This is going to be fun for students all over the world trying to use older materials with newer software. I can imagine the confusion.
FreeBSD Renames “Master Boot Record” to “Main Boot Record”
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Re: FreeBSD Renames “Master Boot Record” to “Main Boot Record”
#12This is absolute craziness, especially when far more offensive terms are used throughout (the devil logo, demons, gimp, git, execute, terminal, disabled). "The gimp executable" is far far more off-sounding then "master boot record."
Re: FreeBSD Renames “Master Boot Record” to “Main Boot Record”
#13Is this in response to BLM? I also heard a couple of years ago people were trying to rename slave harddrives to something else too (maybe "secondary"?).
Yeah, "primary"/"secondary" is common. For hard drives "master"/"slave" isn't even an accurate metaphor, since both are driven by the host computer, it's only that the secondary is physically wired to the primary and can't use the communications channel when the primary is in operation. The primary doesn't send commands to the secondary or anything.
See also this comment I wrote a couple days ago re ZFS avoiding the use of "slave" (which was used in a different sense from "slave" hard drives, and both of which are different senses from the "master" boot record): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23521392
In general I think it's good that people are picking more meaningful terms.
Re: FreeBSD Renames “Master Boot Record” to “Main Boot Record”
#14Is this in response to BLM? I also heard a couple of years ago people were trying to rename slave harddrives to something else too (maybe "secondary"?).
Very likely in response to awareness of systemic racism in our culture.
Frankly, if it makes this field and career path more welcoming to people I am absolutely fine with it.
Re: FreeBSD Renames “Master Boot Record” to “Main Boot Record”
#15[deleted]
Re: FreeBSD Renames “Master Boot Record” to “Main Boot Record”
#16As a christian with a knee injury, I'm deeply offended by their devil logo and gimp program name. As this seems to be a clear violation of their code of conduct, I will officially raise this issue to their code of conduct committee. Let's see how they respond.
Re: FreeBSD Renames “Master Boot Record” to “Main Boot Record”
#17This is absolute craziness, especially when far more offensive terms are used throughout (the devil logo, demons, gimp, git, execute, terminal, disabled). "The gimp executable" is far far more off-sounding then "master boot record."
You miss the point. This isn't about offensive language. This is about language that conveys exclusion of marginalized groups. To view this as a case of people being offended does a disservice to the overall social issues these groups deal with.
Re: FreeBSD Renames “Master Boot Record” to “Main Boot Record”
#18This is absolute craziness, especially when far more offensive terms are used throughout (the devil logo, demons, gimp, git, execute, terminal, disabled). "The gimp executable" is far far more off-sounding then "master boot record."
In the case of git, Linus did what he did with Linux and named it after himself.
EDIT: https://youtu.be/4XpnKHJAok8
I didn’t watch through it again to confirm, but if my memory isn’t failing me, it was this talk where he mentioned his naming strategy.
Re: FreeBSD Renames “Master Boot Record” to “Main Boot Record”
#19https://thenewstack.io/words-matter-finally-tech-looks-at-re...
Great post. Thanks for sharing this.
Re: FreeBSD Renames “Master Boot Record” to “Main Boot Record”
#20Is this in response to BLM? I also heard a couple of years ago people were trying to rename slave harddrives to something else too (maybe "secondary"?).
Very likely in response to awareness of systemic racism in our culture. Frankly, if it makes this field and career path more welcoming to people I am absolutely fine with it.
Agreed.