This strikes me as a bit silly, because "master"/"slave" are simply words that describe a relationship. One that unfortunately still exists in many parts of the world. We're certainly not going to stop using them to describe the original thing. These aren't derogatory terms, they're just terms. Terms that describe bad things, but terms. Surely people can see the difference between this and something like the "Washington Redskins" name, which is (arguably, but imo) an actual derogatory term.
I don't really have any concerns about whitelist/blacklist (I'm aware of the history) because alternatives are more explicit. Allowlist/Denylist seem strange to hear at first, but they're intuitive, so I'm fine with it.
With master/slave, in Djangos case[0], they replaced it with "leader" and "follower", which obviously have different meanings. Master and slave have a very explicit connotation, which is that one controls the other, and the other has to do everything the other says. Leader/follower does not fit the bill to describe that relationship. We're explicitly and objectively losing precision because we've decided that non-derogatory non-outdated accurate terms in the English language make some people uncomfortable.
And again, to really drive this point home, these are just words. They are not derogatory terms. They're used in accordance with their dictionary definition. This is like saying we should stop using "kill" to describe the termination of a program because people have been killed and that makes some people sad when they think about it.
I always learned that in language context matters. In the current context master has nothing to do with slavery. Perhaps once when bitkeeper had master/slave you could see it different.
Apparently these people focus only on the word without any consideration.
That said, I do understand it in the master/slave context.
Do you also understand it in the owner/slave context? Want to get rid of 'owner'? What other words are you willing do expunge? Will you be able to say anything at the end?
Yes, some times it was used in the master/salve context but it is far from its most common meanings. It's not even its meaning in the case of a git branch.
With all of that, I think that the world is on the straight line of the future described in the Idiocracy movie!
CS is filled with such terms like zombies, orphans, reaping dead children, etc but nobody finds them offensive as we know it has nothing to do with their literal meaning.
Seems easy enough to imagine who would be offended by the use of terms “orphans” and “dead children,” and why they would prefer not to bring it up constantly.
The issue is that you can have that with nearly every term that has some meaning. Leader/follower? But I've once met a terrible Leader and they had many followers that made my life hell.
If the argument is "but that's only true for very few people": what percentage of the population (or the subset of the population that is programming) does need to be affected before it needs to be changed? Orphans aren't that common either, neither is losing a child.
They would find it offensive - just look at the santa hat debacle of vscode. But they don't know the terms you listed. It's not like these people know anything about or even have an interest in software dev. They're a purely destructive force, hopping from victim to victim and spreading wherever they find weakness.
Git does not have the "slave" term, only "master" term. But the "master" term is being removed because it is derived from master-slave connotation from Bitkeeper allegedly.
The word doesn't make any sense in the context of something that is constantly changing. And Gitnis graph based and the is no real concept of a trunk, like in SVN. So we start calling the dog a dog, instead of a rock.
It allows developers working for multi national corporations who exploit people around the globe to feel better and safer and purify their workplace of certain negative things, toxic people and retrograde attitudes. If it means that a developer has to change their language to something better to be able to continue to extract wealth from the poor, so be it.
These kind of actions in a non profit or activist space would go unnoticed
Does it hurt anything, besides the feelings of people hell ben on using names for things that really don't reflect core concepts of how things work or what they are used for?
When I become dictator and send you to Gulag you can have two servings per day of rotten fish-head soup, because I like you!.
And I promise not to call you names.
--------------
It's a massive distraction. GitHub, and / or whatever other organisation, deplatforming words will have approximately zero effect.
I'm willing to conjecture that while we are busy patting ourselves on the back for reducing the use of word combinations like master / slave another death in custody will occur.
And in that way it's a distraction while the harm continues.
It's a distraction while the powerful continue to not immediately retrain the police en masse to not deal with everything by a progression of escalating violence.
