Live data from Hacker News

ZFS Removes References to Slavery

github.com

71–80 of 154 posts

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#71

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 view is also common in Chinese social media:

"One notable article, written by an immigrant in direct response to Huang’s letter, went further, accusing elite American educational institutions of 'brainwashing' the country’s youth and turning them into 'extreme leftists' who only care about identity politics. This view is common on Chinese social media, where users compare protestors and leftist young people with Cultural Revolution-era Red Guards."

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#72
Small note: this is openzfs specifically.

If that makes them happy then good for them. Although I personally think that this is a waste of time and also dislike the moral high ground that they attempted to take (trying to take advantage of the current climate to advertise their virtues), as if these that do not change the terminology used are somehow morally inferior. I do wonder if that would cause some form of incompatibility (between existing zfs tools and other zfs implementations, including previous openzfs versions) but I presume that they were careful about that. In addition I am annoyed that they decided to censor the linked thread.

Edit: apparently it did not change any API names.

Edit2: Surely I am not the only one who finds it ironic that they are using GitHub - a company which supports ICE, right?

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#73
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 title right now: 'ZFS Removes References to Slavery'. Probably 95% of the commenters have not read TFA in sufficient detail to argue minutiae details. They see 'language changed in support of the dominant political current' and link it to Newspeak because that's the only frame of reference most people are aware of. It's not like it's an isolated incident, there is plenty of language redefinition, history rewriting and statues toppling as we speak.

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#74
post #64
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.

What's the definition for PoC? I want to know if I'm included.

It’s a discriminatory term excluding people suffering from albinism.

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#76

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…

This seems to me to miss the point.

I genuinely doubt that many people are offended at master/slave terminology. I personally am not offended, yet I would prefer if we did not use such terms.

Why? Because words matter, and I recognize that where we decide to move terms into every day parlance has an impact on how people think. This after all is the basis of some groups trying to “reclaim” a word by trivializing it’s usage.

As a thought experiment imagine if we got into the habit of naming services or concepts after the Holocaust. How do you think that the casual, daily reference to that event in a different context would affect our perceptions of the 20th century genocide? Would it make us treat the Holocaust more casually? Now imagine how you’d feel if German companies started using that term casually. Kind of icky, right?

That being said, I don’t think that anyone who doesn’t want to go to the trouble to replace every instance of these words going forward is a racist, nor should we tolerate such abuse from a crowd that’s nominally supposed to be doing the right thing. We can advocate for well-meaning changes without being jerks, I hope.

Personally I plan on just using new terms going forward, but I won’t go back and rename every single thing I’ve ever written.

Also, master/slave really isn’t racially independent in America. Slavery is an institution that has cropped up in many places at many times; but here in America slavery refers specifically to the form of chattel slavery that occurred here, and therefore does carry more than a hint of racial overtones.

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#77

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.

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

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#78
post #68

I might make a pull request to remove all the references of kill (75 atm) https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/search?q=kill&unscoped_q=kill The horrible effects of human killing continue to impact society. The casual use of the term "kill" in computer software is an unnecessary reference to a painful human experience.

Wow they even reference "kill to the group." in this age of mass shootings I find that to be very offensive

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#79
> The horrible effects of human slavery continue to impact society. The casual use of the term "slave" in computer software is an unnecessary reference to a painful human experience.

What a strange world, really. Imagine the Germans renaming the command "kill", SIGKILL and so on for the same reason. (Or even stronger, as direct victims of WW2 are still alive.)

Re: ZFS Removes References to Slavery

#80
post #78
post #68

I might make a pull request to remove all the references of kill (75 atm) https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/search?q=kill&unscoped_q=kill The horrible effects of human killing continue to impact society. The casual use of the term "kill" in computer software is an unnecessary reference to a painful human experience.

Wow they even reference "kill to the group." in this age of mass shootings I find that to be very offensive

Even worse killing children!
Post reply on HN