Remove some offensive/archaic terminology from OpenSSL
github.com
github.com
In this kind of environment, people who raise even reasonable objections to questionable changes will be labeled as the enemy by fanatics. Like this guy. I don't know where he gets such a motivation to destroy or rewrite this corner of the world because he thinks it's his responsibility to stamp out oppression in C code. Which is about as far from the social problem as you can get.
The list of words being considered as prejudiced include:
-- parent/child -- whitelist/blacklist
Some of this is really ridiculous.
How are we to decide what terms are offensive enough? Vote? There are going to be objections at some level about any term, by someone out there. Someone needs to be an authority and say how much self-censoring is reasonable, and what terms are reasonable to keep.
I object to the term SSL. It is a deep insult to my culture. We should rename it because of that. Who are you to question my being offended?
Please let this issue not be determined by this guy or this ilk. Or at least, let this argument settle for a few months and see whether it still makes sense before getting caught up in the heat of the moment. Sometimes, time tells whether you were reasonable or not.
I don't like this term "SSL". It is not SSL. It is TLS.
The author of OpenSSL (or whatever other program) can change the program if they want to do; I am not objecting to that. Whether or not it is a good idea to change it is a different question, of course.
(I also don't like the term "tonne". Not due to being offensive; I don't want to complain just because I find a word offensive. But, because I think "megagram" is better, instead.)
Thinking about how we use the term 'blacklist' doesn't seem like much of a sacrifice on our part.
If you disagree, I would love to hear your logic.
I was triggered twice just typing this up.
Nor master, and whatever others terms one can come up with. I'm offended by your username, please change it.
At the end of the day it doesn't seem like it actually moves the world forward.
Is it? The term "black goods" is often used to refer to things like TVs, stereo systems, and HTPCs, because of what colour they often are, and that's not bad/evil at all.
...and are we going to start complaining about "dark mode" too...?
This is assuming you are asking in good faith, and not to trivialize and silence people who disagree with you.
Don't do this. You and I both know this is just an example you're pulling out to take a controversial stance and doing a disservice to the people voicing their earnest concerns. You can feel free to disagree with them, but arguing like this is just... mean-spirited.
"Is it offensive enough?" is a really bad hill to die on.
You’ll also find people saying they find Y correct and X offensive.
Giving in without question that easily can result in others being offended. Sometimes you have people who’ll take a mile if you give them an inch. Some things are clearly offensive, sure, but if most people are asking “how is this even a problem?”, it’s not good to just change it because they say it bothers them.
The word "slave" has a very real and very painful real-world history and baggage for a lot of people, and we should no longer be using it in our technical language.
And this is not about condemning past actions but about taking the opportunity to do better in the future. Is our profession not about continuous learning and improvement? Why should that improvement only be technical in nature?
No one is asking for carte blanche to blindly agree to any and all future changes without any thought or discussion.
But this one should be pretty obvious to anyone who stops for a minute to think about it.
Also saying that "most people don't see it as a problem" is part of the problem. That can't be the only metric. This is exactly the mentality that leads to disrespect and disenfranchisement of underrepresented parts of our community.
It’s not even a what if.
Stones and glass houses and all that.
If you're not being facetious, then I will edit it.
Simply put: don’t be needlessly ridiculous.
A pull request, many even, isn’t going to fix systemic injustices and inequalities at societal levels. Slavery continues to exist today in the 21st century [1]. I’m unsure how some feel this is the case, but the bluntness seems necessary.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century (The International Labour Organization estimates that, by their definitions, over 40 million people are in some form of slavery today.)
I don't get why there isn't a sustained campaign to reach out for commitments from elected representative while they are largely working from home and more immune from the political pressures that keep them in lockstep maintaining the status quo. Now is the time to push for change from those who hold the power of the purse and frame laws.
There has never been as much empty virtue signalling by privileged people as there is today. They declare the deck chairs on the Titanic to be offensive, remove a few of them, congratulate themselves and call it a day like their responsibility is absolved. Maybe they go the extra mile and try to get somebody fired for not speaking the same doublespeak as them.
But fixating on their theater achieves nothing. It just gives them more of the attention they crave. So I decided instead to donate my time and my money to good causes and actually help make things better, because this is in short supply.
