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ZFS Removes References to Slavery

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Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#51

Post by wildmusings »

ngcazz wrote: post #3
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.

God forbid making concessions for the sake of empathy with people.

Each individual concession seems small but the end result is that one must live life in fear of saying the littlest wrong thing, lest the angry mob come down on you. We're at the point where we can't even talk about any of these issues, only obey the barked orders of angry activists.

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#54

Post by Merem »

boltzmann_brain wrote: post #7

We're witnessing mass insanity on levels never thought possible.

Some people just have too much time on their hands. And it doesn't help that media is spreading this, as it generates clicks which in turn generates money. As such, total non-issues will be made an issue.

The thing is, it's not even "mass" insanity. Working people who are busy with a family and such don't really post on social media, as they simply have no time. This creates a pretty large divide between the internet and real life. Though, I say this as someone not being part of the tech world which is more closely connected with social media.

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#55

Post by PBnFlash »

xupybd wrote: post #28

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.

This I think is the key issue, replacing a clear label with half a dozen almost synonyms is the dangerous part of this precedent.

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#56

Post by banads »

ianleeclark wrote: post #42
sildur wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Your boycott won't change anything. Is the only avenue of political change that you can see through the lens of individual consumption? I genuinely don't see boycotts as powerful as others, so maybe I'm missing something here. However, shouldn't all avenues be taken if you're attempting to change something?

>maybe I'm missing something here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycott#Notable_boycotts

You're right that boycotts without leverage experience little success, but wrong if you think they are never successful.

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#57

Post by [deleted] »

ThrowawayBandit wrote: post #50
ashtonkem wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reference to the Red Guards is indeed hyperbolic and extremely loaded. You are comparing someone making a technical change to a government sponsored paramilitary organization that murdered thousands of people. It’s extremely hard to engage with the conversation when your position is that one side, if not stopped, will result in mass scale murder. If I make a good faith argument for this naming change, are you goi…

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.

[deleted]

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#58

Post by xupybd »

ashtonkem wrote: post #20
rvz wrote: post #4

Is Linux going to be next? Let's ask Mr Torvalds nicely to remove all master / slave references in the Linux kernel because it is 'offensive'. /s I don't think such a request is practical given the kLOCs of those references which will break other software.

My general take has been that we should probably avoid these terms moving forward, but that the technical cost of going through nearly a century’s worth of technical stack and fixing every last reference is probably a pretty technically risky operation.

Technically risky yes but worth it. Inconsistencies in naming make code horrible to work with.

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#59

Post by toxik »

sterlind wrote: post #37
toxik wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/fol…

Slave is one syllable, master is two.

That’s true, slave is one. I guess my lazy counting vowel-consonant transitions is a bit of a bad heuristic in English. I personally blame the French.

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#60

Post by artistsvoid »

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 mine.

Maybe I am not fine-tuned into 'spotting' such things, which is the argument I would expect; but maybe some just have developed a sensitivity far beyond any reasonable amount in taking offense, which is my suspicion. How about we talk about meaningful ways to stop racism, which we can all agree is bad and unwarranted, jumping into action blindly might feel like you are doing something, but what exactly is this doing?

I am very annoyed by such blindly executed and in my opinion unwarranted activism, and as soon as one speaks out against, one has to hide from the incoming attacks. So I guess HR departments have to check naming conventions in programs now for misogyny / politically non-correct / possibly racist terminology before release?

By the way: I actually always thought of master / slave as completely racially independent terminology in general? If in a book a white man were enslaved by some Asian tribe, how would master/slave terminology be non-correct in describing the participants?

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