even harder for newcomers to learn. This isn't over-cynicism. Consider all the otherwise-still-working books and tutorials that would be obsolete just for this change. Some kids still get their start from dead leaves and it would just be unnecessary mental tax on them to keep in mind that "master" is now "primary" because reasons. Not to mention that whatever they might be reading might've already used "primary" for a different context. Extremely superficial.
  - stunt 6y ago
    We can’t do nothing until we have a fix for everything. And we can’t stop changing because we can’t change everything.
stblack 6y ago
'denylist / allowlist' makes normative presumptions about privilege, thereby creating an unsafe space. All our lists should be inclusive.
nicc 6y ago
With all the actual problems in the world, it's amazing how much energy gets wasted on idiotic stuff like this. There are actual concentration camps in China TODAY. So sad.
- therouwboat 6y ago
  I have been watching tv today, how did you spend your energy? Freeing prisoners in China, I hope?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- williamdclt 6y ago
  What I find ever more insane is how much energy people spend fighting it, writing paragraphs and paragraphs of argumentation. "That sounds far-fetched to me but I can vaguely imagine that these terminologies aren't helpful in these times, lemme search-and-replace, done"
  - nicc 6y ago
    And even more insane is how people can completely disregard common sense and their own opinion and blindly obey an idea that sounds far-fetched to them just to placate easily-offended people—even if it's just copy/paste (which it isn't, if anything because people will need to re-learn an API).
boffinism 6y ago
To everyone who instantly dismisses/condemns this: if you've arrived at your conclusion that quickly, are you _sure_ you've considered all the angles? Are you _certain_ you fully understand all the various reasons why a lot of people support this move and have debunked them all? The HN kneejerk is so strong sometimes I can feel it kick itself in the arse.
- dmichulke 6y ago
  Did you put in the effort to look at all angles? How can you prove it? Can anyone else prove that he looked at more angles? Just asking those question contributes nothing and looks to me like virtue signalling.
aboringusername 6y ago
To quote a phrase from Linus, it seems this is just useless masturbation that doesn't do anything to resolve the actual blatant racism within the wider community. Seriously, how many people who this patch is designed for were actually consulted before this was merged? Was this patch created by, and championed by, white males? Personally, I would prefer if humans don't exist within the kernel. Just people. Nameless, faceless individuals working to better the world by contributing code and ideas, patches and fixes, designed to make a kernel that is useful to the world. I remember Greg KH once said he had a patch from a kid, and he and his mom attended a meet up and he was quite surprised. This is what I envision the kernel to be. Make people anonymous, don't bring in other attributes like race, color, age because that will always lead to problems (NPM had similar issues, when they tried to fork to ayojs which failed spectacularly) As far as I care, Greg KH is just a persona and I don't attribute anything further than that. And I am just "aboringusername", I could be black, white, pink, female, trans, 90 years old, 11 years old, rich, poor, a great guy or an evil piece of shit. Or would people on this forum prefer to hand over their government ID's and have them made public in order to comment so we know exactly who you are so we can make biases against your comments? Please can we return to a more private internet and leave these things behind?
sunseb 6y ago
The night is dark as opposed to daylight. This is racist. Do you have a plan to change that already?
therouwboat 6y ago
I dont see whats so horrible about changing few words, you probably wont be forced to go and replace them in linux sourcecode.
- raspyberr 6y ago
  Because I don't believe in the reason for doing so.
kartoshechka 6y ago
cool, now show me race demographic of linux contributors
rvz 6y ago
There you have it. The true face of the "Code of Conduct". These guidelines airbrush change rather than promote "inclusivity" which the CoC claims to do. In fact, it shows the controlling infinite demands of the PC crowd in the Linux kernel and the wider ecosystem. Remember Outreachy anyone? > At this stage these guidelines, which are part of the Linux kernel's coding style, are about avoiding new usage of the words "master" and "slave" within the kernel code as well as avoiding "blacklist" and "whitelist". They will still say "it's not enough" and will demand to remove all master / slave references and terminology in the kernel, which the maintainers know it isn't practical. You can ask yourself if this is realistic. I think you know the answer. This doesn't attack the problem and only airbrushes and ignores the root of it. There is no winning with moves like this.
fizixer 6y ago
What about service? [0] (related: to serve, to be a servant) (In case you don't see the Google box: Old English (denoting religious devotion or a form of liturgy), from Old French servise or Latin servitium ‘slavery’, from servus ‘slave’. The early sense of the verb (mid 19th century) was ‘be of service to, provide with a service’.) [0] https://www.google.com/search?q=service+etymology https://www.google.com/search?q=service+etymology
LockAndLol 6y ago
