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GitHub to replace “master” with alternative term to avoid slavery references

zdnet.com

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Re: GitHub to replace “master” with alternative term to avoid slavery references

#101

Post by weeboid »

exabrial wrote: post #59

We could have a bunch of reform: from reducing the police force size and budget, to removing pointless offenses ("no victim no crime"), to reduce interaction with police, to eliminating all government programs so to eliminate financial dependency on the government (create a toehold for systemic racism)... Yet, we're renaming git master to git main. The profound and widespread impact of this will surely sweep the nati…

Even incremental progress is progress. And sometimes, incremental progress can happen at such an obtuse angle that it becomes completely unmergeable back to `main`. But you can always point to the spirit of the branch.

Re: GitHub to replace “master” with alternative term to avoid slavery references

#102

Post by moritonal »

mirthflat83 wrote: post #13
mavhc wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes sense, better wording and less racist.

Nothing about those terms are racist. What’s next, renaming the color “black”?

Maybe it's work thinking about why the term "black" denotes not being able to do something.

Re: GitHub to replace “master” with alternative term to avoid slavery references

#103

Post by Wowfunhappy »

lallysingh wrote: post #12
mirthflat83 wrote: post #3

> but also terms like "blacklist" and "whitelist" for "allow list" and "deny/exclude list." Seriously?

Without the racist background, how does one know which list does which? The new names actually describe what they do. The reason it may seem ridiculous is that racism is very, very deep in American culture. The country's culture goes back hundreds of years and is still slowly working on being less so. Here's an example: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/05/11/310708342...

Black fabrics block light, white fabrics allow light.

A blacklist is a list of things that should be blocked. A whitelist is a list of things that should be allowed.

I never looked at the etymology, but this is how I always thought of it.

Re: GitHub to replace “master” with alternative term to avoid slavery references

#104

Post by libria »

drdeca wrote: post #55
waheoo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Black people = bad, white people = good. Rosstex posted a good explain below.

The explanation that Rosstex posted does not refer to “black” people, or to “white” people?

By "racist background" they mean "racist association". Perhaps it didn't start that way but due to history it can easily be twisted to be seen as offensive.

I can't tattoo a swastika on my arm, despite its origins.

Re: GitHub to replace “master” with alternative term to avoid slavery references

#105

Post by xixixao »

On the blacklist etc. issue, when you think about it it's actually the other way around. "black" was historically "bad" (not related to race), but it was super convenient that slaves had a darker skin that you could call "black", and things got blurred. No "white" people are actually white and no "black" people are actually black. "white" people are pinkish to light brownish and "black" people are light to dark brown. Of course it doesn't help that "dark" and "light" also have a value associated historically. This is a super unfortunate geo-graphical and historical coincidence that's gonna be hard to untangle (as in we probably can't disassociate the words from their pre-slavery historical meanings that are pretty universal, as in people are afraid when they can't see things -> night -> darkness -> black).

Re: GitHub to replace “master” with alternative term to avoid slavery references

#106

Post by tgv »

brenschluss wrote: post #91
waheoo wrote: post #37

How is master in terms of git racially charged? (The article doesnt explain) Its the master copy/record. Its not the same as like the db master slave which i totally think needs looking at.

https://twitter.com/tobie/status/1270290278029631489?s=21

First: that's just stringing assumptions together.

But etymology doesn't matter. If it would, "negro" wouldn't be a word to avoid. Actual use would matter, but the context doesn't seem to warrant that.

Re: GitHub to replace “master” with alternative term to avoid slavery references

#107

Post by [deleted] »

rosstex wrote: post #29
mirthflat83 wrote: post #3

> but also terms like "blacklist" and "whitelist" for "allow list" and "deny/exclude list." Seriously?

Some etymology: blacklist (n.) also black-list, "list of persons who have incurred suspicion, earned punishment, or are for any reason deemed objectionable by the makers and users of the list," 1610s, from black (adj.), here indicative of disgrace, censure, punishment (a sense attested from 1590s, in black book) + list (n.1). Specifically of employers' list of workers considered troublesome (usually for union activit…

[deleted]

Re: GitHub to replace “master” with alternative term to avoid slavery references

#108

Post by tchaffee »

mirthflat83 wrote: post #13
mavhc wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes sense, better wording and less racist.

Nothing about those terms are racist. What’s next, renaming the color “black”?

Using black to mean evil or bad in a modern workplace is a microagression and is racist. Microagressions are well studied and the evidence points to it resulting psychological damage [1] [2].

The term "blacklist" started more frequently occurring at the time of mass enslavement and forced deportation of Africans to work in European-held colonies in the Americas. So even the historical context does not support that the term is completely lacking of racist motives. If you are going to dehumanize and enslave an entire continent, it would certainly help your cause if their skin color continues to be associated with "evil".

Consider also that the Latin word "niger" had many of the same figurative senses ("gloomy; unlucky; bad, wicked, malicious") as black is often used to mean.

We don't need to rename the color black. What we do need to do is to stop using it to mean "bad" or "evil" and using white to mean "good" when there are actually far better and clearer words. Denylist says exactly what it does. Blacklist far less so, unless we are happy with continuing to use the word "black" to mean "evil". I leave it up to the reader to decide how it might psychologically affect someone if their skin color also means evil, and they are reminded of this on a regular basis by words used at work.

[1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/174569161982749...

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6148600/

Re: GitHub to replace “master” with alternative term to avoid slavery references

#109

Post by [deleted] »

djb_hackernews wrote: post #99
derefr wrote: post #16

I always understood a VCS “master” branch to be in reference to “master” records / the “mastering” process of audio mixing, which in turn is a use of a sense of the verb “to master” akin to “to master one’s courage”—not conveying dominance, but rather the reaching of an apex in skill. If you’re in the market for a replacement that keeps the metaphorical power, though, I might suggest having a “mother” branch. “Mother…

I'm going to blow your mind... The "mastering" process of audio mixing historically starts with the input of "slave" tapes...

[deleted]

Re: GitHub to replace “master” with alternative term to avoid slavery references

#110

Post by cs02rm0 »

weeboid wrote: post #101
exabrial wrote: post #59

We could have a bunch of reform: from reducing the police force size and budget, to removing pointless offenses ("no victim no crime"), to reduce interaction with police, to eliminating all government programs so to eliminate financial dependency on the government (create a toehold for systemic racism)... Yet, we're renaming git master to git main. The profound and widespread impact of this will surely sweep the nati…

Even incremental progress is progress. And sometimes, incremental progress can happen at such an obtuse angle that it becomes completely unmergeable back to `main`. But you can always point to the spirit of the branch.

I'm not sure this is incremental progress.

If we rename the branches beyond Github's UI lots of things will break. And will it really affect racist attitudes even marginally? I can't see it myself. In which case, rather than progress, it's a distraction from anything that otherwise could afford real progress.

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