While at first glance I don't see any value in changing these terms, I do think pushback of this angry tone serves to illustrate the shocking degree of negative emotional energy that people have for the topic, which ironically serves as evidence that the terms do matter, and strengthens the argument for the change.

No, not at all. Read my other comment below.

The article explicitly says that Master on its own is not a problem.

So, for example, creating a CD master, or remastering, is fine.

The issue is with the master/slave pairing.

Yeah, I always wondered who came up with this master/slave terminology and what they had in mind. Was it a joke?

No, I don’t think so anyway. It’s a very literal, very accurate abstraction for reasoning about the way two components in a system interact.

Consider devices connected on an i2c communication bus. One device is literally acting as the master and dictating to the slaves, who have no choice in the matter.

To argue that the terms should be changed is to deny the reality of the situation - some of those devices are enslaved. Not followers, slaves!

No, the abstraction is not literal and not very acurate either but was catchy and implied the control/controlled. You and all of us picked it up without issues. For black people, it may not have gone that well because of the implied meaning and the black history around slavery. Im fine dropping it for a different term

There were slaves before the black people

My grandmother from my father's side was enslaved by Nazis not long ago

Master/slave has nothing to do with black people, it was picked up because it was the right terminology for the job.

Master-slave was already in use in Mesopotamia (3.000 b.c.) in religious texts to express the relation between Gods and men.

BTW there have been slaves long after black people were freed in US, for example in Zarist Russia it was abolished in 1861 when half of the population were serves, but it kinda went on the same

In 1915 Nikolai Berdayev (a russian philosopher) wrote

> “Russia is a country of unbelievable servility and terrible humility, a country lacking any consciousness of the rights of the individual, and which fails to stand up for the dignity of the individual…”

There have been slaves in USSR

There were slaves during Franco dictatorship, that lasted until 1975

There are slaves in many third World countries right now in the form of forced labour, forced sexual exploitation, forced marriage and forced relocation

Thinking that slavery is a monopoly of black people from US is a form of cultural appropriation itself.

Seeing as all humanity comes out of africa (i.e. we were all black), there weren't slaves before there were black people.

But if you mean there were slaves before the american system of chattel slavery, sure. But what's your point? Are you trying to explain to the descendants of slaves that they shouldn't be offended or at least bothered by the popular use of slavery terms because they weren't the first?

First of all, I meant black people in USA

Secondly, we must set some basic rules when discussing about complex topics such is this one.

The first rule is that if you are not a descendant of African slaves, you can't speak in their name.

And even if you are, I doubt you can speak for all of them.

Just like I don't speak on behalf of every Italian, living or dead.

The second is that I descend from Romans, but I can't teach Roman history better than a scholar who studied it in Australia.

My grandfather was a tailor, I know nothing about tailoring, so "are you trying to explain X to the descendants of Y" 200 years later doesn't qualify as an argument.

I could well be a descendant from Africans more than any American who's been living there for more than 3 generations. During WW2 where my family comes from, the "Marocchinate" ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marocchinate ), there's even a movie about it it's called Two Women in English, La Ciociara in Italian, Sophia Loren was in it and won the academy award as best actress. I look like a North African, which is not a typical trait of my family's, so who knows what really happened.

I don't hate Moroccan people, I don't hate black people, it's in the past, Moroccans I know are not responsible for it and when I go to a bar to have breakfast and someone orders a Moroccan coffee I don't feel offended because 80 years ago a lot of women were killed and raped in my home region.

The popular word slave is a problem only for a small fraction of the world population, when I was a kid and learnt about slaves in Egypt that built the pyramids I dreamt about being one, so I got to build pyramids.

Our history books are full of stories about slavery, dating back thousands years before our lord and saviour Jesus.

The world slave applied to tools is quite common and it never bothered me nor did it make me a racist, the contrary is in fact true, I was usually bullied when I was younger by US military personnel stationed in my country (we have been somewhat colonized by US, you know...) because my family was communist. I say was because the Italian communist party doesn't exist anymore, but my family is still communist. It's ok in Italy, we don't eat kids, we don't pray to Stalin, we don't send people to Gulags.

We have a millenarian history, we don't pretend everybody shares it, please don't pretend your sensitivity is global, because it is not.

The point is that you can't link US slavery and today's racism in US with master/slave applied to inanimated things, because it's wrong, Sumerian already used it 4 thousands years ago.

Everyday I kill orphans which are made orphans by killing their parent on my computer, that didn't make me a serial killer.

"very accurate"? so a "master" hard drive issues commands to a "slave" drive?

Yes, exactly. Take IDE drives for example. To use two drives with a single cable, one is set to be the master, the other to be the slave. From that point onwards, the slave cannot write to the bus until the master gives permission.

I was referring to newer ATA drives. Nevertheless, in your example no orders (or ownership!) are implied.

