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In my more paranoid moments I suspect that some of these disputes are false flags meant to discredit the social justice movement. In particular, some of the issues raised seem purpose built to piss people off without hope of achieving real inclusiveness or equality goals.

That I can't tell if that's the case or not is equally alarming.

I offer another option: bad actors that are taking advantage of the disputes to further their own agendas. Only, it's not an option, it's more of a documented reality. And it's even more alarming.

> changing whitelist / blacklist or master / slave isn't really helping to the cause.

These terms amongst hundreds of others build up a mental association between blackness and wrongness.

The word "black", just by itself - look a dictionary definition. In addition to the raw color is used to connote a sad event, anger, or just evil ("it was a black day", "full of anger or hatred", "very evil or wicked").

On the flipside white is used to connote purity and goodness. In the context of America we're talking about a country which favored bleached white foods to anything else for the same reason.

I just don't get how people can't see the harm that is accrued from not the single example but the hundreds collectively.

Also, for the record, I think changing the name of the project verges on absurd.

I agree with your notes about the connotations of those words. Just keep in mind YMMV depending on which country you live in.

Indeed. I do live in Europe, therefore my view on this might be highly biased

> These terms amongst hundreds of others build up a mental association between blackness and wrongness.

It would be easier to stop calling brown skin black than to make people not associate black with darkness, uncertainty and danger. Associating darkness (which is pretty much black) with death is much, much older than the US, believe it or not.

People aren't racist because they read about the Black Death and figure "yeah, I guess black people are evil, look what they did to Europe in the 14th century", and you won't make them less racist if you remove the word black from language.

To show a positive example, without word redefinitions: IMHO western society largely managed to end prejudice against left-handiness, while keeping the word "right".

(And this "left -> bad" or "right" -> good (or both) association is as (or more) prevalent in languages of the world as the "dark -> bad" association)

> IMHO western society largely managed to end prejudice against left-handiness, while keeping the word "right".

To illustrate this: sinister means "on the left side" and "threatening or portending evil."

This isn't politics, it is feelings. The word black is a label, which has a history of being used as a racist term. So it is understandable that there may be some ill will about it. Understandable, but not necessarily warranted.

Now the word "cop" is a label we associate with a job, it has been around for decades, it isn't derogative (unless you as a police officer are offended by it). What we have here, is people being offended by what has happened, not by the adjective of the job.

No, you cannot keep politics away from software development. It is not possible, and by trying to ignore issues you become complicit in perpetration.

Ignoring what issues? The police force is a respected institution in many countries, who act diligently and courteously.

Trying to sell an anti-police message to an international audience is American cultural imperialism at it's worst.

I didn’t mention the police, I’m talking about anything that offends minority groups within your community of users. By choosing to be insensitive you contribute to their plight.

I'm sorry, I just can't agree. You shouldn't be intentionally hostile, but the web is so full of young justice warriors who are over-sensitive to everything that you can't account for all the trigger words in existence.

Avoid the general pathologies - misogyny, racism, tribal prejudice - yes. Cater to regional special cases (like this instance the word cop) - no. The world is a big place. You should embrace everybody you can. This means creating a global consensus what is polite to all users. And cleaning up random trigger words because one or other local bru-ha-ha really isn't really helpful.

You don’t have to account for all the trigger words in existence. All you have to do is believe that the people who are raising issues about specific topics are doing so from a place of need. By characterizing them as “over-sensitive”, you are indicating that you cannot or do not believe in the cause, or cannot empathize with their lived experience.

If that’s the root for you, then just say it - “I'm not values aligned with this cause”. That’s totally valid.

Software is political. It’s written by people, it’s used by people, and it has an impact on society. It is impossible for it to be neutral.

"Software is political. It’s written by people, it’s used by people, and it has an impact on society. It is impossible for it to be neutral."

If you take your definition of "political" to mean anything of utility made by people then yes, so it is. And everything else man made as well.

You are not wrong in stating that everything has a political dimension, but as a general guideline it's non helpfull. Everything has some property in many analytical contexts.

I would rather not think about for example the politics of daily consumables like milk and nails unless there is some milk related crisis going on. Or ponder on the metaphysics of gasoline while filling the tank.

Software is just an utility like them.

When it makes sense to observe spefic dimensions is when this observation has specific utility. Otherwise you are either a total nerd or a fanatic. Both of these stances are admirable, but not practical in the general sense.

The link to the ruby library here is that the ruby library was totally unrelated to the political issue at hand in any possibly sane sense. If the ruby library was linked in some direct way to the political cause then taking it into account in relation to it would have made sense.

In this case the links to the political cause were non-existant and the remotely familiar name was used as an excuse by attention seeking people who are too obsessed to do any action of real value. They satisfied their itch of "doing something" by an action that will NOT help the cause in ANY way. Perhaps it made the activists happy for a while but NOBODY else benefitted!

See where this is going? Nerds/fanatics/impractical.

How is requesting to change hurtful or problematic names political? The public opinion on what is and is not hurtful changes over time, and you have to stick with the times.

I mean you'll get fired or punched in the face if you use some of the stuff people mentioned flippantly a century ago.

YOU don't think anybody will ever be offended; that's a personal opinion that you hold, but your opinion doesn't apply when SOMEONE ELSE is offended.

I mean for example I'm not offended if people swear in HN, so say "fuck" and "shit" all you want, I don't care. But I'm not alone here, and there will be people who are offended and would prefer it to stay out of HN.

Like how you want politics out of software development.

Anyway, you say you want to keep politics out of software development, but this isn't a political issue, it's a moral issue. It's about what is right and wrong, not what the current political climate is.

Are you asserting that "RuboCop" is an inherently immoral name? Are you asserting that it's an inherently hurtful name?

I definitely believe that if there's an objective line between right and wrong, then the name "RuboCop" has not crossed that line.

The name was not chosen as a signal of political support to one side in this conflict. Switching the name would be essentially just a signal of political support to the BLM movement - but IMHO it's not offensive to refuse to participate in this political signaling.

Indeed. I would argue that instead of changing their OSS projects names, people could donate and protest.

> The public opinion on what is and is not hurtful changes over time, and you have to stick with the times.

If you "stick with the times", don't you essentially commit to do whatever the loudest, most extreme people want? Your average person doesn't care if your library is called Darth Vader, but somebody looking for outrage will declare that they are offended and you must now submit to their will because otherwise you're offensive and they will try to ruin your life.

Giving in to those people is like giving in to the demands of terrorists: do it once and you will have them show up again tomorrow with more demands.

> It's about what is right and wrong, not what the current political climate is.

How is the name of a software library right or wrong in general? I'd follow that argument if the name was "fuck you, John Doe" or something like that. But RuboCop? Really?