Natives in Tech asks Apache Software Foundation to change name
blog.nativesintech.org
blog.nativesintech.org
According to The Apache Software Foundation, its name was chosen "from respect for the various Native American nations collectively referred to as Apache, well-known for their superior skills in warfare strategy and their inexhaustible endurance".[15] This was in a context in which it seemed that the open internet -- based on free exchange of open source code -- appeared to be soon subjected to a kind of conquer by proprietary software vendor Microsoft; Apache co-creator Brian Behlendorf -- originator of the name -- saw his effort somewhat parallel that of Geronimo, Chief of the last of the free Apache peoples.[16][17] But it conceded that the name "also makes a cute pun on 'a patchy web server'—a server made from a series of patches".
Imagine if this was called the Irish Software Foundation or the Palestinian Software Foundation or the Xhosa Software Foundation or the Asheknazi Software Foundation.
> The Irish Software Foundation was named from respect for the Irish people, well-known for their fighting spirit and perseverance against hundreds of years of adversity.
> The Ashkenazi Software Foundation was named from respect for the various Jewish peoples of Europe collectively known as Ashkenazi, well-known for their strong academic traditions.
It would be so blatantly idiotic and racist that nobody would ever do it.
The name "Apache Software Foundation" sucks, and this is long overdue.
You mean like the "Fighting Irish" from University of Notre Dame? I'm Irish and I've never heard anyone criticise them. In fact they are welcomed to Ireland for St Patricks day parades.
You said "It would be so blatantly idiotic and racist that nobody would ever do it". People have being doing exacty this forever and, while it may be sometimes cringe-worthy or even insensitive, I would contend it is not inherently a bad thing to find inspiration in other peoples culture and history.
How is that not disrespectful? I agree that although Apache wasn't meant to be racist, that doesn't make it not racist.
oh no that would be horrible I bet the Irish would be so mad.
It's a diversity shakedown. Extortion racket.
As a not-white person, the disrespect being discussed here seems imaginary. I wonder if the disrespect others see is because of a belief in a hierarchy of victimhood. The kind that grants authority to members whose ancestors who were once oppressed. Authority that justifies private ownership, authority that cannot be questioned, authority that demands greater and greater respect, if not obedience.
Which is why the correct response to these people is to tell them they're welcome to maintain forks of Apache software that uses different names and advertise them to other people, but they should not attempt to go further, like by insinuating that everyone writing and using Apache software (millions of people) are racist, because that is inflammatory, wrong, and outside of the USA most probably libel.
And for those who haven't figured it out yet, this is exactly why so many of us were and still are opposed to the stupid git master branch rename. Only the wilfully blind couldn't see this sort of escalation coming. Until people power tripping on bogus victimhood claims are consistently given the cold shoulder the amount of chaos they cause will increase fast and hard.
Obviously every discussion of naming winds up being controversial. On one hand, the name wasn't strictly culturally part of their identity until the Spanish came along, and probably not even until 1900s or so. But, the government essentially making it that particular group of people's identity then solidified that and enshrined it.
A question I would pose to everyone responding negatively here is this: If it were clearly a profit-motivated company using this name, like, say, Microsoft, Apple, or Google, would it be as obvious that they "shouldn't change their name"?
I'm not convinced there's a good answer here but maybe the authors do have a point regarding the Apache Foundation's support of native communities that bear the name they've trademarked and use.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache#Name
[2]: Brugge, David M. (1968). Navajos in the Catholic Church Records of New Mexico 1694 - 1875. Window Rock, Arizona: Research Section, The Navajo Tribe.
In a detailed study of New Mexico Catholic Church records, David M. Brugge identifies 15 tribal names which the Spanish used to refer to the Apache. These were drawn from records of about 1000 baptisms from 1704 to 1862.But in this case, there is a "return" - that is lack of confusion of all users between the apache software foundation and the Apache group of tribes.
Your stance on this issue will be determined by what you view as the bigger cost: The time taken by everyone who has to deal with a rename of all apache references, vs the loss of value caused by confusion between the group of tribes and the software foundation.
I think the value lost to confusion is likely very low, and the cost of renaming quite high. And yet I still think it should be done, because I highly value a group's right to choose the name they are referred to as and to have some control over how that name is used. There's not really a financial representation of that, but I don't think it's inconsistent either.
Do people get confused by ‘Windows’? Or ‘Desktop’ or ‘Office’.
If half of all members of current Apache tribes want the name change, it should be changed.
But we both know that less than 1% of actual native Americans feel slighted by the name, there's a larger percentage that like it.
I'm all for the rename. Call it the ASF, update references in documents the next time we touch them.
It's very much the same discussion as master/main for branches, or Andrew/Andy for me: if I care enough to ask people to respect my name, people who wish to care for those around them will take care to respect my choice of name.
Changing the foundation's name is very obviously not going to undo any of the injustices that have been done over the years, but if we care about the people involved so little that we won't even stop using their name for something unrelated to them when they ask nicely then how can they (or anyone else) possibly think we'd do the right thing in a more weighty situation?