It seems like America has evolved into the STASI and is dragging everybody down with it. This isn't even a superficial fix, but pure symbolism that they are giving in to unspoken blackmail: access our terms or we'll cancel you. People now have to really watch out what they say publicly because otherwise somebody will doxx them for the mob to inflict their "justice" upon them. It's quite ironic that the SJWs are repeating all the mistakes "the other side" made. They're introducing their own version of thought crimes. I remember reading screenshots of 4chan imagining and ridiculing a world, where actions, words and symbols that had no offensive connotation, were forcefully given one and the repercussions thereof. Looks like they weren't too far off.
omani 6y ago
welcome orwell's newspeak.
rich_sasha 6y ago
At least this is a lot less insane than all the “Company XYZ renames everything in their existing products that people use every day”. If you say, “hey I don’t like this phrase, next time I’ll use a different one”, I can actually understand. I still think the big sed is, let’s say, misguided, but at least this version is not insane.
robalni 6y ago
I'm fine with changing a word if there is a good reason to. But I don't like this "wordophobia" where people are afraid of using words and we just keep adding new words that people can't use. It reminds me of the Harry Potter series where they always try to avoid saying the name of Voldemort. Don't be like that. I think we should all be like Harry Potter himself and not be afraid of using words, not even the ones that remind us of something bad (which I don't even think these words do).
- kobalsky 6y ago
  But in the end the name was really cursed and they got captured by saying it. I'm guessing that Dumbledore's dismissal was because if everyone said it, it would dilute its power, but that wouldn't work in this case!
  - robalni 6y ago
    Yes, we should be happy as long as these words are not cursed.
chrismorgan 6y ago
I wonder how much outrage there would be (both in favour of and against!) regarding any proposal to remove the OOM killer’s tendencies to child sacrifice: Out of memory: Kill process 12345 (chromium) score 678 or sacrifice child The first time I encountered it in real life (I never set up any swap on my last laptop, and over a few years bust things up by running out of memory about three times) it made perfect sense and I saw nothing at all amiss with the message, but I know there are amusing tales of people being confused and perhaps even worried by it. After having discovered that, I know I rather like it.
- mercer 6y ago
  Yeah but there's no clear distinction between current-day groups when it comes to their views on child sacrifice (afaik). I, for one, would defend to the death the right to kill child processes or rail against at the very least anything beyond parent-child OO relationships, because I hate children and grandparents! forward slash "s".
mnm1 6y ago
"Slavs" literally means slaves. Clearly this is racist, they must all be racist, and they should change their name. At least by the stupid American standards of today. Frankly, I think the rest of the world is getting tired of Americans pushing their shitty stupid culture on everyone. Americans should be ashamed of their country now and especially in the past, but don't take it out on people who weren't involved and have no interest in this PC pseudo reparations bullshit. If Americans were really sorry and really intended to not be racist, they would pay out reparations with real fucking dollars. Or get rid of the drug war. Or get rid of qualified immunity and guns from most cops. In other words, they would do something to actually address the inequality instead of just pretending to. The people changing these words aren't anti-racist. They are complicit in keeping racism in play by pretending to do things that matter while doing completely irrelevant things that are easy and don't matter one bit. Not to mention the stupidity of the people initiating such agendas in the first place, thinking they will make a difference. Frankly, I expected better from Linus but it seems the shit American culture finally got to him.
- dang 6y ago
  Turning this into a nationalistic flamewar is arson on top of the fires that are already burning. Please don't post like this here. We've asked you before not to post flamebait. We ban accounts that keep doing it, and you've unfortunately been doing a lot of it lately. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful. Note this one: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
  - mnm1 6y ago
    I didn't realize cultural criticism was not allowed.
bE9a3S5So8igd3 6y ago
Can't wait until they come for `server` They're really going to eliminate racism then!
stunt 6y ago
There are many studies that suggest our language does influence our culture. Perhaps the affect isn’t obvious to you like many other things that influence our culture. I don’t understand why some people are still so skeptical about this change. Some argue that we should instead fix bigger problems. Well let’s do that too. But it doesn’t mean that we can't or shouldn’t take small steps. Every small step can contribute. And we shouldn’t stop there.
unglaublich 6y ago
Ironic how aiming at being inclusive manifests itself so often as being exclusive.
tal8d 6y ago
Is this being recieved positively by those that actually write code, who aren't gripped by a white savior complex? Because it strikes me as patronizing, among other things. Do yourself a favor, lookup the origin of the word "slave". Now consider your emotional response in that light, and how these changes could only be motivated by a deeply held predjudice with regard to the alleged beneficiaries of this farce.

