IBM, Red Hat, VMware & Others Form The Inclusive Naming Initiative

[andyprough]

I am well aware, but in the context of this initiative they are listed individually.

Maybe "IBM and IBM subsidiary RedHat", or some such language? And honestly, VMware has been openly acknowledged as a " strategic partner" of IBM since its inception, and probably would not exist all these years without being sold as part of IBM services. This announcement is nothing more than a George Bush type "coalition of the willing" dreamed up by the IBM PR department to score themselves wokeness points.

[L_A_G]

Ah yes... IBM, Redhat & Co truly are focusing on the big problems of the world. How brave and stunning!

Seriously thou, could they be showing off their white savior complexes any harder? Yes, we get it. You have a massive one and really need to show that you're a good boy, but making technical terminology less accurate by naming things like "master/slave" to "leader/follower" achieves nothing except makes language less precise and easy to understand. Particularly the change from "master/slave" to "leader/follower" is a bad one as unlike a "master", a "leader" does do part of the work and takes genuine input from the "followers".

Best replacement I can come up with where nothing is lost in the "political correction" is changing it to "dom/sub", but replacing it with BDSM terminology is it's own can of worms. We are after all talking about IBM, a company who thought the name of the "Deep Thought" chess computer was too close to "Deep Throat" and forced it's creators to rename it "Deep Blue". I really wish I was kidding about that, but they actually thought the clear as daylight Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference would be misinterpreted as a reference to the name of a porn film.

So considering it, this unfortunately isn't without precedent and was probably to be expected.

[boboviz]

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.” - Albert Einstein

[szymon_g]

Meanwhile for years Linux DE (kde and gnome fir sure) cannot delete file off the USB stick properly, but at least there will be no "master" word in the source code. Priorities

[f0rmat]

But what I have experienced is like "learning the sense" of this words. Once you start to take part in US culture (as I'm doing now more or less) and reading about the culture you understand and you start "to feel" that some words can be seen controversial even if you have never felt/sensed them as problematic before in the past because there was never any bad association adherent. It is weird.. Not sure if this is good to be honest...because it makes prior neutral terms to something which is now biased/afflicted.

This is my second time living in Germany - and I understand what you are saying. The first time I lived in the Rheinland-Pfalz in the Hunsruck Mountain area now I live in the Oberpfalz of Bayern. I have found throughout out my travels that the many places in German consider many of the Pfalz regions to be the "redneck" area of Germany - I do not know much German, but the dialect is definitely different (particularly in the Oberpfalz) than it is in Hess, Rheinland-Nord, Saarland, or even Baden-Wurttemberg. Or even in the cities in the Pfalz like Kaisreslautern, Munchin, and Regensburg.

I did learn though that though "housewife" translates to "hausfrau" that you, under the pain of physical violence, NEVER call a married German woman a "hausfrau." Maybe that is just a Pfalz (Rheinland-Pfalz and/or Oberpfalz) thing.

[MadCatX]

The argument you're making is "because we can't be perfect now we shouldn't do anything now". The simple fact is that had these terminologies been invented by people of color we would absolutely never have had a 'master/slave' terminology in computing. Does that mean the people who invented those terms were necessarily bad people? no. But it also doesn't mean we have to just accept those terms forever. It costs very little, except for these kinds of weird arguments online, and it can potentially help make the tech industry easier to navigate for a large groups of people.

People of color should be more offended by the fact that their distant relatives are slaving away in sweatshops used by western companies for a daily salary that would barely buy you a soda in the west. It sure does offend me.

What if it doesn't actually help? Then we will try different things. Society evolves. It's fine.

Yeah, let's do something hypocritical and quite questionable. Who cares that it involves introduction of a de-facto censorship, right?

[Mez']

Another reason not to use Red Hat or Fedora. Their intolerance towards other visions, yet again. You can only do what they allow you in their allmightyness.

Yesterday, I was watching a football game (the real worldwide football). Before blowing the whistle, they all kneeled and raised their fist.
I was wondering at which point it's going to become a racist bias in favour of blacks when it's done at every game. When will that salute start being considered for what it is, racism (bias towards blacks)?
The more we talk about skin colors, the more it creates a difference and a segregation rather than not mentioning colors at all (since it's really not supposed to matter, and I personally don't even pay attention anymore).

Same with feminism, at which point is it going to start being sexist since the real goal should be equalitarianism, not feminism.

I'm really sick of those politically correct morons overreacting to anything these days. Being against racism or against women inequalities (that are not genetic) isn't overreacting, so that I'm clear. The way you express them and to what extent you want to overturn them can be if no limits are imposed at some point when parity is reached. But I'm not sure anymore parity or equality is the actual goal.
I'll stop making jokes about how livid white some people are and how they can't take the sun without going lobster (red burn) then. I don't see the point of making fun of myself if I can't make fun of others. What a sad sad world it has become with social networks and minorities dictating how majorities should feel and what they should do.

