Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

ZFS Removes References to Slavery

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 154 posts

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#21

Post by Natsu »

ThrowawayBandit wrote: post #2

I invite people to read about the Chinese Cultural Revolution and the so-called Red Guards. We are getting there. Be very careful what you say and what exact terms you use.

This is complicated. I have zero attachment to terms like "slave" so there's no reason to hang onto them. But I feel like this drives slacktivism rather than real change, which is hard when there's literal slavery going on all over the world.

See also: https://www.theclever.com/15-countries-where-slavery-is-stil...

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#22

Post by akerro »

Can these project changing words at least agree on a single word to use? We're going to have 10s of different words representing the same thing that for decades of evolving technology was known as slave. It will make it confusing and difficult to move between technologies.

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#23

Post by akerro »

sildur wrote: post #9
ThrowawayBandit wrote: post #2

I invite people to read about the Chinese Cultural Revolution and the so-called Red Guards. We are getting there. Be very careful what you say and what exact terms you use.

Because it’s easier to do a PR removing “slave” than to stop buying cheap things made in slave workshops.

>slave workshops.

It's "unpaid labour" now.

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#24

Post by ThrowawayBandit »

ashtonkem wrote: post #13
ThrowawayBandit wrote: post #2

I invite people to read about the Chinese Cultural Revolution and the so-called Red Guards. We are getting there. Be very careful what you say and what exact terms you use.

This is such a hyperbolic response that it’s hard to actually engage with it; I’m not sure that this is helping the conversation at all.

This is not hyperbolic. That is what is extremely sad, and why I picked the topic I did as suggested reading: One important thing is to understand how these things start and get out of hand.

Let's not bury our heads in the sand and refuse to see what is happening.

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#25

Post by Ghjklov »

Nothing to see here except devs covering their asses from accusations. As a PoC, I recognize that actions like this do nothing to change the system and they are really just diversions from actually putting in effort to make a real impact.

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#26

Post by ianleeclark »

ThrowawayBandit wrote: post #2

I invite people to read about the Chinese Cultural Revolution and the so-called Red Guards. We are getting there. Be very careful what you say and what exact terms you use.

It's incredibly convenient we have a Boogeyman de jour to compare everything to. I don't quite know how the most reactionary elements of our crumbling society would vent otherwise. If history teaches us anything, it would be: violently.

How else could we possibly look at the current cultural moment? Self-critically? No, never, not when we can engage in orientalism and rebuild a red scare.

I wonder if the British were this terrified of being bumped out of the #1 slot. Maybe the Dutch would be a more apt comparison.

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#28

Post by xupybd »

I don't know if deps is the best replacement. Ignoring the politics for a moment, iff this is going to be done across the board I think a naming convention needs to be well thought out and developed to replace these terms. We will no doubt be left with the resulting terms for a very long time. Intuitive and descriptive names go a long way to lowering the mental overhead of working with code.

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#29

Post by toxik »

ThrowawayBandit wrote: post #2

I invite people to read about the Chinese Cultural Revolution and the so-called Red Guards. We are getting there. Be very careful what you say and what exact terms you use.

More importantly, these recent events are being likened to the Chinese cultural revolution _by Chinese people who lived through it._ That should give you enough of a signal to understand that this is not necessarily benign and in anybody’s best interest.

I think the reason we use master and slave is simply that the words are short, equal length in both letters and syllables, and get the message across — cf leader/follower or primary/replica. I guess the last one is ok too.

Racism and inequality should be fought where possible. Variable naming is simply not such a place. Blacks will not be less repressed, women will not be less mistreated.

Post reply on HN