50 points by caution 6y ago

I actually like blocklist/passlist its far more descriptive. Personally I'd like master/apprentice to be more popular. but all of this is pointless if we don't actually remove some barriers to entry for IT. I doubt people are put off by the use of master/slave, Its the barrage of abuse one gets for being different[1]. [1]no this isn't from most people, but the minority is vocal and toxic, and the majority don't really do enough to keep a lid on the tedious pricks who insist on making IT creepy for anyone who isn't a young bloke.

hiccuphippo 6y ago
I wonder where does that leave derivate words like greylisting (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greylisting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greylisting).
- NateEag 6y ago
  Watchlist? Suspectlist? Not sure I like either of those options, just the first things that came to mind. I think I'm in favor of changing these terms, because the proposed replacements are clearer about what happens with the list's contents, and the original phrases are rooted in some analogies that are definitely problematic. No, they don't really have those meanings any more, but changing them sends a signal to the people who could be hurt or offended by the terms that we want them to be welcome.
  - zeeZ 6y ago
    If b-word is no and white is yes, then something like "maybelist" or "perhapslist".
_hl_ 6y ago
Can you share some examples of what you believe to be toxic or exclusive behaviour? Personally (as a young bloke) I find IT to be extremely inclusive for those who want to learn, there's so much freely available information and material on the internet it's literally unbelievable. That's how a lot of us young blokes got into this space, and I don't see why minorities would be less likely to go down that path as well (although empirically minorities and women obviously are less likely to do so because they are massively underrepresented).
- KaiserPro 6y ago
  My women friends constantly get creepy messages in a professional setting. I was staggered when I was shown the abuse they would get after a tech talk. Half of it was "u r cute :D" the rest was "you don't know what you are talking about because obscure hair splitting point x" For example I gave a talk where I was critical about the networking schemes of kubernetes. Had I been a woman I would have had a barrage of hostile questions. I know because my more experienced female co-worker raised the same points in her talk. Another example is that person who did the visualisation for the black hole. She was abused simply for being a young woman. Those little shits who combed through the git repor to work out exactly which line she had touched. _Its just not healthy_ It wasn't until I worked at a place where the gender ratios were almost 50:50 that I saw the problems up close. _Every_ woman has a story where they were creeped on in the most toecurling way. These were people who'd only been in the industry for less than two years. I have a daughter, and I want her to follow in my foot steps, but I don't want her to deal with the horrid shit the small but very vocal minority shart out.
  - enriquto 6y ago
    > "you don't know what you are talking about because obscure hair splitting point x" I'm a man and have been told that countless times. Are you sure it is a sex-specific issue? Some people just need to gatekeep their precious fields and feel attacked when a newcomer works on them. I would not go as far as calling that "abuse", I even find it mildly amusing when I'm on the receiving end of ridiculous critique. > I have a daughter, and I want her to follow in my foot steps, but I don't want her to deal with the horrid shit the small but very vocal minority shart out. I also have a daughter and a son, and I'm trying to teach both of them that the world is a horrible, hostile place, and that they are out to have an epic fight for survival. Petty creepers will be the least of their problems. There's also a few beautiful things in the world, and I'm also teaching them to appreciate them when these are found, but never to expect or somehow think that they are entitled to them.
pbhjpbhj 6y ago
Master and slave [in humans] aren't tied to any identity, race, nationality. Most modern slavery (that I've heard of) seems to be same-nationality. How is apprentice a good analogy, the slave computing system is directed what to do, or works for the master; it's not training to be a master. No-one is black nor white: anyone who thinks colour-named lists relates to skin colour is a moron. Presumably such people think night-time is racist.
