Linux Kernel Preparing New Guidelines For Using Inclusive Terminology

[89c51]

Those people are stupid there is no way around this. In a few years i expect noone would be able to buy black or white clothes because someone will think its racist.

And BTW. Hope none of those braindeads offended by words in a different context than that of humans ever gets interested in kinky activities like BDSM. He will be in for a surprice.

[MadCatX]

It's definitely a problem, but it put the game publisher in a no-win situation and was designed to cause exactly these sorts of debates.

If a bunch of Nazis can hijack an internet joke and coerce the entire nation to ban a perfectly okay symbol, it's the racists winning, not loosing.

Um, nobody is going to think that a trademarked term, being used by the rights owner since before it gained those connotations, is being used by the company to signal any such thing. It would really have to be pervasive, before MS would probably react.

Just as much as nobody thought that signing an OK on CoD was a nod to white supremacists, right? This was an obvious hyperbole but one can see _Alex_'s point.

[timrichardson]

Because we waste time doing nonsense like this?!

You say "we", implying you are a kernel developer. If you are a kernel developer, why are you complaining here? What open source projects do you contribute do? The kernel was a late-comer to the inclusive code of conduct movement; many other projects had already adopted them. I assume you disdain to contribute to projects that have such a a CoC, so what do you contribute do?

Back to the kernel: Get a lwn subscription and hang out with actual devs. Post your opinions there, and see what real kernel devs think of them. It's still a public forum, we can all be educated by the response you trigger, if you have enough credibility to deserve a reply.

Now, you know how you said "Ugh, I can't stop talking". Why don't you try? Just because you can post the same thing again and again doesn't mean you should. Your views (on this topic) are unoriginal, lack analysis, empathy and insight, and your opinion is irrelevant.

Were you one of the Phoronix mob who predicted that the CoC would be the end of the kernel? 5.8, the biggest kernel release in years with more developers than ever is a long, long time after that prediction was supposed to come true.

Oh, I am a CoC supporter : "...ugh, I'm not talking to you anymore. I won't talk to CoC (corru-*cough*) supporters.

[timrichardson]

If there is one constant in the universe that you can rely on, it is the obsession that Europeans have with their healthcare.

It's funny that you say that. There is one country where healthcare has been the subject of bitter dispute over three national elections, which divides the electorate, which pits state against state, where case after case goes to the Supreme Court, and that country is not in Europe. I don't think it is much of an issue in European elections.

[Old Grouch]

I see a minor problem with replacing blacklist with blocklist: it can be confused with blockchain. If possible, I would choose a different term that was not built up from a word with two significant technology related meanings:

block:

1) Prevent something from progressing.
2) An item from which other thing are built.

Perhaps an allowlist and a disallowlist, or allowlist and rejectlist. There are other antonyms for allow which do not have this ambiguity problem.

[sverris]

I do agree everyone's life matters, however I don't agree on political argument happen in tech space.

In tech most likely no one uses the terms in question with racist intentions, but inclusive terminology is not solely about intentions. It is also about the awareness that stereotypes and cliches live on unconsciously - in language, in traditions...

Ie a tradition:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwarte_Piet

People celebrating the 'Zwarte Piet' are most likely no racists, yet there is something odd about it if you learn where this tradition and its symbolic aspects come from.

So ie 'blacklist' - it is interesting to ask why 'black' was used to signify an exclusion...

And of course there is also the possibility that digging for hidden meaning in language gets absurd, because its symbolic aspects are extremely complex. On the other hand, you still have to dig, like you have to dig in history to uncover where certain traditions come from.

[peppercats]

I suggest banning all words that a cultural origination.
And by that, I mean all language. There, nobody will be offended anymore.

[_Alex_]

Um, nobody is going to think that a trademarked term, being used by the rights owner since before it gained those connotations, is being used by the company to signal any such thing. It would really have to be pervasive, before MS would probably react.

The OK symbol is similar. Its use as "OK" predates a very small minority like 0.00001% who might have made it as a trolling attempt to be something else. Still, 99.999% of the people are using it to say OK. So why should the 99.999% be penalized for some idiots?

So if we make thumbs up a symbol for white supremacy, then we'll mess up all the social media with the like button calling them racists

[Cybmax]

I had to check the date on the article, just to see if it was not 1st april...

It is not that it really matters if they spend countless hours on changing this in the kernel code, abi and whatnot, not to mention any breakage that will cause for any non-rolling distro that does not have daily package updates to accommodate this, it is that in my oppinion does not help ANYTHING other than to take things too far.

I mean, what if your car was impounded cos it was a black car? "Cant have black cars! Thats racist!" Where does it stop?

If you look for things that could possibly be non-inclusive, it will NEVER EVER stop. Burning childrens books cos it has images that could possibly be seen as racist. Should burn most of the history books too i guess, cos it actually contains stories about when things WERE racist! It will NEVER stop, and it does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AT ALL to help the issue.
Do anyone really believe that changing stuff like this contributes to racist biggots STOPP being racist? Really? If you truly and utterly hated "inferior races" or whatever crap excuse racist use to.... well.. be racist.. do you think that THEY care? "Omg.. this kernel update removes master/slave from the block-device code... Darn it.. now i dont feel as hateful to the black people anymore".

[sverris]

never in my life have i ever sat here and saw the word blacklist and thought of black people. ...[/I]

This is not solely about what you think when reading or using such a word. This is about what such words signify independently from intentions.