Sure but that doesn't mean the thing we "gotta" do should be meaningless. Black and white are used throughout history for mostly non racist discussion. The terms "blacklist" and "whitelist" have nothing to do with race. The tern "master" as used in a branching strategy is not a racism issue. (I get it more than the black/white list thing.)
This is some next level theater. It's almost like the goal is to distract from the actual problems by solving for something else and blowing smoke. If this is what makes you feel like you've done something, perhaps look inward and figure out why you're not doing something more substantial.
It's what I suppose both the 'left' and 'right' call "lib shit". It's at the heart of what's gotten me very confused politically: I'm probably proper left, but find myself oddly sympathetic of the the pretty bad part of what is called 'right'. So which am I, 'politically realistic' and as a result 'a lib', or do I just want to simultaneously tune out and 'fuck shit up' and feel both guilty and apathetic about /that/ too. There are only so many turtles I can go down a day.
The political spectrum is a lot wider than most people realize in a US context. Generally when people use "left" and "right" without qualification they're describing shades of difference between what's essentially the same neocon/neolib party.
Trump's impact on the RNC seems to have checked if not eliminated the neocons (we'll see if that holds or expands).
Many hoped Sanders could have done the same with the DNC — shifted it away from neoliberalism - but it may take a few more losses (which, who knows, may never come).
I do not support this change since it has nothing - and I mean absolutely nothing - to do with race, racism, insensitivity or otherwise abusive behaviour. Both words appear in the dictionary as they are, normal words without any racial connotation. Both words have been in use for a very long time. The insinuation that the use of these words is in any way racially insensitive is not just nonsensical, it is a way to gain control of the narrative by a politically motivated party. Control over the narrative gives power [1]:
Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present, controls the past [2].
> I do not support this change since it has nothing - and I mean absolutely nothing - to do with race, racism, insensitivity or otherwise abusive behaviour.
It's fine that you believe this, but other people don't agree. Other people believe that the historically racist connotation of "master" in the context of establishing a hierarchical relationship is real, acute, and powerful, especially in the zeitgeist. Other people experience the term "master" in this context as a reminder of that historical (and sometimes not so historical!) racism, which can be painful. Or they experience it as an example of how systemic, institutional racism can persist in extremely small and subtle ways. Or both!
I don't think that people who believe these things are believing them in bad faith, or that they're claiming these things for ulterior motives. I think they're being honest when they say they're pained, and I find the arguments about perpetuating systemic racism plausible. So I think it's completely reasonable to use a different word where we can. I think it reduces suffering in the world, and I think that's the best goal that there is.
> In the broadest sense, "one who has power to control, use, or dispose (of something or some quality) at will," from mid-14c. Also from mid-14c. as "one who employs another or others in his service" (in which sense the correlative word was servant, man, or apprentice); also "owner of a living creature" (dog, horse), also in ancient contexts of slaves; paired with slave in the legal language of the American colonies by 1705 in Virginia.
This bit feels like it has a strong connection to racism.
> also in ancient contexts of slaves; paired with slave in the legal language of the American colonies by 1705 in Virginia.
Nonsense, in the context of slavery - as in humans abusing other humans as forced labour - the word master has this meaning. In the context of a version control system it evidently does not.
> since it has nothing - and I mean absolutely nothing - to do with race, racism, insensitivity or otherwise abusive behaviour. Both words appear in the dictionary as they are, normal words without any racial connotation
"Nothing, absolutely nothing". "normal words without any racial connotation". That's untrue, isn't it? Perhaps you just need a better dictionary.
Let me put it in simple terms: words have different meanings and are used to describe different concepts depending on the context the word is used in. With me so far?
Now take the word 'port'. What does it mean?
- when you're on a ship it means the place where the ship goes to load and offload goods and people...
- ...except for when you're on the bridge in the middle of the ocean and the captain tells you to turn to port in which case it means 'turn to the left'...
- ...unless you're in the engine room talking to an engineer who says the cooling water port seems to be clogged for in that case it means the hole in the side of the ship through which water is taken in for cooling the engine...