- XorNot 6y ago
  People are rescued from slavery all the time. Bring mindful of casually using a term which they know to describe their years to decades of abuse and torture doesn't seem like a particularly difficult ask.
  - blub 6y ago
    They're probably not rescued by those renaming branches though. Those people have more important things to do. I can see the upside though: after the former slaves have been rescued from their "decades of abuse" which they lost an immense chunk of their life to and almost certainly left them mentally and physically scarred for the rest of their life, they'll take solace in the fact that some people somewhere on Earth have renamed their virtual thingamabobs. Then they will finally know peace.
    - Huggernaut 6y ago
      > Then they will finally know peace. No one's claiming that.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - curiousgal 6y ago
    The word Abd in Arabic means slave/servant [0], so should we ask anyone named Abdullah (God's slave) to change their name because it has the word slave in it? It's not about using a word casually, it's about using it in an irrelevant context. 0.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd_(Arabic) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd_(Arabic)
raspyberr 6y ago
The reason I don't think that it's "far more descriptive" is because we had a pair of words that meant exactly what they meant. You can't get more descriptive that what they meant. And if you say the actual words have in them the description, I don't think that's relevant because most words aren't like that unless you account for etymology but you don't do you.
helixhelix 6y ago
If people get swayed away from an entire profession because of a few words, how can they have the mental capacity for constructive criticism? For being told directly that their work is sub-par and they need to improve? And how do they have the capacity to do their job if they are constantly annoyed by a few words?
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > If people get swayed away from an entire profession because of a few words, how can they have the mental capacity for constructive criticism? First, you probably mean emotional capacity. Second, very easily, especially if they have other lucrative and rewarding alternatives, which people with the mental capacity for software development probably do. Having the capacity to deal with necessary unpleasantness to improve one’s quality of work doesn’t imply the lack of self-respect necessary to voluntary put up with completely unnecessary unpleasantness just to work in one of the very many fields one has the facilities to successfully perform in. But thanks for bringing out the classic hazing defense.
  - helixhelix 6y ago
    What lucrative alternatives? Is there another Linux kernel I'm not aware of? Another Google? If you can't sit down and do a good job instead of having inequality living rent-free in your head [1], who would prefer you over someone who can? Remember, there's a reason these people are a minority. Companies turn down applicants all the time so this special case isn't that influential. [1] The girl who started the cancel movement of Dr. Stallman was admittedly too frustrated to do her job.
    - KaiserPro 6y ago
      > Remember, there's a reason these people are a minority. Companies turn down applicants all the time so this special case isn't that influential. such a wholistic view. My female colleagues would love to sit down and do a good job, but they have to put up with men stalking them because they had the brass bollocks to give a speech at a conference without possession of a penis

curiousgal 6y ago

<rant> > blacklist/whitelist Thanks for bringing race into something that has absolutely nothing to do with it. As a person of color I also don't see how this is "inclusive" at all, like yeah, the only reason I don't commit to the Linux kernel is because of the presence of words such as master/slave... Maybe I'm wrong but why do we have to shame everyone into changing things when there isn't proof that those things were actually harmful to minorities. But oh well, I guess we'll call this a win and continue to ignore the root of the problem. </rant>

