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Linus Torvalds approved on Friday a new and more inclusive terminology for the Linux kernel code and documentation.
Going forward, Linux developers have been asked to use new terms for the master/slave and blacklist/whitelist terminologies.
The Linux team did not recommend any specific terms but asked developers to choose as appropriate.
The new terms are to be used for new source code written for the Linux kernel and its associated documentation.
The older terms, considered inadequate now, will only be allowed for maintaining older code and documentation, or "when updating code for an existing (as of 2020) hardware or protocol specification that mandates those terms."
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Linux kernel will no longer use terms 'blacklist' and 'slave'
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Linux Team Approves New Terminology, Bans Terms Like 'Blacklist' and 'Slave'
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You can't have your cake and let your neighbor eat it too.
-- Ayn Rand
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 15 2020, @01:31AM (12 children)
I looked into blacklist and it goes way back to the 16th century or thereabouts. The fact that people are getting offended by things like that is a pretty clear indication that there's little actual work to be done other than to allow things to take their natural course. At some point, individuals and groups need to step up to create something new. It's been that way with numerous other groups to the point where many of them are no longer acknowledge to have gone through persecution. For example, the Germans during the World Wars in the US were badly mistreated, but you don't hear people talking about the language being banned from schools or the thousands that wound up in American concentration camps during WWII.
The reality is that some groups seem to have figured it out and others haven't and it's not even really a matter of skin color either as Africans that immigrated to the US more recently don't seem to be affected by racism to the same extent as those that have been here for generations.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday July 15 2020, @03:48AM (7 children)
No. People are getting offended because the current political sensibilities have been rubbed raw in this area. People always react to the way they understand symbols (and words count as symbols, though of a particular type) rather than to the historical context that generated the symbols. E.g., I have speculated that the term "son of a bitch" started out as a politer form of the term "dog" (as in "seadog", "'til the last dog is hung", etc.). These days the improper meaning of dog has faded away, because nobody uses it anymore, but "Son of a bitch" is improper enough that it's often referred to by its initials. The other examples I can think of off the top of my head have antique forms that are still grossly improper, or have modern forms that are sufficiently improper that I tend to censor them even online.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 15 2020, @03:22PM (5 children)
People are "getting offended" because now there is profit in it. Before, in the times when a grown man making hysterics was looked at with contempt, those same people would "grin and bear it" instead. Opportunism at its best (or worst).
The problem is, the ancient wrongs and rights entirely notwithstanding, the "offended class" creates social friction where before there was none. Social friction slows down the economy and progress, by making every action and transaction costlier, harder, and slower. Now compound that with COVID, "green economy" and whatever else, and you get societal suicide.
What the "offended class" is led to forget, is that barbarians on future ruins of their cushy welfare society will offend them for real.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Reziac on Thursday July 16 2020, @02:30AM (4 children)
"There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs -- partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs."
-- Booker T Washington, Up From Slavery (1911)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday July 16 2020, @06:28AM (3 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday July 16 2020, @06:34AM (2 children)
He makes a good point!
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday July 16 2020, @12:25PM (1 child)
Your quote's better though, there's something about the 100+ years of forewarning, as well as the preciser language, that gives it more gravitas.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday July 16 2020, @03:47PM
I've paid zero attention to Kanye so no idea, but took it to mean the obvious... any situation you continue living in that long, you're not making much effort to get out of.
The Booker T quote gets a lot of use... sure does point up that some things never change. And it's a fantastic book... right up to where he figures out that he can get more funding for his school by begging it from rich folks than from doing for himself. Yeah, they needed the funding regardless, but there's a fundamental change in his attitude that really saddened me. But the first few chapters are quintessential bootstrapping.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @04:21AM
You do realize that there is an actual field called etymology where experts trace things like this, right?
And if you spent maybe 5 minutes looking into this, you'd realize you're wrong. While the "female dog" meaning of "bitch" is the original one, the word has been used contemptuously for women since around 1400, which is roughly the time "biche-sone" arrived in Middle English, roughly meaning "son of a slut." ("Dog" has a very long history in English as a derogatory word for people, so "bitch" for a whore goes back a LONG way.) By the time the actual phrase "son of a bitch" is seen in English around 1700, the word "bitch" had been implying "whore" for over 300 years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 15 2020, @02:48PM (1 child)
Ban the German language! Nazis were evil! Ban the evil language!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 15 2020, @08:09PM
It's worth noting that the Supreme Court ruled language bans to be unconstitutional in 1921, which was years before there was such a thing as a Nazi.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 15 2020, @09:41PM (1 child)
Germans are 60% of the US population - it's pretty hard for them to be bullied by racists.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 15 2020, @11:59PM
And yet it happened during and after both World Wars. The reality is that there's a bunch of us that have genes from that part of Europe, but those with an actual cultural connection of some sort are a minority.