
Linux 5.8 Formally Adds the Inclusive Terminology Guidelines - caution
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-5.8-Inclusive-Terminology
======
KaiserPro
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.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
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
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
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
> Then they will finally know peace.

No one's claiming that.

------
curiousgal
<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>

~~~
lucideer
> _like yeah, the only reason I don 't commit to the Linux kernel is because
> of the presence of words such as master/slave..._

I'm not certain about this but personally I don't think this is the intent.

I see two big benefits of these big language changes:

1\. Much of anti-black racism in history has been accompanied by associations
of skin colour to other unrelated elements based on their "illumination".
Negative associations have been highlighted by virtue of the darkness and
unilluminated things in general being traditionally considered negative.

So the original meaning or intent of blacklist/whitelist doesn't need to have
been race-related for it to reinforce the idea of black=negative &
white=positive. This is an association that's as natural as kids being afraid
of the dark, but an association that is helpful for us to subvert and overcome
as adults (for a plethora of reasons, one of those being to do with race)

Having discussions about language and naming things helps with that
subversion.

2\. In my case, as I work for a company that is bringing in these name changes
internally, I've found this a curious and positive rare opportunity to discuss
& hear team members' views on this issue. It's not the type of topic that
would normally be easy to bring up in a corporate environment and this makes
it natural and "safe" to do so in a not-combative way.

~~~
scrollaway
Normally I'd call reductio ad absurdum but we're pretty much already there.

This idea that dark is negative is kind of silly. Things that are done in the
shadows tend to be referred to as black, such as a black market. You want to
call it a shadow market? (And don't get me wrong that sounds cool as hell, but
also, wtf)

Look at the positives instead, unless the color is the problem in which case
your accountants I'm sure will be overjoyed to hear that they should no longer
say the company is "in the black" either.

I don't mean this to sound combative but rather simply make you think about
what it is that time is being spent on.

Remember that whenever this particular change is brought up, whenever people
talk about it, all the energy being expended on it etc. It all draws away from
much more important business such as the George Floyd protests.

Black lives matter. This doesn't.

~~~
hrktb
We have a ton of these connotations:

\- left/sinister is negative compared to right

\- low is negative compared to high (“moral highground”)

\- south is negative compared to north (“things going south lately”)

Regardless of neutral usages of these words, or their factual meaning, we
should acknowledge the more connotated meaning are not completely separate,
and bleed on the other uses of the words.

It doesn’t mean they can’t be used with their actual meaning, but I think we
should be open to the risk we’d need to stop using them in context where the
connotations bleed too strong.

And I guess we reached that point for white/black/dark.

------
robalni
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
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
Yes, we should be happy as long as these words are not cursed.

------
sillysaurusx
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?

~~~
pjc50
I'm reminded of something a moderator of a Twitch channel said recently: they
had a policy of banning people for complaining about "pronouns".

For the first few weeks this resulted in a lot of fights, but after that the
moderation load as a whole was much lower. In effect, they'd found a means for
flushing out those who liked provoking others and a clear rule to ban them
with. There isn't a large number of such people, they're a tiny but very loud
minority.

Codes of conduct have a similar effect. Someone who complains about the mere
existence of a code of conduct is pre-announcing that they like annoying or
upsetting other people.

~~~
PostOnce
And having a code of conduct is a sign that this place is so terrible so
regularly that it needs a code of conduct to get people to be civil to each
other.

OR, everyone in power is a satirical HOA tyrant type character whose primary
hobby is rule-making.

Either way, code of conduct is also generally code for grumpy and to be
avoided, lest your time there be spent in moral lectures and petty arguments
instead of on whatever the ostensible topic is.

I try to go places where people get along without a codified list of civil
behaviors, because then I know I'm in the company of adults.

~~~
Huggernaut
More likely the uncivil behaviours go unnoticed by you.

~~~
nyberg
This kind of thing is what I see all the time and it's just exhausting at this
point. One is always apparently blind as quick as they present a view of
things not always being so bad without a legal document to direct behaviour.
It's the assumption that people are barbarians by default and need to be
herded like cattle rather than the possibility of them having some decency at
all that I find the most saddening. You can have a welcoming and inclusive
community without such a document and having one doesn't make you much more
inclusive as it's people rather than the document that provide what you're
asking for.

Trust until broken and gratitude for upholding good values is the path to a
better community along with giving a chance to do better. Quick punishment
only leaves a sour taste for everyone.

Also, a good rule is to wait 5-10 minutes or more and see if what you've
written aligns with what and how you want to say it or at least expanding on
your point a bit further to avoid being misinterpreted.

------
chrismorgan
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
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".

------
rvz
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.

------
0xy
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
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
We can’t do nothing until we have a fix for everything.

And we can’t stop changing because we can’t change everything.

------
tal8d
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.

------
stunt
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.

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

~~~
raspyberr
Because I don't believe in the reason for doing so.

------
rich_sasha
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.

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

------
omani
welcome orwell's newspeak.

------
kartoshechka
cool, now show me race demographic of linux contributors

------
stblack
'denylist / allowlist' makes normative presumptions about privilege, thereby
creating an unsafe space.

All our lists should be inclusive.

------
aboringusername
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).

~~~
viraptor
> 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.

------
nicc
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.

~~~
williamdclt
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
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).

------
not_the_fda
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
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.

------
bE9a3S5So8igd3
Can't wait until they come for `server`

They're _really_ going to eliminate racism then!

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

------
sunseb
The night is dark as opposed to daylight.

This is racist.

Do you have a plan to change that already?

------
fizixer
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)