techntoke 6y ago
What is the new name for the dark web?
- eps 6y ago
  This is actually a valid comment. Black/white in black/whitelist has to do with something being illuminated rather than with the color. Same with the dark web.
- rapnie 6y ago
  opaque web? obscure web? cloaked web? There is a rationale for different terminology here, other than race-related. Tor is encouraging more 'regular folks' to become users, rather than mostly usual suspects such as journalists, activists, opsec etc. But the connotation of dark web is too much related to sinister / criminal / illegal / dangerous (and yes there is a lot of that too).
- sebazzz 6y ago
  Dark matter could be renamed to invisible matter. And before we know it we can't say anything.
hrktb 6y ago
> nothing to do with it It never has to do with race until il does. The same way slave/master wasn’t about race in different contexts, being free or not would just a lineage or economic status. But the moment it takes a specific cultural context, you can’t argue it’s wrong because it was different originally. Things change.

not_the_fda 6y ago

Great job folks, you did it, you solved 1000s of years of racism. Surely not a single POC will be killed by a cop with these changes. Such ineffectual liberalism. So much effort that fixes nothing.

cerberusss 6y ago
Some words simply don't feel right anymore. As an example, I used to live on the Dutch countryside. The owner of the farm would be called the "boer", and his assistant would be called "knecht" (ranch hand? It curiously is pronounced not unlike knight). I completely forgot all of that until recently, the farms around our city were opened to the general public. My kid wanted to go, and while they were enjoying themselves looking at the animals, I struck up a chat with the owner of the farm and asked on a whim if the "knecht" was still called that. No, he answered, that position is now called "medewerker" (operator? colleague? contributor? I dunno.) I think the time for words like master/slave and blacklist/whitelist is simply past. This is just an observance, I don't have an opinion either way.

aboringusername 6y ago

Note: This thread was removed from the front page of HN, presumably by the mods. I guess this topic is too spicy for them to handle. Great, now everyone can pat themselves on the back and relax now we've fully embraced cancel culture and find instances of these very naughty words to be outraged about. Oh, and I find subordinate offensive, just because. Congratulations to the Linux kernel for fixing a systemic issue by changing some words, now we can pretend the issue doesn't exist at all! :-) Maybe we should just replace Linus Torvalds whilst we're at it with someone black, just like they did over at Reddit, which clearly fixed all the problems when a white man retired in protest. (How can I flag my own post before anyone else does? By tomorrow I'm expecting to come back and see this text replaced with [flagged] as you can't post anything controversial anymore. I see as of this edit I'm on 12 points, that'll be -10 I am sure when the dust settles. Feel free to cancel me and my account if you want HN crowd, I'll just make another).

calt 6y ago
>now we've fully embraced cancel culture Is this cancel culture? No. No one is being canceled here. > Oh, and I find subordinate offensive, just because. Not good enough. > Congratulations to the Linux kernel for fixing a systemic issue by changing some words, No one claimed that. > you can't post anything controversial anymore. This isn't "controversial." It's snide and deliberately obtuse.
viraptor 6y ago
> Note: This thread was removed from the front page of HN, presumably by the mods. No need for tinfoil. Posts with high comments-to-points ratio are automatically nerfed as noisy / low quality. Regardless of topic.

