The Open-Source / Linux Highlights From OSTS 2019

[phoronix]

Phoronix: The Open-Source / Linux Highlights From OSTS 2019

We've had a number of articles covering the interesting news out of Intel's 2019 Open-Source Technology Summit (OSTS) held at Skamania Lodge in Stevenson, Washington. Here's a look back at the news out of the open-source event as well as some other smaller bits of information shared during the event...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=OSTS-2019-Highlights

[tildearrow]

There was also a call for removing terms like whitelist/blacklist and master/slave, among other steps, to help with inclusivity and making open-source more welcoming.

What a joke. People must be aware these are often-employed technical terms and have nothing to do with slavery or races!

Anyone who is offended by these terms is simply stupid.

[schmidtbag]

I'm glad to see Intel finally giving a damn about their SoC audio drivers. The Clear Linux boot times seem very interesting, though I'm not too sure how they intend to pull that off. Boot times tend to be more bottlenecked by the disk than the CPU; not a whole lot you can do to optimize that.
Very weird to see MS acknowledge Linux's performance with Azure. It's one thing to have Linux support but not sure why they would openly admit to it running better.

What a joke. People must be aware these are often-employed technical terms and have nothing to do with slavery or races!

Anyone who is offended by these terms is simply stupid.

I agree, especially whitelist and blacklist. I mean really, did whoever come up with this idea look up the etymology of blacklist? There is nothing about the word that even hints at being non-PC. Whitelist basically became an antonym, and as such, was a fitting word that was easy to understand.

As for master/slave, although it was obviously never intended to be offensive, the terms have largely become irrelevant, so why bring them up? When it comes to hardware, attempting to change the terms is just going to cause confusion. Though, I never really understood why those terms were ever chosen in the first place.

I'm a little surprised they didn't get all huffy about male/female connectors.

[starshipeleven]

Though, I never really understood why those terms were ever chosen in the first place.

Master/slave devices are called like that because their relationship is exactly like that.

Master sends commands, slave executes them.

Some applications use the terms interchangeably with client/server, but that only causes confusion.
Client/server relationship is not the same (i.e. the client can request things to the server but it's the server that decides what the client can or cannot do, which is the opposite of what happens in a master/slave system)

Also "servomotors" are on the same boat, that's the name for any motor capable of accurate position movement (rotation) that is always paired with a master system. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/servomotor
"servo" comes from the latin word for "slave", and is used because the system's entire point is acting as slave in a master-slave system.

I'm a little surprised they didn't get all huffy about male/female connectors.

While I did joke about that in the past, that's not the same thing.

Having a "male-looking" connector called "male" is completely tangential to the existence of other genders. Most people in that scene want to add genders to the list, not remove the ones we already have.

[Vistaus]

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/servomotor
"servo" comes from the latin word for "slave"

Mozilla's gonna have a hard time then promoting their Servo browser engine if people are offended by the use of "slave" terms.

Having a "male-looking" connector called "male" is completely tangential to the existence of other genders. Most people in that scene want to add genders to the list, not remove the ones we already have.

How about a transgender connector?

[schmidtbag]

Master/slave devices are called like that because their relationship is exactly like that.

Master sends commands, slave executes them.

I was thinking more along the lines of stuff like ATA, where you have a master and slave drive. To my recollection, there was nothing especially noteworthy about which slot you put it in, just that in most (though I don't think all) cases, you at least needed a master drive. In other words, there was nothing especially slave-like of the slave drive, in comparison to the master.
I do take your other points, and I do feel the term "master" makes sense in a lot of contexts, where there isn't really a better word for it. Slave, on the other hand, is a very anthropomorphic term. More often than not, I've found "slave" could be replaced with a word with a more accurate definition, such as subordinate or secondary. So, I always felt the term "slave" was weird, not because of any ethical or racist connotations, but because it didn't feel like the best term to use.

While I did joke about that in the past, that's not the same thing.

Having a "male-looking" connector called "male" is completely tangential to the existence of other genders. Most people in that scene want to add genders to the list, not remove the ones we already have.

I see what you're saying but I was more speaking along the lines of them wanting to avoid assuming one's gender, even for an inanimate object (and I mostly meant that as a joke).

[tildearrow]

How about a transgender connector?

Male-to-female or female-to-male converters do exist.

Also, if you mean converting a cable to another gender, then yes, it is possible.

[tildearrow]

I'm a little surprised they didn't get all huffy about male/female connectors.

That's because even if they were to change the terms the connectors would still be displaying an analogy to the animal reproduction method.
Even if they try to get rid of these connectors, the cables are already there.

[starshipeleven]

I was thinking more along the lines of stuff like ATA, where you have a master and slave drive.

The old IDE master/slave thing was because you could have 2 devices sharing the same electrical ribbon cable. Also the floppy ribbon was like that afaik.

So you had to define one as the "master". The master was the one coordinating the actual data transmission on the cable, while the slave was giving control of its bus to the master device. Again a perfectly legal use of the terminology.

Sata (in a completely unexpected plot twist) does not allow you to share 2 devices on the same cable, so does away with all this annoyance (Sata port multipliers still count as a single device, drives downstream are still connected each to a single sata port of the port multiplier)

[starshipeleven]

How about a transgender connector?

It's a concept that makes no sense. A connector that cannot physically mate with a connector of the opposite gender is not a connector at all.

You can have no gender in your connectors, aka all connectors look the same. Say it's some kind of coupling where contacts of both sides are kept pressed together by a third thing, or magnets