
GitHub to replace “master” with alternative term to avoid slavery references - theBashShell
https://www.zdnet.com/article/github-to-replace-master-with-alternative-term-to-avoid-slavery-references/#ftag=RSSbaffb68
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KYXanhZA
How far can we take it? Can we ask CEO Nat Friedman to rename himself to Nat
Peaceman, because Milton Friedman allegedly had close ties to Chile at the
wrong time?

People can be triggered by that name, and dual meanings obviously do no longer
exist.

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linsomniac
Back in the mid '90s we went through this, primarily with the IDE
specification. Master/slave was renamed "Device 0, Device 1" to break the
association with slavery.

Perhaps there's some better nomenclature that people will really connect with
to prevent this from resurfacing again?

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ian-g
I like primary/replica as a base replacement

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steve_taylor
Will they stop accepting MasterCard?

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Minor49er
I guess the change is unnecessary because it never referenced human slavery to
begin with

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rodw
Whether or not the etymology of the term is derogatory or racially insensitive
is missing the point.

The point is that some words are particularly emotionally charged for some
readers. In this case that's not irrational, and rational or not, in this case
that's probably observable.

In the context of technical writing and source code, there's no particularly
good reason to use a term that makes a sizable chunk of the readers
uncomfortable.

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valand
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23500093](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23500093)