sillysaurusx 6y ago

In an effort to make this thread more interesting: I think we should get used to the idea of just letting stuff like this happen. What's the downside? Is it really so hard to type "main" instead of "master"? I get the argument that historically, language has been used to control populations, and therefore it's good to resist attempts to control language. But every time someone complains about master vs main, I can't help but think thoughts that would be rude to repeat. I recently made a tool for managing TPUs, called tpunicorn (tpudiepie was "clever, but risks legal issues"): https://github.com/shawwn/tpudiepie https://github.com/shawwn/tpudiepie The tool lists a bunch of info about the TPUs, including their master IP address. It's the IP of host 0, in charge of TPU configuration. If someone were to open an issue "Please change master to main," and they were genuine about the request, I'd be like ... ok. And that would be the end of it. It's a s/master/main/g. Sure, whatever. So, my question for you, dear readers: why not just say ok and be done with it? Is the spirit of rebellion really so ingrained in everyone that this is the battle we want to fight? You can mock it, ridicule it, fight it, but ultimately it's a big bikeshed that people want to paint. Why not let them? And, you know, maybe it might help. A female dev I know recently expressed frustration about being called a "guy" constnatly. "Hey guys, ..." It's why I say ya'll. She also feels bad about mentioning it, because she doesn't want to be an imposition. From my point of view, this is a big ball of "whatever, who cares, just do it." But my mind is open: can you convince me that it's important to resist this trend? Without invoking slippery-slope arguments?

nyberg 6y ago
> I think we should get used to the idea of just letting stuff like this happen. What's the downside? Is it really so hard to type "main" instead of "master"? > If someone were to open an issue "Please change master to main," and they were genuine about the request, I'd be like ... ok. And that would be the end of it. It's a s/master/main/g. Sure, whatever. Not at all, it's just a question of who will pay to update all code and documentation to follow the new naming standards. That's not only the documentation of the project in question but also resolving issues when refering to external sources which also use master/slave terminology such as the MBus and related tooling. > Why not let them? Will they pay someone to make the changes or do they expect smaller places to shell out money to fix a non issue to avoid being associated with something they've never had any relation to? No? No change unless they either do the work themselves or pay for the cost of changing it. > From my point of view, this is a big ball of "whatever, who cares, just do it." But my mind is open: can you convince me that it's important to resist this trend? Without invoking slippery-slope arguments? There isn't really much of an argument for implementing it other than being pushed into exile by others if you don't. Resisting it would mostly come down to the cost of yet another cosmetic change that does nothing other than cost hours of work with no real reason than some being "offended" by well established terms. In the end, this is a change where I just don't see the merit of. In the end it seems to be the practice of banning being easier than understanding what it's actually used for and comming up with a solid argument for change. It's not the burden of those sitting on `master` branches to explain why not but rather those suggesting this change to provide at least something which hints to the change being worth the effort.

mfrager 6y ago

Switching to FreeBSD in 5, 4, 3...

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

0xy 6y ago

This is lazy pandering and does absolutely nothing to address actual POC issues. It also paints words with zero history of racism in a "bad" light because it's somehow associated with a color? Now we've bulkanized terminology all in the name of progress, ironically making it even harder for newcomers to learn. Overall, it's just a disgusting ineffective move by crusaders determined to police, rewrite and erase language. I can't fathom how anyone decides this is what we should be doing to promote inclusivity.

skytreader 6y ago
Would be really great if downvoters can chime in on their disagreements with this. I find this perfectly reasonable. > ironically making it even harder for newcomers to learn. This isn't over-cynicism. Consider all the otherwise-still-working books and tutorials that would be obsolete just for this change. Some kids still get their start from dead leaves and it would just be unnecessary mental tax on them to keep in mind that "master" is now "primary" because reasons. Not to mention that whatever they might be reading might've already used "primary" for a different context. Extremely superficial.
- stunt 6y ago
  We can’t do nothing until we have a fix for everything. And we can’t stop changing because we can’t change everything.

stblack 6y ago

'denylist / allowlist' makes normative presumptions about privilege, thereby creating an unsafe space. All our lists should be inclusive.

nicc 6y ago

With all the actual problems in the world, it's amazing how much energy gets wasted on idiotic stuff like this. There are actual concentration camps in China TODAY. So sad.

therouwboat 6y ago
I have been watching tv today, how did you spend your energy? Freeing prisoners in China, I hope?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
williamdclt 6y ago
What I find ever more insane is how much energy people spend fighting it, writing paragraphs and paragraphs of argumentation. "That sounds far-fetched to me but I can vaguely imagine that these terminologies aren't helpful in these times, lemme search-and-replace, done"
- nicc 6y ago
  And even more insane is how people can completely disregard common sense and their own opinion and blindly obey an idea that sounds far-fetched to them just to placate easily-offended people—even if it's just copy/paste (which it isn't, if anything because people will need to re-learn an API).

