Linux Sound Subsystem Begins Cleaning Up Its Terminology To Meet Inclusive Guidelines

[Djhg2000]

Presumptions.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that they are; does that change the fact that it's an accurate description of what's happening?

Etymology is irrelevant to ESL.

History isn't irrelevant, but what does ESL even have to do with it?

Like I said, intuitive if you haven't grown up with the language.

Oh you think English is my native language? Här går du och snackar fördommar och sedan bara antar du att alla är dumma amerikanare, skäms på dig!

Lol. How is phrasing "Needs of the many"? This has zero negative impact, some positive impact, and is pretty low effort to implement.

Rewriting documentation and code to reflect API changes isn't zero impact. I don't know what magical dreamland you live in but writing technical documentation isn't easy to begin with and it's definitely not free for any companies affected by this change.

I have heavy criticism of identity politics and stuff... but that's basically 'cause it predisposes people to right-wing thinking, and pushes people to conform to what other people think they should be/do. But this change in terminology is of no concern.

But this is of great concern. Over the past few years politics has snuck into everything. It started with eliminating a few non-PC people, then came the CoC-fest, then eliminating a few more non-PC people, then going for the big fish like Torvalds and Stallman, and now this. Fuck political correctness in all aspects. We don't need it, we don't want it, and it's destroying communities. Whatever we give to the PC people they see as a sign that they can take more. This needs to stop, not be encouraged.

Also as I said before this results in a lot of technical documentation having to be updated. Someone has to do it and it doesn't matter what they think because this change comes from upstream, it's just pointless work for no benefit.

[1Samildanach]

Do you not think they have the right to be? So it's fine to be offended as long as you can use mental gymnastics to make it a racial issue, but when we're having a change forced upon us which actually has offensive implications for an entire industry then we're supposed to just shut up because we had it coming anyways, or what?

Presumptions.

In what world is "blacklist" a hard word? It has been in use since the 17th century and its more figurative predecessor "blackball" since the 16th century. If your language hasn't given you the conceptual tools to handle the meaning of a list with a negative criteria in that time then your language is probably struggling for survival anyway.

Etymology is irrelevant to ESL.

What could possibly be a side benefit of eliminating the words "blacklist" and "whitelist"? Do you have any idea how much work it takes to consistently change terminology in technical documentation?

Like I said, intuitive if you haven't grown up with the language.

And again the people stirring up a fuzz about blacklist and whitelist the the ones who "come across as a hand-wringing snowflake who chucks a tanty when his feelings are hurt", are you saying we should go with "no-one will listen to you if a wolf ever does rock up" on that as well? Because we clearly didn't and now the needs of the offended outweighs the need of the many.

Lol. How is phrasing "Needs of the many"? This has zero negative impact, some positive impact, and is pretty low effort to implement.

I have heavy criticism of identity politics and stuff... but that's basically 'cause it predisposes people to right-wing thinking, and pushes people to conform to what other people think they should be/do. But this change in terminology is of no concern.

[theriddick]

I'm predicting we will see allot of bug reports in the future of applications if we start changing all these things around. Some apps have got quite use to the naming conventions in place already, coming in and just wishy washy changing things because some (external & non-users) people feel upset about it all is not a logical thing to do!

[Djhg2000]

Summary of thread: Lots of people getting super triggered and acting emotionally.

Do you not think they have the right to be? So it's fine to be offended as long as you can use mental gymnastics to make it a racial issue, but when we're having a change forced upon us which actually has offensive implications for an entire industry then we're supposed to just shut up because we had it coming anyways, or what?

Allow/deny are more intuitive. Black/white are fine for native speakers (who are probably familiar with the terms) or translations (where it's changed anyway), but aren't the clearest of terms if you're dealing with a second language. And given that the code is usually standardised to English, any non-Aglophone coders will be forced to contend with English no matter their grasp of it.

In what world is "blacklist" a hard word? It has been in use since the 17th century and its more figurative predecessor "blackball" since the 16th century. If your language hasn't given you the conceptual tools to handle the meaning of a list with a negative criteria in that time then your language is probably struggling for survival anyway.

Just wait until you figure out you'll need to also need to "contend" with C to make most meaningful contributions to the Linux kernel.

But you're free to burst into tears when people propose things that are objectively inoffensive and have side benefits. It's just that you come across as a hand-wringing snowflake who chucks a tanty when his feelings are hurt, and no-one will listen to you if a wolf ever does rock up.

What could possibly be a side benefit of eliminating the words "blacklist" and "whitelist"? Do you have any idea how much work it takes to consistently change terminology in technical documentation?