The virtue signallers may or may not take note, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that if they're going to absolve themselves of doing the real work, someone else has to step up.
I'd rather donate food to the local animal refuge than give to them.
Alas, these are not commits you can make and then move on. These must become your hobbies if you intend to see meaningful change in our lifetimes. Some of these listed above are my hobbies, and I hope they become yours if these causes matter to you.
Want to change the world? Do the work.
Advocacy is work, and costly.
And it's the sum total that counts, so every little thing makes a difference. One project making changes doesn't have much of an impact, but if every project on GitHub did the same that would be a very clear message the tech industry isn't satisfied with the status quo.
Sometimes all it takes to stop a bully is for one person to speak up because then others that might have been keeping silent will feel more comfortable speaking up as well.
Why does someone want to show support to people who do not need that support after all?
* Myer and Sutherlands "On the Design of Display Processors" gives some sense of how we go around in circles (or, hopefully, spirals), but I'm unaware of any reference for how vocabulary changes while the concepts remain unaltered.
An example might be "prefix sum" calculations (or whatever they're called on GPUs nowadays), as these have appeared under different names back to before computers. (when hand calculating, in the days when "computer" was a job description, not a machine, and US Navy calculations took weeks to run, shallow parallel algorithms could save substantial sums)
Often it isn't harmful, but sometimes it can be, so that is why to be careful of it, I think.
Altering comments (and documentation) is probably not harmful (as long as it remains clear, or in some cases, becomes even more clearly meaning), but altering names of commands and other stuff (especially if it is an exposed API) is more problematic, I think. (Changing them to same words as other things to be confusing, or breaking URLs, or whatever, is also harmful, though.)
I think that it is best to change the vocabulary when the concepts are altered, and to leave it the same when the concepts remain unaltered, although I am not trying to stop you or anyone from writing what they want to write; if they don't like these words, change them, especially if the new words are a better description of it anyways.
(But I believe in freedom of speech: If someone else doesn't want to change their program or document, don't force them to do so. But I also dislike copyright: I believe that if you don't like their program or document or whatever, you should be allowed to make (and use, and distribute) a modified copy.)
I am a P.O.C, and these small things do set a bit of a tingle in my mind when I hear them. As a software developer, I cringe a bit to myself when I have to say terms like "whitelist" and "blacklist" or "master/slave" Obviously to you they may just be innocuous words, but think about what they represent: good vs. not good. Growing up in America, these terms hold a rather disgusting history -- and upon hearing them, I find it difficult to remove that context.
I don't think this has any racist connotations, but it can and does make some people feel needlessly uncomfortable. It's a small change, and I applaud their efforts.
In my country, saying the color won't hurt others (that's not offensive words). But we know when or how to say the Color will hurt them (the Color word became offensive word). (I don't know how to tell you the exact example..long story)
I'm trying to understand you.
1. Do you have any bad experience? for example, people pointed at you and say a color word hurt you. Is it very common in US?
2. If whitelist = bad; If blacklist = good
will you have the same feeling?
3. Do you really think white/black list linking to master/slave, or just try to avoid it in the future? (because the society telling you not to say that) [educated to feel bad and deep feeling from heart, I think that's different)
4. When will you feel good (or no bad feelings) when you see the word Black / White (or your color)? (I will feel confused if your answer is never)
(British cultural reference - What have the Romans ever done for us? Monty Python. - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7tvauOJMHo )
But the issue at hand here is very important and should not be made lite of.
The first time I saw documentation guidelines was while working for a large US software house in the early 90’s. This was a marketing led initiative, along with very specific instructions about correct use of trademarks the guide was prescriptive about always using female pronouns.
Three decades later we still have significant gender bias in the industry but in my experience things have improved almost beyond recognition.
In that time, attitudes to race, gender and sexuality have advanced significantly in the US and European corporations. I still come across unacceptable attitudes and language, but open sexism, racism and anti semitism is almost non existent. Sadly this is not yet true in some of the emerging market countries I’ve worked in.
The use of language may or may not have contributed to this welcome change, but what was at the time called positive discrimination, a term that in itself is possibly no longer politically correct, did definitely draw attention to an issue that was otherwise not generally discussed at work.
The conversation about pronouns has moved on too.
My somewhat longwinded preamble does have a point, the language we use can make people think about issues they would not otherwise be aware of.
