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ZFS Removes References to Slavery

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Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#81
post #65
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak

Newspeak removes terms from language so that certain ideas cannot be expressed. This pull request does concern language, yes. But it retains the use of the term "slave" in existing APIs, while updating a script that is named "slaves" to use the term "deps," a term that is already used elsewhere in the API. At the end of the pull request, both terms remain meaningful. Furthermore, no attempt is made to hide previous u…

The comparison is apt IMO, as per Wikipedia pages linked to:

"To meet the ideological requirements of English Socialism (Ingsoc) in Oceania, the ruling Party created Newspeak,[1] a controlled language of simplified grammar and restricted vocabulary, meant to limit the freedom of thought—personal identity, self-expression, free will—that threatens the ideology of the régime of Big Brother and the Party, who have criminalised such concepts into thoughtcrime as contradictions of Ingsoc orthodoxy."

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#82
post #66

I knew there would be these petty comments in here. For people who in general work in such an intellectual and ephemeral pursuit there is so much pathetic clinging to meaningless terms. The computer does not care. It's only the human beings in the community that do. And it's our choice whether to be neutral and inclusive or miserly trolls clinging to meaningless out of date terms coined in times when these weren't co…

> Don't be a dick. Be nice. x

The irony here is that the discourse of people from your camp is usually non-inclusive.

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#83

I will try to avoid controversy here and word this carefully: I can't help but think that something is wrong in the minds of people who take offense at something like this. If in the context of programming and system administration, the term master/slave is 'offensive' and makes you think of racism, and one group of people being oppressed by another, your mind seems to make some completely different connections from…

Obviously, all of you bitching and moaning about your precious master / slave terminology are the most triggered. If you can't handle a name change, then software is absolutely not the career for you.

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#84
post #66

I knew there would be these petty comments in here. For people who in general work in such an intellectual and ephemeral pursuit there is so much pathetic clinging to meaningless terms. The computer does not care. It's only the human beings in the community that do. And it's our choice whether to be neutral and inclusive or miserly trolls clinging to meaningless out of date terms coined in times when these weren't co…

> Don't be a dick. Be nice. x The irony here is that the discourse of people from your camp is usually non-inclusive.

I think that maybe this falls under the paradox of tolerance (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance)

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#85
post #25

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.

(non-rhetorically) I wonder if actions like this are more harmful or beneficial. On one hand, they raise awareness, but on the other, they're just token gestures, and they might cause debate that'd be better spent on something for meaningful.

It's the kind of token gesture that actually just makes people more skeptical or angry at PoC who most of the time had nothing to do with the gesture.

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#86
post #22

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.

That's the funny thing - in almost all contexts I've seen the "master/slave" terminology, it's not actually technically clear.

In some contexts (e.g. Jenkins), a "master" tells the "slave" what to do and the "slave" does it. This at least is plausibly connected to the real-world meanings of the term, although given that the "slave" can start and stop work at any time and the "master" needs to accommodate that, the analogy isn't great. "Coordinator/worker" works well here.

In some contexts (e.g., MySQL), a "master" sends a copy of all its work to the "slave," and both of them execute it. The "slave" stands ready to replace the "master" if the "master" becomes unavailable, and usually at that point the "master" becomes the new "slave" once it catches up. This makes no sense. "Primary/replica" works well here.

In some contexts (e.g., network device bonding, and, I think, ZFS), a "master" is a logical construct, consisting of multiple physical "slaves". All interactions with the "master" are actually algorithmically sent to one or more "slaves," and if all the "slaves" are offline, there's no "master" left. This, also, makes no sense. Terms that would make sense include things like "bond device/bonded member" (the members being bonded to each other), "logical volume/physical volume", etc. In this pull request they seem to use "dependency."

In some contexts (e.g. disk drives), the "master" and "slave" are both devices that provide the same type of service to the host, but the "slave" connects to the "master" instead of directly to the host, and while the "master" is communicating, the "slave" can't. This, also, makes no sense. "Primary/secondary" works well here.

In pseudoterminals, the "master" is a limited API to the PTY object, held by the terminal emulator, which copies text to the screen, interpreters rendering commands, and sends input. The "slave" is a more featureful API to the same PTY object, held by the shell / the command under execution, which does what it wants. This, also, makes no sense. I don't know of a standard term here, but I'd sort of suggest "monitor" and "application" (or perhaps "monitor" and "session" if you want to keep the initials).

All of these are different uses, and you can't generally map one to another. For instance, if you're used to a database where "master/slave" is used in the primary/replica sense, and you see a database where the "master" just coordinates requests for work and all actual data is sent to/from some "slave," your knowledge of primary/replica architecture is misleading here.

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#87
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll let you read about the topic then we can discuss, but do not think that what is happening is as innocuous as a "someone making a technical change". This has already gone far beyond that and we are really already quite close to "public denunciations" or the attacks on statues/the deads, etc. as it happened then.

He's right. No fucking engineer is being thrown inside a camp starving to death so yes the comparison is hyperbolic.

Flagging the guy's comments to make then disappear would tend to support the comparison he made, though.

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#88
post #66

I knew there would be these petty comments in here. For people who in general work in such an intellectual and ephemeral pursuit there is so much pathetic clinging to meaningless terms. The computer does not care. It's only the human beings in the community that do. And it's our choice whether to be neutral and inclusive or miserly trolls clinging to meaningless out of date terms coined in times when these weren't co…

A lot of language has unsavoury roots. We should recognise it and learn from it, fighting with the language feels like putting so much effort into minor things.

I’d much rather people spent the time and energy teaching underprivileged kids some coding, for instance.

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#89
post #67

I will try to avoid controversy here and word this carefully: I can't help but think that something is wrong in the minds of people who take offense at something like this. If in the context of programming and system administration, the term master/slave is 'offensive' and makes you think of racism, and one group of people being oppressed by another, your mind seems to make some completely different connections from…

It's not 'activism', not even 'slacktivism', it's all about control and bullying, even over the most minute of 'spotting' such things.

This pull request is being sent in by one of the people who originally developed ZFS at Sun. Who is being bullied here?

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#90
post #25

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.

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