And again the people stirring up a fuzz about blacklist and whitelist the the ones who "come across as a hand-wringing snowflake who chucks a tanty when his feelings are hurt", are you saying we should go with "no-one will listen to you if a wolf ever does rock up" on that as well? Because we clearly didn't and now the needs of the offended outweighs the need of the many.

[1Samildanach]

Summary of thread: Lots of people getting super triggered and acting emotionally.

Allow/deny are more intuitive. Black/white are fine for native speakers (who are probably familiar with the terms) or translations (where it's changed anyway), but aren't the clearest of terms if you're dealing with a second language. And given that the code is usually standardised to English, any non-Aglophone coders will be forced to contend with English no matter their grasp of it.

But you're free to burst into tears when people propose things that are objectively inoffensive and have side benefits. It's just that you come across as a hand-wringing snowflake who chucks a tanty when his feelings are hurt, and no-one will listen to you if a wolf ever does rock up.

[Djhg2000]

This is just too insane for me to leave it alone.

Err, actually, that's not even close to the definition of the meme.. And, both of your arguments revolved around the term "SJW", which is also a meme...

"SJW" isn't a meme, it's a term for people who spend their time trying to improve society by punishing whatever they perceive as "oppression". As a rule of thumb their efforts are disproportionate and misguided. A lot of the time they just make things worse by attaching whatever horrible meaning they can conjure up to completely unrelated things. They also tend to attack persons through someone in an authoritatively superior position, such as their boss or family members (much like mobsters do in movies).

He's complaining about policies which actually don't affect him at all, and demanding they change it.. Like walking into a Supermarket and shouting at the staff because he doesn't like the store logo (like a typical Karen). Nobody is forcing him to use Linux, and he is welcome to revert the patches (they're very simple patches)...

He has contributed to the kernel and you still maintain it won't affect him? So you're just going to ignore the brick wall your argument just hit and keep pushing?

IF you read the article, you'll find a link to the patch-set, and you'll agree immediately. You're literally turning a small naming change designed to improve the community, into some weird American political thing. If you seriously think it's some left wing conspiracy, then, I'd suggest you need to go on holiday, so you can put things back into perspective..

Lots of things have been done through the course of history to "improve the community". Take for example an energetic young man who built houses for minorities, wanted to raise the life quality of every citizen by making affordable cars, propel science to heights never seen before, make sure the people he cared about lives as long and as healthily as possible, he was against the use of drugs, etc. His name was Hitler and he committed some of the worst crimes in the modern age, but to him he only had good intentions.

As a side note, it's not turning it into "some weird American political thing". The line of thinking pretty much isolated to the US and closely following countries.

If he's not willing to maintain a code-set to revert the changes (which would be EASY), it firmly proves that the changes don't impact him negatively in any way, and his reasoning is wrong and the effect of the changes on him personally are exaggerated.

Yeah just fork the kernel, it's easy. Or actually, why don't the people offended by arbitrary linguistical misconceptions fork the kernel then, hmm?

Furthermore, if you ignore the politics, Denylist/Allowlist are far more suitable terms anyway (blacklist/whitelist wouldn't literally translate well to many other languages).

I can't speak for every language of course, but blacklist and whitelist have been in use long enough for translations to not be a real issue. We're not inventing new terms here, blacklist and whitelist have been in use for centuries. One of the first (and therefore fundamentally defining) uses of blacklist was the term for a list of names of people to execute in vengeance. So, if you imply that blacklists are racist then you have somehow made the connection which implies that people of a certain race should be executed because they have wronged you. How does that make you, or anyone else associating the word "blacklist" with skin color, any better than the genocidal maniacs residing in our history books? Did you ever even care to read one?

The "black" in "blacklist" and "white" in "whitelist" have nothing to do with skin color, it refers to "negative" or "positive" (or in the case of that early use of blacklist, "wanted dead"). This in turn was preceded by the term "blackball", where one would vote with a black ball into a voting container representing a negative vote (or a white ball representing a positive vote). Just like how "black death" doesn't refer to skin color, it is a literal translation from Danish where "black" referred to it being depressing.

I'm not a particularly sensitive person but the level of malicious association and playing the devils advocate done in an effort to destroy the term blacklist is genuinely making me feel sick. You people disgust me.

[lowflyer]

We've veered off the original topic quite a bit. Normally I would just remain quiet in such a case. But seeing that the discussion has already turned quite political I think I can continue with an answer.
Let me address your points:

Naming someone as an enemy is to dehumanise them (they are no longer a person, they are the enemy)

To equalize "name the enemy" with "dehumanizing them" is quite a hyperbole. You are effectively redefining terms. This is what cult leaders do to extort control over "the sheep" by controlling their language. It's one of the tools described in "Rules for Radicals".