I don’t know if the terms master and servant are generally considered acceptable, my guess is master/slave is predominant because it is meaningful, short and easy to spell and in itself is not racist language.
I think that at least some of the corporate avalanche of support for the current protests is no less cynical and self serving than the political correctness in marketing of the early 90’s, but it will still result in positive change.
Blacklist, blackball, black magic, blackmail, and the list goes on. You might have never thought of these things, simply because it may not a part of your daily life.
If we can fix this in even a small way: then why not?
Prepare yourself. I’ve read a lot of these threads lately and it’s really disappointing. The conversation instantly devolves into bullshit like that person in the GitHub issue claiming to be an orphan that’s offended by the term parent.
I think changing contribution guidelines and being more cognizant of offensive terms going forward is an obvious win. I’m not really sure what to think about API breaking changes though. Maybe a comment in the code linking to updated guidelines would be a pragmatic solution that doesn’t require breaking changes. It’s probably got to be assessed case by case.
What do you think of breaking changes?
I think it is better to apologise and acknowledge for terms that are offensive rather than erase them.
While removing offensive 70’s TV comedy shows is probably a good thing to avoid perpetuating unhealthy stereotypes, preventing the use of 19th century literature is less helpful because we should not forget history.
Wouldn't a more straightforward and sensible solution be to stop referring to people with darker skin as 'black' since, actually, they're not that colour?
And conversely 'white' skin isn't white. So let's get rid of that reference too.
I'd argue that continuing to use black / white as racial descriptions is highly offensive because it originates in the era of institutional racism and slavery. Why perpetuate that attitude?
Most of them look like they are shades of brown to me.
I have a really hard time making sense of this sentiment. You're stipulating that the words have truly no ill intent whatsoever, and yet you're happy that they're being banned?
And beyond that, does this sort of thing really belong in the top ten thousand concerns of anyone, when it comes to making the world a better place?
"A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to." -Anthony Daniels
During Operation Mockingbird [0] the CIA found that they only had to infiltrate a relatively small nimber of the news outlets in order to sway public opinion. They placed stories with both cooperating and unwitting journalists.
Useful idiots can be very useful.
The word "slave" obviously doesn't mean anything to you, but is it not within your comprehension to see how it could be a painful word to encounter, in any context, for some of our fellow humans?
I can certainly think of other very objectionable and hurtful words that people don't want to encounter in any context.. I am sure you can think of some words too.
Why is it so hard for you to understand that this particular word falls in that category for a large number of people.
Again, it has nothing to do with context, it has to do with THE WORD ITSELF.
You are turning people's real pain into a pedantic discussion about language and context, and ignoring the real-world context of this specific scenario.
The tone deafness is astounding.
What about new projects, are they to avoid these words too, and what would you call that?
I wish the best to all blacks, queers, trans and minorities, as all voices are unique and important. But that doesn't mean we drop principles like liberty of speech and thought. If people are hurt, that needs to be addressed, and this (token gestures) just ain't enough.
TL;DR Going PC is not going to solve the root structural problem. Feeling good about short-term, shallow fixes are overrated.
Removing a word from a codebase does absolutely nothing to help this. Most of the people claiming they are against slavery indirectly support it daily. Most coffee on Earth is made by unpaid forced child labour. Most chocolate production relies on the same.
I'll put forward that the vast majority of people who claim to care about the usage of the word slave don't think in the slightest about the prevalent modern existence of actual slaves or will do anything to change it at their own expense. Words are cheap, slacktivism is cheap, taking personal responsibility and actively avoiding slave products is not.
> Estimates of the number of slaves today range from around 21 million to 46 million[0]
> Approximately 2.1 million children in West Africa "still do the dangerous and physically taxing work of harvesting cocoa". The report suggested that it would be an uphill battle to improve the situation. [1]
> An undercover probe has discovered child labour at farms linked to coffee giant Nespresso.[2]
> Uighurs and other minorities aren’t just being subjected to forced re-education — they’re being used as slave labor after completing their terms of “study.”
> The ASPI estimates that up to 80,000 Uighurs have been forced into labor camps this way, some of them directly after finishing their indoctrination at Chinese re-education centers. The report includes three case studies focused on factories producing goods for Nike, Adidas/Fila, and Apple. A total of 83 companies have been identified as benefiting from these practices [5]
Hopefully one day those enjoying a chocolate latte at Starbucks wearing designer clothes made by indentured workers while posting about slavery on their iPhone will see the irony. [3][4][5]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labour_in_cocoa_producti...