boffinism 6y ago

To everyone who instantly dismisses/condemns this: if you've arrived at your conclusion that quickly, are you _sure_ you've considered all the angles? Are you _certain_ you fully understand all the various reasons why a lot of people support this move and have debunked them all? The HN kneejerk is so strong sometimes I can feel it kick itself in the arse.

dmichulke 6y ago
Did you put in the effort to look at all angles? How can you prove it? Can anyone else prove that he looked at more angles? Just asking those question contributes nothing and looks to me like virtue signalling.

aboringusername 6y ago

To quote a phrase from Linus, it seems this is just useless masturbation that doesn't do anything to resolve the actual blatant racism within the wider community. Seriously, how many people who this patch is designed for were actually consulted before this was merged? Was this patch created by, and championed by, white males? Personally, I would prefer if humans don't exist within the kernel. Just people. Nameless, faceless individuals working to better the world by contributing code and ideas, patches and fixes, designed to make a kernel that is useful to the world. I remember Greg KH once said he had a patch from a kid, and he and his mom attended a meet up and he was quite surprised. This is what I envision the kernel to be. Make people anonymous, don't bring in other attributes like race, color, age because that will always lead to problems (NPM had similar issues, when they tried to fork to ayojs which failed spectacularly) As far as I care, Greg KH is just a persona and I don't attribute anything further than that. And I am just "aboringusername", I could be black, white, pink, female, trans, 90 years old, 11 years old, rich, poor, a great guy or an evil piece of shit. Or would people on this forum prefer to hand over their government ID's and have them made public in order to comment so we know exactly who you are so we can make biases against your comments? Please can we return to a more private internet and leave these things behind?

sunseb 6y ago

The night is dark as opposed to daylight. This is racist. Do you have a plan to change that already?

therouwboat 6y ago

I dont see whats so horrible about changing few words, you probably wont be forced to go and replace them in linux sourcecode.

raspyberr 6y ago
Because I don't believe in the reason for doing so.

kartoshechka 6y ago

cool, now show me race demographic of linux contributors

rvz 6y ago

There you have it. The true face of the "Code of Conduct". These guidelines airbrush change rather than promote "inclusivity" which the CoC claims to do. In fact, it shows the controlling infinite demands of the PC crowd in the Linux kernel and the wider ecosystem. Remember Outreachy anyone? > At this stage these guidelines, which are part of the Linux kernel's coding style, are about avoiding new usage of the words "master" and "slave" within the kernel code as well as avoiding "blacklist" and "whitelist". They will still say "it's not enough" and will demand to remove all master / slave references and terminology in the kernel, which the maintainers know it isn't practical. You can ask yourself if this is realistic. I think you know the answer. This doesn't attack the problem and only airbrushes and ignores the root of it. There is no winning with moves like this.

fizixer 6y ago

What about service? [0] (related: to serve, to be a servant) (In case you don't see the Google box: Old English (denoting religious devotion or a form of liturgy), from Old French servise or Latin servitium ‘slavery’, from servus ‘slave’. The early sense of the verb (mid 19th century) was ‘be of service to, provide with a service’.) [0] https://www.google.com/search?q=service+etymology https://www.google.com/search?q=service+etymology

LockAndLol 6y ago

It seems like America has evolved into the STASI and is dragging everybody down with it. This isn't even a superficial fix, but pure symbolism that they are giving in to unspoken blackmail: access our terms or we'll cancel you. People now have to really watch out what they say publicly because otherwise somebody will doxx them for the mob to inflict their "justice" upon them. It's quite ironic that the SJWs are repeating all the mistakes "the other side" made. They're introducing their own version of thought crimes. I remember reading screenshots of 4chan imagining and ridiculing a world, where actions, words and symbols that had no offensive connotation, were forcefully given one and the repercussions thereof. Looks like they weren't too far off.