It appeared in religious literature many centuries ago, probably in Mesopotamia (we don't have written testimonies before them) to express god-man relation.

Many religions nowadays are still based on the concept of a master God and a slave human follower

The Bible is the most simple example were slavery is accepted and considered normal (slaves, concubines, that became domesti workers but we're still slaves)

Another example is God that asks Abraham to kill his child, and Abraham obeys, because he's an "humble servant"

There are still many prayers that refer to God as The Lord (master) and the believers are servants to God (slaves to God, sometimes literally)

* “Amen, amen, I say to you, no slave is greater than his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him.” *

Said Jesus to his disciples in John 13:16

That's where it was born

And that's why it stayed

It really wasn't a joke, it was all very serious.

"slaving" or "(being) slaved" as an intransitive verb has a history that predates modern computing meaning a mechanical or electromechanical system that takes its control inputs from another (master) source. Examples:

https://www.quora.com/What-is-a-slave-engine-on-on-a-locomot...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_situation_indicator

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propeller_synchronization

The social incentives involved aren't constrained by the good intentions of this article's author or anyone else.

There are some places where renaming master/slave would, if anything, be a syntactic enhancement.

But the incentive at work is for corporate and professional virtue-signaling / clout-chasing, hence GitHub's decision to rename default branch from "master" to "main", which just muddles its purpose.

Are you a person of color?

It may be relevant to whether or not you could or would likely understand adequately why this might bother someone.

Edit:

Downvotes won’t make this inconvenient reality go away.

I live in a country where slavery is something we read about from books, the master/slave terms have no race conotations.

Changing established technical terms just because less than 5% of the world population has some sensitivity to history before their grand-grand parents is excessive.

Don't make me remember what Italian's ancestors did to my ancestors, or else I will have to ask current Italians for reparations. Well, this sounds extremely stupid, is it?

It doesn’t sound extremely stupid to me. I’m not a person of color but can imagine how it might feel like the right time to shrug certain terms out of our public discourse.

That it does not upset you is of no consequence. That it may be hurtful to others has consequence.

It’s very little skin off our backs in the grand scheme. If it is a hill you’d like to die on though, do as you must.

I’d just suggest that there may be times things frustrate you that you do not understand, and it is then that it can be better to simply listen.

Take care.

As Italian, I'm sorry for what we did

And I add to what you said: don't make me remember what other Italians did to my Italian family, no more than 75 years ago.

Do not be sorry for what some people 2000 years ago did to some other people; it was not you, there is nothing to be sorry about. Collective guilt and collective punishment are bad ideas.

He's not talking about the Roman Empire...

That 5% of the world population comprises 83% of the world's native English speakers. Since we're talking about making modifications to the words we're using in English then I'd argue that 83% have considerable sway in that conversation - way more than the 5% sway you're arguing they should have.

> Since we're talking about making modifications to the words we're using in English

We are actually not.

Master and slave will continue to exist in English.

Besides, your numbers are completely wrong, India and Nigerian have English as one of the official languages, if we sum them there are more people speaking English in those two countries alone than in the entire US of A.

Even in Europe there are more people speaking English than in the US.

EDIT

I ran the numbers

These are all countries where English is an official language

    India          129,377,965 
    Nigeria        114,172,822  
    Pakistan        94,300,000  
    Philippines     70,371,000
    United Kingdom  59,600,000
    --------------------------
    Total          467,821,787

    US             283,160,411   

Only considering these 5 countries (excluding the entire continent of Oceania)

Maybe it's time that US people drop the attitude, because that's the main problem in their society: the feeling that they are on top of everything.

It doesn't surprise me at all the rampant racism in a society shaped around the illusion that you are the best and all the others can't even compete in the same league...

I'm a minority and have experienced racism in the past. I still think this is a silly gesture, devoid of any real value.

Let's grant that a terminology change like this is just a distraction. If so, why do you get so worked up about it? Why not just say to yourself "heh, much good that'll do, but whatever" and move on?

The case that could be made is that the energy, time, and attention of a movement are finite, and those resources can be allocated in a way that makes us /feel/ like change is happening while, in fact, no substantive change is occurring.

It can function like a pressure relief valve. An immediate example that comes to mind is the firing of 6 APD officers that discharged tasers at protestors. Subsequently, nothing structural in the police department changed, but protests dissipated because of the 'victory' and then an even worse botched arrest occured because nothing fundamental had changed.

Merely firing officers for wrongdoing is itself a huge departure from the norm and starts to set a precedent. Of course, it must continue even when riots aren't gathered outside the precinct.

It's exhausting watching companies that have enough capital and resources to educate, train, and employ disadvantaged Americans and give them a better life resort to pandering of the lowest level during a crisis to promote their brand. I don't wish to participate or support their ruse.

But Peter Kirn, the author, is not a company, he's a musician. He's not selling music software so he can't (as per the sibling comment) racewash it.

