FreeBSD Renames “Master Boot Record” to “Main Boot Record”
lists.freebsd.org
lists.freebsd.org
I wish we could discuss these changes rationally on this website, but I predict that this thread is going to turn into an embarrassing flamewar in about 3 minutes.
Is there any person who can actually revert the change ignoring Hans? How does it work in FreeBSD?
I'm quite unhappy with such changes. There are terms I used to and I never thought about those terms in any way bad meaning. Are people who rename Master to Main latent racist? Why, by reading "Master", they think about slavery?
It would be much better if we vote for such changes. Maybe give voice only to people who potentially may be offended by such words. Hans doesn't look as a person who can be offended by word Master though...
Very sad tendency is happening.
Now we're the puritans, demanding not to be offended.
>Please revert. Another part if the guidance was that industry standard terms should be used until the industry renames them. This makes FreeBSD unique for no good reason.
Good point!
https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/porters-ha...
"The gimp executable" is far far more off-sounding then "master boot record."
I really miss Jon Stewart
Personally I don’t care either way. But if it impacts someone negatively then why not do the decent thing and change it? It’s such an easy fix.
EDIT: https://youtu.be/4XpnKHJAok8
I didn’t watch through it again to confirm, but if my memory isn’t failing me, it was this talk where he mentioned his naming strategy.
Gimp is also not used in the context of someone who is disabled while master is used in the context of something which is in control. But personally I do feel gimp should be renamed as well.
The terms master and slave are dictionary terms, and their usage is generally a similar meaning to the historical acts at the root of the issue.
See also this comment I wrote a couple days ago re ZFS avoiding the use of "slave" (which was used in a different sense from "slave" hard drives, and both of which are different senses from the "master" boot record): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23521392
In general I think it's good that people are picking more meaningful terms.
Frankly, if it makes this field and career path more welcoming to people I am absolutely fine with it.
Keep your "woke" attitude outside of IT please
It's looking at hard drives and calling everyone who has used terminology you think might offend someone racist through passive voice.
Paint with broad strokes, and you should not be surprised to get blowback. Walk in and start calling everyone around you closet racists without any real justification other than word choice, and to be frank, you should be thankful you don't get a worse response than you do.
Projects started changing terminology at least 6 years ago, like Django at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7801646 .
I am still waiting for someone to tell Mr Linus Torvalds or Mr Greg Kroah-Hartman to make the logical case to rename all 'offensive' words and terminology in the Linux Kernel. The same also goes for OpenBSD, if anyone else has the courage to do so in their mailing lists.
Even after we create breaking changes to software using those terms, those that are 'offended' might as well not bother reading old computer science books or research papers and force the authors to release another edition.
For instance, if you have a disk with Windows, FreeBSD, and Linux partitions, each partition has its own boot sector that loads its own boot loader, and the MBR loads one of those. (Generally it's a tiny piece of code that could come from any of the OSes that looks at which partition is marked bootable, loads the boot sector for that partition, and execs it.)
We cannot attain Justice while still using the same language, and indeed, alphabet.
But as long as this is a technical forum, have we reconsidered numbers? Haven't 0 and 1 and the rest of mathematical thinking been dominated by men?
I do agree with you about the name "gimp" and I hope you raise it - it should also be changed.
"Devils are one of the most common mascots throughout American sports. This can likely be attributed to Christian beliefs being the most common of religions in the U.S."[1]
If anyone should be offended it's the Church of Satan, but they don't mind.
As for "gimp", you're right. Use Glipse. https://glimpse-editor.github.io/
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_symbolism_in_U.S._sp...
Are you the person who says who can and who cannot feel offended?
I can assert that pictures of the devil are offensive for Christians from Brazil (let's say we're about 150 millions). Unless you meant that only Christians from US should be considered.
Unless you mean that only Christians from your part of Brazil should be considered.
Anyway, even if my experience is actually an exception and even if those conservative Christian people are minorities, would it be ok to offend them?
I mean, I absolutely don't care. But, now that we're revisiting everything to be as political correct as possible, couldn't we change a picture - that is offensive to a minority - to something else?
I'd find that surprising. Images of the devil have been a mainstay of Christian art for centuries (e.g. "The Temptation of Christ by the Devil"). The devil is also the mascot of two Brazilian football teams.
You're correct, but you don't see those arts in common churches and houses here. In the place that I live, demons are usually represented by a goat because they don't like the two horned guy at all.
> devil is also the mascot of two Brazilian football teams
That's interesting, maybe it's a newer team. The Brazilian classic mascots are usually either animals or humans.