omani 6y ago

welcome orwell's newspeak.

rich_sasha 6y ago

At least this is a lot less insane than all the “Company XYZ renames everything in their existing products that people use every day”. If you say, “hey I don’t like this phrase, next time I’ll use a different one”, I can actually understand. I still think the big sed is, let’s say, misguided, but at least this version is not insane.

robalni 6y ago

I'm fine with changing a word if there is a good reason to. But I don't like this "wordophobia" where people are afraid of using words and we just keep adding new words that people can't use. It reminds me of the Harry Potter series where they always try to avoid saying the name of Voldemort. Don't be like that. I think we should all be like Harry Potter himself and not be afraid of using words, not even the ones that remind us of something bad (which I don't even think these words do).

kobalsky 6y ago
But in the end the name was really cursed and they got captured by saying it. I'm guessing that Dumbledore's dismissal was because if everyone said it, it would dilute its power, but that wouldn't work in this case!
- robalni 6y ago
  Yes, we should be happy as long as these words are not cursed.

chrismorgan 6y ago

I wonder how much outrage there would be (both in favour of and against!) regarding any proposal to remove the OOM killer’s tendencies to child sacrifice: Out of memory: Kill process 12345 (chromium) score 678 or sacrifice child The first time I encountered it in real life (I never set up any swap on my last laptop, and over a few years bust things up by running out of memory about three times) it made perfect sense and I saw nothing at all amiss with the message, but I know there are amusing tales of people being confused and perhaps even worried by it. After having discovered that, I know I rather like it.

mercer 6y ago
Yeah but there's no clear distinction between current-day groups when it comes to their views on child sacrifice (afaik). I, for one, would defend to the death the right to kill child processes or rail against at the very least anything beyond parent-child OO relationships, because I hate children and grandparents! forward slash "s".

mnm1 6y ago

"Slavs" literally means slaves. Clearly this is racist, they must all be racist, and they should change their name. At least by the stupid American standards of today. Frankly, I think the rest of the world is getting tired of Americans pushing their shitty stupid culture on everyone. Americans should be ashamed of their country now and especially in the past, but don't take it out on people who weren't involved and have no interest in this PC pseudo reparations bullshit. If Americans were really sorry and really intended to not be racist, they would pay out reparations with real fucking dollars. Or get rid of the drug war. Or get rid of qualified immunity and guns from most cops. In other words, they would do something to actually address the inequality instead of just pretending to. The people changing these words aren't anti-racist. They are complicit in keeping racism in play by pretending to do things that matter while doing completely irrelevant things that are easy and don't matter one bit. Not to mention the stupidity of the people initiating such agendas in the first place, thinking they will make a difference. Frankly, I expected better from Linus but it seems the shit American culture finally got to him.

dang 6y ago
Turning this into a nationalistic flamewar is arson on top of the fires that are already burning. Please don't post like this here. We've asked you before not to post flamebait. We ban accounts that keep doing it, and you've unfortunately been doing a lot of it lately. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful. Note this one: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
- mnm1 6y ago
  I didn't realize cultural criticism was not allowed.

bE9a3S5So8igd3 6y ago

Can't wait until they come for `server` They're really going to eliminate racism then!

stunt 6y ago

There are many studies that suggest our language does influence our culture. Perhaps the affect isn’t obvious to you like many other things that influence our culture. I don’t understand why some people are still so skeptical about this change. Some argue that we should instead fix bigger problems. Well let’s do that too. But it doesn’t mean that we can't or shouldn’t take small steps. Every small step can contribute. And we shouldn’t stop there.

unglaublich 6y ago

Ironic how aiming at being inclusive manifests itself so often as being exclusive.

tal8d 6y ago

Is this being recieved positively by those that actually write code, who aren't gripped by a white savior complex? Because it strikes me as patronizing, among other things. Do yourself a favor, lookup the origin of the word "slave". Now consider your emotional response in that light, and how these changes could only be motivated by a deeply held predjudice with regard to the alleged beneficiaries of this farce.