Remove blacklist terminology · Issue #6475 · osquery/osquery
1–10 of 28 posts
Re: Remove blacklist terminology · Issue #6475 · osquery/osquery
#2pathetic
Re: Remove blacklist terminology · Issue #6475 · osquery/osquery
#3I think the most remarkable thing about that issue is that
* It got created and it got resolved
* There was no whining. It just got done.
There was an understanding that there was a code of conduct for the project, and that this change met the spirit of upholding that code of conduct, and it just got done.
If only everything in life was this simple.
EDIT: What's a shame, however, is that this is a shining example of good conduct, and somehow it's disappeared from the front page in the time it took me to read it and write this comment.
Re: Remove blacklist terminology · Issue #6475 · osquery/osquery
#4Perfectly sensible, issues like this are automatically detected and enforced in shipping codebases where I work. As a commenter on the issue says the result is frankly clearer and more understandable anyway.
Re: Remove blacklist terminology · Issue #6475 · osquery/osquery
#5From wikipedia:
The English dramatist Philip Massinger used the phrase "black list" in his 1639 tragedy The Unnatural Combat.[3]
After the Restoration of the English monarchy brought Charles II of England to the throne in 1660, a list of regicides named those to be punished for the execution of his father.[4] The state papers of Charles II say "If any innocent soul be found in this black list, let him not be offended at me, but consider whether some mistaken principle or interest may not have misled him to vote".[5] In a 1676 history of the events leading up to the Restoration, James Heath (a supporter of Charles II) alleged that Parliament had passed an Act requiring the sale of estates, "And into this black list the Earl of Derby was now put, and other unfortunate Royalists".[6]
Edward Gibbon wrote in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776) of Andronicus that "His memory was stored with a black list of the enemies and rivals, who had traduced his merit, opposed his greatness, or insulted his misfortunes".[7]
Re: Remove blacklist terminology · Issue #6475 · osquery/osquery
#6I was genuinely curious about the origin of this word based on these various projects changing it.
And according to the Wikipedia (and the Oxford English Dictionary) [1], it seems like blacklist came about something like 400 years ago in England. It doesn't seem to be related to race.
Is there a movement that is tying those terms to race? Would love to see some links about it. Because master/slave seems like a much more obvious set of terms that we can and should get rid of (and replace with leader/follower, primary/secondary, etc).
Re: Remove blacklist terminology · Issue #6475 · osquery/osquery
#7Hmm, wonder what they'd think about some other tech terminology then?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master/slave_(technology)
Or talks of this in typesetting?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widows_and_orphans
But seriously, this is silly. Words and phrases can have multiple meanings, and they can be used for perfectly innocuous reasons in various fields.
Re: Remove blacklist terminology · Issue #6475 · osquery/osquery
#8I think this is a great move for a number of reasons, but as one commenter said, I think Allow/Deny are just simpler terms in general.
White/Black are abstractions and adds one more hurdle for folks new to the industry - especially those from different languages and cultures where white != good and black != bad.
I think this is good for social reasons, but I hope the industry in general moves away from black/white because its just not the best way to convey these ideas, its just the one that stuck.
Re: Remove blacklist terminology · Issue #6475 · osquery/osquery
#9Hmm, wonder what they'd think about some other tech terminology then? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master/slave_(technology) Or talks of this in typesetting? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widows_and_orphans But seriously, this is silly. Words and phrases can have multiple meanings, and they can be used for perfectly innocuous reasons in various fields.
I built a federated datastore recently, and was very careful to always say "primary/replica" instead of "master/slave".
Re: Remove blacklist terminology · Issue #6475 · osquery/osquery
#10I was genuinely curious about the origin of this word based on these various projects changing it. And according to the Wikipedia (and the Oxford English Dictionary) [1], it seems like blacklist came about something like 400 years ago in England. It doesn't seem to be related to race. Is there a movement that is tying those terms to race? Would love to see some links about it. Because master/slave seems like a much m…
Irrespective of origin, the terms seem to equate black to bad and white to good, and as such should probably be retired. As other comments have mentioned, allow and deny are more explicit and thus probably better terms anyway.