Using the correct names is vital if we want to have a fruitful conversation. Putting a label on someone does not remove personhood from them, it helps to understand them. Pointing out who or what the enemy is, is of vital importance as ignorance can lead to destruction.

because we, as the human race, do not like doing bad things to people,

Well, how many of the "human race" do you actually know? Ignorance? Communism is *very happy* to kill anybody that stands in its way.

because enemies must be destroyed!

The hyperbole again. This is only true in war or "open conflict". In any other case it is absolutely not true. You saying that implies that we are already at war. - Not my opinion, but I question yours.

Also, your use of communism implies you believe it is a big bad thing. In and of itself it is not inherently bad - it's just another way that people can work together

Yes. communism is a very bad thing. Not just by my own belief. Are you ignorant of the millions that were killed in Russia, the millions in China, the millions that were killed by Pol Pot? In Venezuela you see a live "working" example. Communism as a whole turned out to be a lot worse than any armed conflict that humanity had in its history.

Some say that "the idea of communism is not bad". I even disagree with that. Communism is based on envy. It always compares. The "classes", the "establishment". "capitalism" vs. "communism" etc. It always needs to divide. It always assumes that "it" (the communism) knows everything better than others.

(capitalism being another that I believe you are quite partial to).

You label me a capitalist? Is it OK when you do it but not when I do it?

As I said above, communism always tries to divide. You have to label me with something bad because I disagree with you. Am I a capitalist? Can a person like me be a capitalist? Do you know me? Do you know what a capitalist is? Can you define the term correctly? As above: you believe you know me better than I know myself.

Specific implementations of these systems however may be the what you are railing against.

Name me one country where communism has actually worked. And not resulted in killing hundreds of thousands of people.

I implore you to take a step back from the edge and try to understand why people are doing things the way they are. Sometimes it is just stupid. othertimes there are much deeper meanings

You don't know me. You would not believe how far I am from the edge. I see myself in the position of John Galt.

[[TV]]

No, PulseAudio can sit on top of OSS. ALSA has a built-in mixer (although this wasn't always the case) but PulseAudio is more than just a mixer. You can use both OSS and ALSA without PulseAudio, but you cannot use PulseAudio without OSS or ALSA.

Yes. That's why I said nearest. Yeah, I probably should have also quoted the earlier poster to get better context.

[arQon]

Next time perhaps get rid of "input/output", because the jacks look "similar" to human reproduction. (sarcasm)

You think you're joking, but you aren't: I remember some time ago there was a woke rant about male/female connectors and how that was somehow Evil Patriarchical Suppression or whatever, and they needed to be called something else instead (I can't remember what: it was too stupid to stick in my head). There's just no end to this pettiness.

[Auzy]

I know using memes is easy because you don't need to have logical arguments anymore and you can ridiculous people without much effort, but I don't see how it fitt.

Because you ask if he or she, he sended patches to kernel or talks here so 99% it's a he, want's to talk to a manager, which A would not be possibel and B he not asked that. So you put in his mouth that he wants to get somebody fired, while obviously it's the opposite such speech policing and other SJW crap tries to cancel people and get them fired.

Not to mention that as male he is basically out of the definition of Karen:

1. he is a male
2. he says the opposite of what media pumps in her.
3. he is pretty much against the left wing authoritarian movement.

While SJW often try to get people canceled, one of the last victims of this Karens was Richard Stallman. So if you don't want the mainstream SJW with much power to have the power to fire / cancel people and force them to do stupid shit by thread of cancellation you are fighting against karens. Especially when most of the SJWs are female and therefor fill also that checkbox of karen.

Err, actually, that's not even close to the definition of the meme.. And, both of your arguments revolved around the term "SJW", which is also a meme...

He's complaining about policies which actually don't affect him at all, and demanding they change it.. Like walking into a Supermarket and shouting at the staff because he doesn't like the store logo (like a typical Karen). Nobody is forcing him to use Linux, and he is welcome to revert the patches (they're very simple patches)...

IF you read the article, you'll find a link to the patch-set, and you'll agree immediately. You're literally turning a small naming change designed to improve the community, into some weird American political thing. If you seriously think it's some left wing conspiracy, then, I'd suggest you need to go on holiday, so you can put things back into perspective..

If he's not willing to maintain a code-set to revert the changes (which would be EASY), it firmly proves that the changes don't impact him negatively in any way, and his reasoning is wrong and the effect of the changes on him personally are exaggerated.

Furthermore, if you ignore the politics, Denylist/Allowlist are far more suitable terms anyway (blacklist/whitelist wouldn't literally translate well to many other languages).