The main legitimate reason I can see to objecting is not wanting to encourage "obnoxious bad actors". Renaming master/slave to something clearer and less likely to have awkward misunderstandings akin to "forking a child and killing widows and orphans" is a good goal in itself if it improves communication clarity. Toxic drama vectors get cut out for a reason - because nobody wants to deal with them.

Ironically it is possible both that someone is "right" on an issue and someone who is better off not encouraged. Contrary to what some believe there are bad tactics regardless of target.

The first definition reads,

“a man who has people working for him, especially servants or slaves.”

Wouldn’t that seem to justify moving in a direction of updating these terms?

The first definition is marked historical.

The other 3 definitions google offers make no reference to slavery unless you really want to stretch "in charge of an organization or group" just to be offended.

Personally, and perhaps I should have said this in my first comment, I would challenge the premise that the dictionary definition should be a controlling factor in responding to this whole question.

For me, it's more about looking at the potential for harm. I happen to be a white man with no particular harm one way or another associated with terms like these, but I can understand how people with other experiences might feel impacted by being surrounded by terminology like this.

It doesn't hurt me at all to change the terms I use, and if other people with other backgrounds think it's important to do it, I don't have any problem with that.

My issue with this approach is this: it drags attention and headlines away from real issues.

We need serious reform in our policing and prisons in the US. Every time serious reform is demanded in any real way, the distractions get brought up and the real issues are minimized. I don't believe for a moment that this is accidental.

As someone who has black siblings who are now having children of their own, I am infinitely more offended that the real issues get strategically minimized. Look at the reactions to these threads for an example. Look at how many people (black and white) are saying it's an [0]"obvious distraction" or a non-issue.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/h8w36t/github_...

I absolutely respect that, and honestly I'm not sure how much energy needs to be spent on these terms. I agree that it would be an overall negative if we allowed something that might be insignificant like these systemic terms to distract from things like legal reform.

Personally, I would settle on the side of updating the terms and not being too worried about it or expending further thought, because the use of these specific master/slave terms isn't something I'm attached to. It's a habit I don't mind updating.

I also think, tentatively, that it's not really for me to decide how big a deal this is. I just don't have the experience to understand how big an impact these terms might have. It seems plausible that distractors would get thrown around at a time like this to expend energy without attacking any real structures which would make life more uncomfortable, and I appreciate your bringing it up because I might not have thought about it in those terms.

For myself, I'm happy for these terms to get updated, and I intend to do what I can to focus on continuing to educate myself and try to learn how I can be more effective in deconstructing things that cause harm to people, and to trying to learn more about what it means to be anti-racist.

In terms of values, that's how I think I want to approach something like this, and I respect that other people have a different approach-- I don't mind, as long as the approach people take isn't rooted in things that will perpetuate violence and harm toward people.

If everyone could agree on new terminology without getting annoyed or creating drama I'd be all for it. Unfortunately, people get so hung up over the words that they lose sight of the sticks and stones.

If the black folks discussing the topic seem to think it's harmful (and based on the upvote counts they have a ton of support for that opinion) then I'm inclined to agree.

To put it rather bluntly, I wonder what the opinion of the protestors on the street would be while they're facing down rubber bullets and tear gas. I imagine they'd want to fry bigger fish.

I think you have a point. I think I'll watch for a consensus about replacement terms and just start using them in my own everyday language.

If potential harm matters that much, you should get rid of all the knives in your house and start eating without it, then come back and tell about it. There is potential harm anywhere, the solution is to change the universe?

Sorry, I don't think I follow your argument. My best interpretation is that you're saying that knives in my kitchen could potentially cut someone, and therefore if I care about the harm caused by terms like "master" and "slave", in order to be consistent I need to care about the potential harm of knives as well.

Responding to that interpretation, I would say:

1. I need to take responsibility for the knives in my kitchen in the same way that I need to take responsibility for the words that come out of my mouth. If my knives are cutting people, then I would need to get rid of them. Apparently the use of these words are cutting people, and so the notion of replacing them with less harmful alternatives isn't worrisome to me

2. I would also say that the potential for harm being everywhere is not a reason for me to ignore this specific instance

3. Yes, I do think that the end goal is to change the universe. It's okay with me if the medium of change is small actions, if that's what's available

If that is so, then also consider the premise that people's experience and the context in regards to this terminology can differ greatly outside of the US.

I would recommend a guide on parts of speech and expanding and reading all definitions.

If we're being sticklers, in this context you have to take the meaning of the word "master" in relation to its counterpart, "slave"; the other definitions are irrelevant.

What's the term that's equivalent to greenwashing here? Racewashing?

Indeed. I'm glad people are fixing racism (read: assuaging their white guilt) by renaming things instead of agitating for health care reform (or, closer at hand: for interview process reform).

Why it's almost as if this is all a distraction that effectively benefits the already comfortable...