[Mez']

This is a very american List

Me german.
My association Master/Slave is not directly associated with racist segregation of US Citizen until the 1960 and the ongoing systematic discrimination of people of colour more like the Greek guy on the ancient galley filled with greeks drumming the pace. (still slavery but it is less of political concern and insulting someone)..I have had this in the past when i have heard the first time of this term in the context of a master/slave IC chip in a I2C Clock signal configuration.
The term Racism in germany is not so much related to slavery more to the general concept of discrimination of people of foreign origin or of different religion.

But on the other hand.
"Leader Branch" is for me (most likely a lot of germans too) a no-go because of Führer=Leader ... (if one is not having an association already ..Hitler is meant)

At the end if people feel less insulted by this new name scheme it is fine for me.
But this list is very american and might be less problematic or more problematic in other Countries/Cultures.
An Universal list will not be possible unless we replace the terms with hashs not including sacred or demonic numbers....here we go again

If we had to remove every generic word that has some connotation because of a bad figure in history, we wouldn't have many left to use. Maybe we should start by banning Apple. For creationists, It's like the first evil word there is, and it might offend millions of christians around the globe.

Black/white list goes back to the earliest of fears (and religions). Day and Night. Sunlight and Darkness. Daylight is seeing the world, knowledge, and warmth. For the night is dark and full of terrors.

Coincidentally, funnily, that's why red and fire have negative meanings in western societies -- what was good with the old religions became bad with the new religions.

Everything is offensive at one point or another as the wheel of time moves onward. If it isn't offensive today, give the wheel some time and it'll roll somewhere else; something will become less offensive while something else becomes more offensive.

Exactly, plus you have to be kind of an obsessive moron to associate and confuse basic colors in their generic meaning to people and their skin. If you are hurt by the use of these words, you might pay a bit too much attention to this skin color difference thing if you know what I mean.

[TMM_]

People of color should be more offended by the fact that their distant relatives are slaving away in sweatshops used by western companies for a daily salary that would barely buy you a soda in the west. It sure does offend me.

That's a super trite, and frankly boring, example. The argument is 'because there are bigger problems as well we can't look at the smaller problems'. It's not useful. At worst it makes this problem more visible and talked about. Nothing is lost by using more inclusive language. Nobody is suggesting to change terminology instead of working to better the lives of people in those conditions. You just don't want this language changed.

Yeah, let's do something hypocritical and quite questionable. Who cares that it involves introduction of a de-facto censorship, right?

Nobody is censoring anything. A group of companies and individuals are using their speech to be more inclusive. You're welcome to keep using the old terminology in all of your projects. You're trying to stop them from doing that. Who exactly is being censored here? You can fork all the software you like and restore these oh-so important names if you'd like. You can make your whole Linux distro entirely free of inclusive language.

You just can't do it in communities that decided they didn't want that any longer. And if you feel that these changes are only for a fringe start your own! Prove everyone wrong! Show the technical superiority of archaic terminology. Literally nobody is stopping you.

[CochainComplex]

This is my second time living in Germany - and I understand what you are saying. The first time I lived in the Rheinland-Pfalz in the Hunsruck Mountain area now I live in the Oberpfalz of Bayern. I have found throughout out my travels that the many places in German consider many of the Pfalz regions to be the "redneck" area of Germany - I do not know much German, but the dialect is definitely different (particularly in the Oberpfalz) than it is in Hess, Rheinland-Nord, Saarland, or even Baden-Wurttemberg. Or even in the cities in the Pfalz like Kaisreslautern, Munchin, and Regensburg.

I did learn though that though "housewife" translates to "hausfrau" that you, under the pain of physical violence, NEVER call a married German woman a "hausfrau." Maybe that is just a Pfalz (Rheinland-Pfalz and/or Oberpfalz) thing.

I was born in Rheinland-Pfalz so I can speak that dialect very good. But yes I consider this dialect and some folks as quite redneckish. Your discription is very accurate ..I love to impersonate those rednecks. I'm assuming you might have been in the area of Kaiserslautern - a lot of hill billies there

btw fun fact it is almost Pennsilvania Deitsch. the majority of the former immigrants were of "rheinland-pfalz" origin and their german sounds like an altered version with a strong american accent.

it is interesting to hear that you have also experienced the word/term "affliction" the other way around. Hausfrau is considered as you have described it in whole germany. Modern women see it as term of old days and as a symbol of old fashion suppression by males.