Some of whom have expressed that.
At this point, I see a single article with three listed authors. I have no idea what the opinion of those who self-identify as "Apache" is like. It could literally be anything in the range of "100% of Apaches oppose the name being used" to "(100% - 3) actively support the name in its current usage". My intuition is that the vast majority of those people don't have a strong opinion, and those that do are relatively evenly split - but I have no evidence for that, either.
Basically, if I were making the decision I'd listen to the concern and be open to acting on it, but would require a lot more justification than knowing that three people want it to be changed.
There can be social implications of course. In the same way that I can't compel people to call me "Andrew", I'll notice if someone goes out of their way to give me the wrong name after they've been asked nicely to. And so will others around me. That's not a big deal if it's someone I know cares for me, but if it's someone who used to bully me who is trying to convince me that they've changed then it's going to make it harder for me to believe they will act any differently from before.
Who are these people? They're certainly not representative of Native Americans overall. Just like demanding the use of "latinx", 99% of the supposedly affected minorities either don't care or would prefer to leave it as is. This kind of activism is by and for white people, especially the kind with lots of family money, lots of "education" but few marketable skills.
A group probably sponsored or backed by some white owned and controlled foundations, just like Black Lives Matter.
I'd love to see their articles of incorporation.
(Disclosure: i'm an asf member)
* Alongside "Cache consistency" and "Off-by-one errors"
This type of erasure undermines the abilities of Native and non-Native people to work together
Romanticizing Indigenous culture [...] is harmful. It categorizes Indigenous people within the bounds of the stereotype [...]
At the risk of being guilty of cultural erasure, maybe it would be in the author's interest to be constructive about amplifying culture rather than destructive. This isn't about pedagogy amplifying some narrow view, it's barely even an homage, it's a positive view of history written hundreds of years ago. If you want to discredit that history, you'll have to be more specific.
As I wrote in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34329605, imagine if instead this were the "Irish Software Foundation". It would be so blatantly stupid that it would never come to exist in the first place.
In conformance to the many needed patches roots?
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_place_names_of_Native_...
I prefer something besides Indian mostly to avoid confusion between East Indian and West Indian. When East Indians were minuscule in population, it wasn’t an issue but today there are likely more East Indians than North American Indians in North America.
It's a good thing. Certainly better than the governor of New York renaming a bridge after his dad (who apparently would have balked if he were still alive) and spending millions on new signage to do it.
In any case, the mods can manually un-flag a story that they think has been erroneously flagged.
Europeans committed genocide in America - that's not a questionable statement, that was the stated policy of the early United States government, as well as that of most colonizing powers. We then named a bunch of things after the folks we committed genocide on, and made a bunch of racist caricatures of those people and slapped them on buildings, sports teams, and other cultural institutions. The survivors of that genocide are asking we stop doing that. It's a reasonable ask. It's probably not going to happen in this case, because it's a lot of fucking work, but it's a reasonable ask. They'd also like their land back, as well as their worldly possessions, maybe an apology, and, like, whatever else you do to make up for trying to wipe out several distinct entire peoples, and that's also sort of morally hard to argue with, even though it's also not going to happen. It's possible to say that a claim is justified and also that the work to do it is sufficiently large that it's not going to happen. It doesn't feel good, but it shouldn't.
No they aren't.
Three people are asking. Three people, who most likely didn't survive anything, and just realized that extortion is easy money.
_______
Vote on it!
Let's ask the actual members of the Apache tribes today how they feel about the name. We both know this is gonna be like "latinx" -- only white people (with lots of "education" and rich parents) care about this stuff.
EDIT: I am aware that the name was retconned into a more "sophisticated" origin story, but the original project docs back me up. https://web.archive.org/web/19970415054031/http://www.apache...
> Why is it called Apache?
> The Apache group was formed around a number of people who provided patch files that had been written for NCSA httpd 1.3. The result after combining them was A PAtCHy server.
One of the founders, Brian Behlendorf, describes how he came about choosing the name Apache in the documentary “Trillions and Trillions Served”:
"I suggested the name Apache partly because the web technologies at the time that were launching were being called cyber this or spider that or something on those themes and I was like we need something a little more interesting, a little more romantic, not to be a cultural appropriator or anything like that, I had just seen a documentary about Geronimo and the last days of a Native American tribe called the Apaches, right, who succumbed to the invasion from the West, from the United States, and they were the last tribe to give up their territory and for me that almost romantically represented what I felt we were doing with this web-server project…"
Either way, it's marginalizing[1] and needs to be changed.
[1] In one of my wife's murder mysteries, I forget which, a woman quips in a brilliant stroke of teleplay writing: "Don't call people 'babes' or 'lushes', it's marginalising." I propose we use "marginalizing" instead of "offensive" because "offensive" is subjective whereas "marginalizing" denotes objective harm to a community.