- ...or you're in the radio room where the operator just plugged a network cable into the ethernet port on the satellite comms transceiver...
- Then again, when you're in the liquor store it indicates a fortified type of wine...
- ...however, when you're at an alcoholics anonymous meating people might take offence at you bandying this word around since their port wine habit nearly cost them their lives.
Does the offence taken by alcoholics mean the captain, helmsman, engineer and network technician need to find different words for their ship-haven, left-side-when-facing-forward, water-entry-hole and network-socket?
Ironically, this example is evidence against your point, not for it. All of these uses of the word "port" share a root semantic etymology, which is the point where two entities interface to exchange goods or information. Exactly the same way that all of the uses of the word "master" to describe a hierarchical relationship share a root semantic etymology, which is someone who owns or controls other human beings.
> What is it that offends you about the terms, and why?
Sorry for being unclear. I'm not offended, either. But (see my reply to sibling comment) I find the arguments that the term can be seen as offensive, and that it perpetuates a (small! subtle! but real!) form of systemic racism, essentially plausible, and I'm sympathetic to them.
I’m not sure about this. I don’t think relationship between branches are considered slaves to their master branch (at least I never thought of it that way).
If anything, they’re students that may eventually exceed the capabilities of their master. Much like the apprentice Luke Skywalker and master Yoda.
If it does offend then by all means, make it happen, I’m just not entirely convinced.
Exactly! People said this terminology hurts to hear and use, explained why. It doesn’t hurt me to use more appropriate terms so it feels like an easy choice. I’m not surprised GitHub came to the same conclusion.
I find it funny are people are willing to argue over this, which takes way more energy than actually doing the change. My boss was going to use trunk, but I was on my own for prod, until I brought up the points that it reflects what is for, we have a development branch and Git is graph base, then the CTO was on my side when he heard graph. After my boss made the change, he noticed that trunk wouldn't have read well thought-out the Atlastin suite and Production did.
My only thing with the change was make sure we had proper nomenclature.
The explanation is that “master” is a slavery term. It has other meanings, sure. But for some people who are a descendant of people who were enslaved it is an unwelcome reminder of slavery every time they merge.
Nobody anywhere uses the word "master" to mean a person who has slaves. The word has at least 14 other meanings. The one meaning that relates to "slavery" is 100% of the time tagged as "historical".
IMO, remove that entry in the dictionary if you don't like it and stop schools from teaching the historical context of it. Then, after only a few years kids who have never heard the term in terms of slavery will never know and have no reason to be offended by a word.
Judging by the responses everywhere, you're in the extreme minority if you think this word is a problem. The word is not going away, even if removed from some niche space such as GitHub. As a matter of fact, I'm going to double down on using it so that I can easily identify people who I'd never want to have a working relation with if they get offended.
I think you’re missing the point, I’m not offended by the word at all.
But a group of people said they were, and it was no skin off my nose to make life easier for them. Their explanation made total sense to me so I took it as a learning experience to see the world through someone else’s eyes instead of “doubling down” which is pretty alarming behavior tbh.
On the word itself, “someone who has enslaved another human” doesn’t have to be the only definition, but without a doubt it is one of its definitions (and one of the important ones in the history of the US). It probably doesn’t mean anything at all to most people, that’s okay. I don’t think they are racists or anything like that if the oppose this change.
Looking back, I couched my response in terms of "if you are offended by the word, then..." and I don't think I directly indicated that I thought you were offended. To be honest, I don't think the people who even kicked this off at GitHub are offended. They're just trying to do something.
There already is skin off your nose with this change though. First, because you're already here having to waste your attention on defending it. Second, because if Git and other tools surrounding GitHub don't change then there will be constant friction. (e.g. What now happens if you init a repo on your PC and push to GitHub with the default `master` branch? That's my exact workflow.) Third, if you have to do the work yourself to change it on your own projects. Fourth, because if you don't cover your ass 100% you'll potentially be targeted by this witch hunt.
