Native Americans urge Apache Software Foundation to ditch its name | Hacker News Reader

Native Americans urge Apache Software Foundation to ditch its name

theregister.com

11 pointsmgd10 comments

I sincerely hope they don't entertain such ideas. Culture is an expression of ideas, and ideas are built upon other ideas. Nobody can claim an idea to their own, and certainly not a group of individuals who have come long after the conception of the idea. It goes against everything that defines the human race and how we have evolved for hundreds of thousands of years.

You realise the Apache came long before the ASF, servers, or the internet, right?

Claiming the Apache people came long after the conception of the idea" is a ridiculous claim.

I get the complaint, I guess, but what possible benefit is there in demanding such a massive change? Changing the name of ASF would likely cost millions of dollars over the span of months or years. Why? What is there to gain?

The word "Apache" can now only be used in the context of native Americans, great. Now what? The global exposure of the word has decreased by 90%. What did you gain?

I really don't see this as harmful to the Apache people in any way, but I guess I am just some white dude. It seems very frivolous with no real end goal in mind. I genuinely can't come up with any benefits for anyone if ASF were to change their name.

I'm not saying the Apache people can't or shouldn't demand this change, but I am asking why. It just doesn't make any sense.

> The word "Apache" can now only be used in the context of native Americans, great. Now what? The global exposure of the word has decreased by 90%. What did you gain?

The military helicopters give the word far more exposure than the server software - and given the relationship between Native Americans and the US military I can see a greater argument against the usage in that case (although as far as I'm aware many Apache are fine with it as a sign of respect.) But what value is there in that exposure for Natives in general? Maybe the political leverage gained by forcing praxis from a corporation is of greater value to them.

Apache doesn't present them as dead and gone, that's insane. It's the name of a historical and continuing culture, and nobody should own a name in such a way.

One very clear thing the ASF could do would be to make clear how its own position on the topic has changed over time.

The 1997 FAQ at https://web.archive.org/web/19970106233141/http://www.apache... doesn't mention the people, and says the name comes from "a patchy server". It took years for this to be changed. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_HTTP_Server#Name tracks the "patchy server" back to the 1995 documentation. More discussion on HN at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5536134 .)

Yet the current ASF position is that name was rumor, that "rumor became lore, and lore became legend", without mentioning their own role in that propagating that legend for years.

While the evidence we have that the server and thence ASF was first named after the Apache peoples first is from oral statements made years later, with no paper trail. In "Trillions and Trillions Served" we see how the name comes from a romantic interpretation from watching a documentary.

You can see even then that Brian Behlendorf was having to make clear why he didn't consider this cultural appropriation. https://youtu.be/JUt2nb0mgwg?t=249 . As I recall, there was some controversy about the name at the time, with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5536134 quoting Fielding:

> Apache was named after the Apache tribes -- "a patchy" server was an afterthought. We've generally avoided any discussion of the topic because involvement of a native american "activist" will only result in trouble for us. Those people are not Apache -- they don't even have a clue. The various tribes that are called Apache (by their enemies) have more specific names for themselves. Thus, we don't have any complaints from the Apache people (only from white folks who think they know better).

By 2004, that connection no longer exists in the ASF FAQ: https://web.archive.org/web/20040202103926/http://apache.org... .

By 2008 the ASF FAQ says the name comes from the peoples, not "a patchy server", at https://web.archive.org/web/20080202033147/http://www.apache... , but you can see the author of that entry doesn't know much about the Apache peoples:

> The name 'Apache' was chosen from respect for the Native American Indian tribe of Apache, well-known for their superior skills in warfare strategy and their inexhaustible endurance.

There is no "the ... tribe of Apache." As this complaint letter points out, "There are currently 8 federally recognized tribes that carry on the Apache name", and the above quote shows Fielding knew that in 2003.

Further, the current FAQ says nothing about warfare strategy or inexhaustible endurance but now says:

> The name “Apache” was chosen out of reverence and appreciation for the people and tribes who refer to themselves as “Apache”.

The lack of details about the clear historical changes makes it easy for an outsider to claim the ASF is deliberately spinning things to make themselves look good.

I cannot even imagine the ramification of such change throughout the software industry. All the packages, modules, artifacts, dns names, and the list continues.

PS: I am not commenting about the merit of the demand but the ramification.

Ramification… if using names requires permission, cities such as New York and San Francisco have a problems too, with effects fully as big as those in the software industry.

More about this at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34327455 from 3 days ago. 133 comments.

Your comment shifted the topic. Natives in Tech made a request. There is no requirement, and I didn't see anyone requesting a requirement.

More importantly, we've long ago required permission to use some names.

Not only trademark, but in the US there are special protections for "Olympics" (and associated terms and symbols; https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/36/220506 ) and "Red Cross" (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/706 ), and likely other terms.

And you're right, these have large effects. But you're already so used to the effects you likely forgot they exist.

New York is derived from "York" which is derived from a word meaning "place of the yew trees". Who would we ask for permission? I don't think any yew trees are complaining.

The easy way out is to change the name to "ASF" and not use the full name "Apache Software Foundation". The downside is that it now becomes the "ASF Foundation" which is a big pill to swallow for the purists.

They don't need to change the internal use of 'apache'.

The ASF will keep 'apache.org' but the huge problem is that they will NEVER accept to add a reference on the front page of the website "If you want to find more about the Apache indigenous tribe, click here".

Reply on news.ycombinator.com