It was a bad name then and it's a bad name now.
corollary, picking up something from white culture like wearing jeans isn't appropriation because whites have established themselves as top dog already.
Its pretty simple, really.
I do think they are on par with me.
Native americans are the poorest class of people in America so its obvious that the mainstream culture doesn't view them as equals.
Or is the “on par” piece completely made up and just assumed to not be the case?
You think the fact the native americans are poorest people with lowest life expectancy is made up ?
yes your fellow compatriot belonging to poorest class of people for belonging to a particular group of people should be a good hint. Like i said its really simple. People trying over complicate this or trying to find gotchas are being disingenuous.
therefore, it is cultural appropriation to adopt cultural appropriation as a perjorative
It's not easy to explain because there really isn't an analog if you've never been part of an exploited or erased group in some way. You just have to put yourself in their shoes I guess. What would it be like to be part of a culture that was very nearly successfully genocided, and is now treated as a mythologized part of the past that people are free to use as inspiration for their names and logos. Meanwhile you still exist, have your own traditions, history, names for yourself, religion maybe. It's not some deeply sophisticated academic argument it's just a shitty way to treat people and we should try not to do it.
Please, by all means, spread matzoh ball soup as far and as wide as you can. It's delicious. Use the name `maccabee` as the name of your new software that is resilient and strong.
BTW how do you feel about "messianic judaism?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messianic_Judaism
Free for me to use, free for you to use.
English is a language like most languages that does not have a policing academy prescribing usage. People/speakers are allowed to use words as they see fit and use them in new and innovative ways.
In another comment you wrote "Please, by all means, spread matzoh ball soup as far and as wide as you can. It's delicious." What if I took a recipe for cholent, added sour cream and cheese and some kind of shrimp ball, and sold it to people under the name "Authentic Jewish Matzo Ball Soup"? Imagine if that food product exploded in popularity and suddenly people that have never interacted with Jewish culture or food are talking about and making a "matzo ball soup" that contains beef, dairy, and shellfish (but no matzah).
That's all fine, to you, I'm sure.
Not all cultural appropriation is aggressive. Cultural exchange happens and not everything keeps cultural context. Japan loves to adopt bits of other cultures without context, and I don't think people are upset about that.
An imbalance of power can compound the issue. Back to the bastardised soup. A "regular joe" altering a recipe for a traditional Jewish food to repackage it and sell to a wide audience can be excused in a number of ways. But what if a violent antisemite was engaging in that kind of behaviour? Would that change anything for you?
APACHE ("Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II")Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople
Edit for context, very long Wikipedia on this dispute between Greece and North Macedonia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonia_naming_dispute
Are you done ridiculing and dismissing people yet, or are you still thirsty for more fighting and nothing else?
As you can see, there are more than three people in this thread alone who feel strongly in the opposite.
It seems to me the right things to do would be for the ASF to reach out to some Apache organizations to ask their thoughts, and for the article authors to approach (or create, if necessary) similar representative groups to make a formal statement of position.
What does the vast majority of Native Americans (ca three million people), or specifically the members of Apache tribes, think?
Mazda is a car manufacturer, however, it also the name of a god.
Pick any technology name and it will have a double meaning in a language or region in the world.
Where do we stop?
It would be more meaningful if the Apache foundation included a link on the homepage explaining the origin of its name and an make an annual contribution to a relevant charity.
Companies regularly rebrand. A brand depreciates, just like equipment, and so is regularly updated.
First of all the posters assume they actually speak for all natives, which I find unjustified. They are one group of natives who happen to hold a certain set of opinions, as entitled to them as any one. The reality, in the same gist as the people who have complained about the use of "master" as Git name, is that they are a loud but irrelevant minority holding an opinion on a matter that has no benefit to anyone.
It is also apparently implying that any idealized representation of a minority group constitutes "erasure", as if certain cultural stereotypes were a sin. Every idealized telling of a story is going to omit details and be reductionist; every outsider perspective of a group will have some sort of stereotype because there are hundreds of minority groups out there and nobody has the time to engage in a deep investigation of each. That doesn't mean idealizations are bad, or negative, or actually useful if they're going to be retold in a historically precise manner (symbols need to be reductive to be useful in idealized contexts). Symbols are symbols; the rationale for the name is interesting and innocent.
There's this awful trend in American minority militants that seem to get worked up about truly innocuous causes and stereotypes that are harmless, and at their very worst naive. As someone who's been around groups that have fought and resisted serious minority causes, it just shows their powerlessness and inability to fight for actually useful causes. It's just a huge waste of their breath that shows their lack of credibility.
Imagine if this were the "Irish Software Foundation", named because a guy watched a documentary on the Potato Famine and thought Irish people seemed noble and hardy. Of course that would be offensive and stupid.
Speaking of which, a lot of minority identities actually do revolve around certain set of values like the ones you mention.
People stereotype people all the time. The fundamental causes of distress of the indigenous people in the US have approximately zero to do with that.