[2] https://metro.co.uk/2020/02/26/nespresso-exposed-using-child...
[3] https://labs.theguardian.com/unicef-child-labour/
[4] https://www.fastcompany.com/90279693/did-a-slave-make-your-s...
[5] https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/306909-report-china-sell...
I think at large, while some changes might be more performative than others, removing master/slave terminology seems pretty clear cut.
IMHO things like this should be treated like the trolls they are; and not fed, lest important projects get overrun by this BS.
Parent: to orphans and those who have been in the foster care system
Child: to those who cannot have offspring
Sibling: to only children
Dead: to those who’ve known someone who passed
Disabled: to anyone with a handicap
Fire: to burn victims
Smart: to those with low IQ
Small: to the vertically challenged
I’m very glad to not see the word Zombie because that is very triggering to French Haitians.
I’d also like to remind people that we need new words for male/female plugs because those terms are transphobic.
This. clap Has. clap Got. clap To. clap Go!
'You haven't a real appreciation of Newspeak, Winston,' he said almost
sadly. 'Even when you write it you're still thinking in Oldspeak. I've read
some of those pieces that you write in "The Times" occasionally. They're
good enough, but they're translations. In your heart you'd prefer to stick
to Oldspeak, with all its vagueness and its useless shades of meaning.
You don't grasp the beauty of the destruction of words. Do you know that
Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller
every year?'
Winston did know that, of course. He smiled, sympathetically he hoped, not
trusting himself to speak. Syme bit off another fragment of the
dark-coloured bread, chewed it briefly, and went on:
'Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of
thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible,
because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that
can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning
rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten.
Already, in the Eleventh Edition, we're not far from that point. But the
process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year
fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little
smaller. Even now, of course, there's no reason or excuse for committing
thoughtcrime. It's merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control.
But in the end there won't be any need even for that. The Revolution will
be complete when the language is perfect. Newspeak is Ingsoc and Ingsoc
is Newspeak,' he added with a sort of mystical satisfaction. 'Has it ever
occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a
single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation
as we are having now?'I feel sorry for people who do things like this, only because if https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21833377 is any indication, 4chan is about to make his life very very miserable.
"Inclusiveness includes stupidity too."
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/pull/12089/commits/b7d2ec...
Maybe I’m missing something?
In the case of master and slave i don't mind the defaults for new projects being changed but this new trend of going around and demanding everyone update their projects right now is just silly. You are asking people to put in a huge ammount of effort and possibly break lots of external things for the sake of making a few white guys feel like they did something.
If I don't change my repositories for regardless what reason there is, I risk myself now being called a racist. And that can have serious consequences (again though public rage "that company employs racists").
You'll note the text:
> In May 2003, a black employee of the county’s Probation Department filed a discrimination complaint with the Office of Affirmative Action Compliance after spotting “master” and “slave” labels on a videotape machine,
which suggest your "for the sake of making a few white guys" might not be the only purpose.
Other examples have made it to HN, like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7801646 on "Replaced occurrences of master/slave terminology with leader/follower " for Django, from 6 years ago.
At the end of the day, I cannot help but think that half of the interpretation is just what my professor just made up because she really engrossed in Freud's theory.
That being said, you will see anything you really want to see, if you look for it hard enough. If you think it's there, it will be there...
Colors.Black == Colors.White
> "Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.”
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/blob/454afd9866300b984306...
Why Yellow is Groan?
As someone living near to or will become a sensor place soon, I'm worried one day that's a list to remove/replace these words automatically. (or suggested not to say that)
There's a country you'll get in trouble if you say that 2-digits out of 0-9
master -> changed to main/parent (depending on context)
slave -> changed to child
blacklist -> changed to blocklist
black magic -> changed to magic
white space -> changed to whitespace/empty space (depending on context)
A variant of PNG called PNG-16 uses the term "black magic", and it is appropriate there, because it is indeed black!
Words can be reappropriated, yes, but only by the group the word affects: otherwise, you haven't been at the other end of the word and it seems out of place to dictate how they should feel about it, as an outsider.