My bet is that number of people who are truly sensitive to this, and not just grievance-mongers hunting for scalps, is probably nil.

irony fucking intended.

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Let the affected speak for themselves, Karen.

They did, that's literally the link at the top of the thread. And people are finding excuses to belittle and dismiss it.

At some point you just have to admit that you don't respect people, instead of finding excuses.

This appears to be the opinion of the three people who signed their name to the post on this particular website, who appear to have nominated themselves to speak on behalf of the Apache tribes. There's not even an About Us page that describes their tribal influence.

I'm not dismissing the feelings of anybody other than these three people who are claiming a grievance. If the movement grows, I'll reconsider.

What's the threshold above which a grievance becomes legitimate? Who determines it?

Your threshold appears to be three people.

Mine's higher, I guess.

You act as if these are the only 3 people to ever express annoyance about this type of thing. These are the first 3 people you've seen complain about this specific instance. Look up what people say about the Cleveland Indians and Atlanta Braves, and similar heated debate over other sports mascots.

The reasonable thing to do would be to have this issue out to a referendum vote within the Apache community. Without knowing how the community overall actually feels about this issue it’s actually quite presumptuous for outsiders to butt in either way.

The Apache community may want to prioritize other issues, or maybe indeed they’d want to focus on renaming this piece of software. I’d be much more comfortable if we let the Apache community decide before spending too much time and energy on the topic

I would love it if my ethnic group were more widely known.

>Consider empathy.

You're not really asking for empathy. Neither of us is the arbiter of right and wrong. You have an opinion, so does everyone else.

Can you explain why?

The article outlined several reasons why the choice of “Apache” and its conception show classic errors people make by romanticizing indigenous cultures and then appropriating their terms or cultural symbols.

Now the question is, is it acceptable for people to be this sensitive?

It's pretty easy to hold a mirror up to this question and ask, would you like to be told how sensitive you are allowed to be?

Sometimes people just need to be told how silly they are being. Also my post is regarding the OP specifically, nothing about other cultural appropriation or anything. Some of the arguments have actual merits. Arguing about Apache is not one of them.

Care to expand on that? How do you determine which arguments have merit and which don't?

Children are told this all the time.

The article does a fine job doing that, wouldn't you agree?

The statement in the article is a strong and detailed explanation of why.

The article is written by "ADAM RECVLOHE, HOLLY GRIMM, DESIREE KANE". It sounds more like an opinion article than factual to me. But it's not up to me or anyone else to decide. Changing a company name is an expensive proposition. I don't see it happening without going to court.

> Changing a company name is an expensive proposition

Companies regularly rebrand. A brand depreciates, just like equipment, and so is regularly updated.

Java and JavaScript are just a few technology names that can be perceived as cultural appropriation (Javanese culture from the island of Java, Indonesia)

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.

If a group with a strong claim to representing one of those names comes forward with a public statement about why it's harmful we can evaluate it. We don't need to create a perfectly generalizable framework to address a specific concrete request.

Are you aware of the origin of the word Apache ? Their name comes from a Zuni word meaning "enemy". It means the Apache tribes have been culturally appropriating a word from a different tribe as a badge of honour. Or doesn't that count?

It is detailed; it is not strong. There are tens of thousands of cultures and minority groups around the world and stereotyping will happen. Said stereotyping in this case is absolutely innocuous and frankly irrelevant in the grand scheme of actual problems indigenous communities have.

Painful that they need to ask,in 2023.

I read everything and it the most ridiculous, useless and unnecessary cause I have seen, and this is coming from someone very much to the left of center and very interested in the causes of minorities.

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.

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It might be stupid and a caricature, but it's not offensive.

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.