Maybe you don't mind one or two of those situations, but I doubt you would all of them.
> ...but without a doubt it is one of its definitions (and one of the important ones in the history of the US).
I don't know what that means. Ideas are important. Words are constantly changing by meaning and usage and they're really only as important as a person allows them to be. In my opinion, assigning power or importance to inanimate things is folly. Power lies in controlling how you react to things. Philosophically it has been said that the only thing you can truly change in this world is how you react to things.
At the end of the day, this is a GitHub company decision. I can't do anything about it other than exploring my thoughts and talking about it. If GitHub starts harassing me over not changing my branch names though, I'll leave the platform in a heartbeat.
It should very well hurt you because this is just the worm-up. The moment you start playing this games with language, people will become ever more sensitized and new words will become unspeakable hurting the freedom of speech. Do we now have Master becoming the new M-word? There were also slave owners so are you going to take down the file owner concept now because of 'slavery'? This is so wrong.
I am deeply offended when people call me 'white'. I do not reflect all light shown upon me and I do have all kinds of shades of brown, yellow and pink. I think calling someone black is just as racist - no person absorbs all light shown on them. This is ridiculous. How on earth is the word "master" relates specifically to black people slavery? One could use "slave owner" just as well so should we now abolish the word "owner" in Linux and avoid using file owner (you can't use file 'creator' because that would offend atheist). This is such a bullshit and thinking that adult people are playing with this shit... people just lost their minds.
The dictionary says that a definition of master when used as an adjective is
"main; principal."
'the apartment's master bathroom has a free-standing oval bathtub'"
Master of course not being specific to slavery - it was in wide use before. Mastering a subject means to be better than those who aren't masters.
The term comes from Latin magister, which means things like 'head' or 'teacher'. It evolved to maestro in Italian, and predated the atlantic slave trade by over a millenia.
A dictionary first and foremost tells you the use/meaning today. You need to look into the etymology to understand if it has something to do with slavery.
What's the point, though? I doubt you have a deep knowledge of the etymology of every single word you use, even for the ones you use all the time. I bet you would feel forced to use a very different and extremely narrow set of words if you did. You might even have chosen another username if you were "sensitive" to how "saber" alludes to an instrument of historical oppression and suffering.
And yet not many people do or seem to care. Why? You might say it's because our culture is still not enlightened, but it really is just because it doesn't matter what the usage used to be as long as it's used with a different, more-or-less harmless meaning today. Not only that, but what about words that have had countless interpretations since forever (black/white)? Why pick the one that happens to be racist?
And I may be making a wild conjecture here, but it's not like talking about a "master branch" will make you more likely to become pro-slavery. I mean, what would "master branch" even mean out of the context of version control?
Words are just labels to meaning. It makes no sense to care about the label. People have declared love with N-words and advocated for genocide with flowery language. Banishing words is a prime example of bikeshedding.
> I mean, what would "master branch" even mean out of the context of version control?
stop being mean. you shouldn't impose your control. whip me for telling you not to. and scold them for whipping me. decentralize the git commit hierarchy! no order!
I don't really have any concerns about whitelist/blacklist (I'm aware of the history) because alternatives are more explicit. Allowlist/Denylist seem strange to hear at first, but they're intuitive, so I'm fine with it.
With master/slave, in Djangos case[0], they replaced it with "leader" and "follower", which obviously have different meanings. Master and slave have a very explicit connotation, which is that one controls the other, and the other has to do everything the other says. Leader/follower does not fit the bill to describe that relationship. We're explicitly and objectively losing precision because we've decided that non-derogatory non-outdated accurate terms in the English language make some people uncomfortable.
And again, to really drive this point home, these are just words. They are not derogatory terms. They're used in accordance with their dictionary definition. This is like saying we should stop using "kill" to describe the termination of a program because people have been killed and that makes some people sad when they think about it.
[0]https://github.com/django/django/pull/2692