Linux 5.8 Formally Adds The Inclusive Terminology Guidelines

[Ignacio Taranto]

Wait? Are they removing the word "master" even when it's not paired with "slave"?

[Ignacio Taranto]

There is nothing wrong with the word 'master'. It's used all over the place to good effect, describing a high level of competence in a craft, who is in charge of a situation, etc. Many people, including those with dark skin, have a 'Master's Degree' and are quite possibly proud of it. I suspect that 90% of the world's population doesn't know or give a damn about the word's appropriation by old American slavers. They should once again tell Americans to get over themselves and that their personal experience is not the end all and be all of human existance. There haven't been any slave 'masters' for over 150 years anyway, so why that reference is informing current discourse is a question with no satisfying answer. Kernel developers, some of whom likely hold Master's Degrees themselves, should oppose this false attribution.

Slave on the other hand is always paired with Master and that combination does directly reference human slavery (though not necessarily racism).

Blocklist is nice and descriptive, but it is important to acknowledge that the complaints about whitelist and blacklist are wrong. The origins of blacklist have nothing to do with the later, disproven pseudoscientific theory of 'race'. Many lightskinned people have been 'blacklisted' or 'blackballed' and no one thought anything about it when McCarthyists were blacklisting large numbers of 'white' people at the same time the Civil Rights movement was beginning in the United States.

Personally I support that slave can go. Removing master is actively stupid. Whitelist and blacklist could be replaced with less disruption, but the effort against them is a false flag attack by Social Justice Warriors and is therefore tantamount to lying. If you lie in your code, it either works poorly, or doesn't work at all. If you lie in your Code of Conduct...

You sir, are completely logical and reasonable, something that seems to be missing this days...

[microcode]

The blacklist thing is so ridiculous, what kind of racist is thinking of skin colour when they hear this word?

WTF.

You worms in the kernel community, and in your enterprises, it's only going to get worse.
Every time you say nothing, you get a step closer to an authoritarian nightmare, and those of us stood against it will remember your cowardice this time.

[microcode]

Wait? Are they removing the word "master" even when it's not paired with "slave"?

Master has other senses, like master records, master's degree, and similar; but given the other ridiculous things in there I'm surprised they didn't do that too.

[microcode]

East Asian people like myself are neither BLACK, nor WHITE. "Inclusion" is the current fashion trend. Can we be included, please, Master?

Out of personal respect, I have set aside a yellowlist keyword so I can apologize for it in a fit of self-satisfied masochism in the future. I've been a bad bad boy.

[lowflyer]

Cool story bro. Even cooler that you started using an OS in 1990 which had its first release in 1991...

Nit picker! Anything is right to shoot down an inconvenient argument.

[lowflyer]

Well, this change is only for new code (at least, so far). So you could fork linux, and just apply all the security updates yourself. I think you had better do that for your web browser too, since Firefox and Chromium are a lay-down misère to do this too, if not already. Lucky, of course, that you don't use python.

Have a brief look at the gay movement. It will not remain at "only for new code". A fork is not necessary there are still alternatives out there. I've done that already for firefox, chromium, pythong and a few other projects.

[Iksf]

Nice thread of snowflakes getting triggered over words.

[Iksf]

i know. can't believe intel's Dan Williams who started this got triggered over words. followed by Stephen Hemminger of microsoft, Theodore Ts'o of google, Shuah Khan of samsung, Dan Carpenter of oracle, Kees Cook of google, Olof Johansson of tesla, and Chris Mason of facebook where the ones who pushed for it and signed off for it. with only Jonathan Corbet of lwn.net and Greg Kroah-Hartman of linux foundation being the only non corporate individuals who too got triggered by words that signed off for it. amazing how people get triggered by words and want to go on a ban spree.

Said parties responded to the current BLM protests by trying to show some empathy to that movement. In response this community is 10 pages of vitriol. Best and worst case scenario this is a meaningless change because its so pointless and unimportant. Can we stop trying to start a "Culture war" in our own communities. There's no need for either side of the argument to get so emotional. It's just naming conventions. The response to this change has been hysterical and has immediately dissolved into lunacy conspiracy theories and hate directed towards the Linux developers and maintainers (the guys who do all the damn work we all benefit from).

[ossuser]

I agree with most of what you were saying, but quit being retarded during a fucking global pandemic. Put on your goddamn mask step away.

You might want to ask your CDC for the scientific report that proves that SARS-COV-2 is a proven pathogen that actually causes a disease.
Because as far as I know it has not been isolated, so what is it, and what is being tested against ?

It might even have been an 'oops' in the flushot (check for instance the sysmptoms and complications for H1N1 ?).

As I said, inform yourself, and go do your homework, grasshopper ;-)