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OpenZFS Removes "Slave" Terminology from Codebase

posted by martyb on Saturday June 13 2020, @12:07AM   
from the who's-the-boss? dept.

takyon writes:

OpenZFS removed offensive terminology from its code

On Wednesday evening, ZFS founding developer Matthew Ahrens submitted what should have been a simple, non-controversial pull request to the OpenZFS project: wherever possible without causing technical issues, the patch removed references to "slaves" and replaced them with "dependents."

This patch in question doesn't change the way the code functions—it simply changes variable names in a way that brings them in conformance with Linux upstream device-mapper terminology, in 48 total lines of code (42 removed and 48 added; with one comment block expanded slightly to be more descriptive).

But this being the Internet, unfortunately, outraged naysayers descended on the pull request, and the comments were quickly closed to non-contributors. I first became aware of this as the moderator of the r/zfs subreddit where the overflow spilled once comments on the PR itself were no longer possible.

Related: Allowlist, Not Whitelist. Blocklist, Not Blacklist. Microsoft Lops Off Offensive Words

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Original Submission

• Re:Only an year ago, this was a funny joke Re:Only an year ago, this was a funny joke (Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Saturday June 13 2020, @10:10PM (1 child)

  by khallow (3766) on Saturday June 13 2020, @10:10PM (#1007568) Journal

  How about the world changes, adapt or die? Does that fit with your libertarian survival of the fittest meritocracy ideals?

  Keep in mind that one may survive better by breaking the rules than by adapting to the rules! Evolution doesn't work like you think it does nor is it libertarian.
  
  Here, I don't know whether OpenZFS really needed to make the change for non-PC as alleged in the story, but look at the comment on the pull request.

  The horrible effects of human slavery continue to impact society. The casual use of the term "slave" in computer software is an unnecessary reference to a painful human experience.

  It's flamebait and ridiculous. No wonder that there's drama over the whole thing. My take on this is that such obsessions (and the resulting tempests in teacups) can destroy projects (rather than make them more fit in the Darwinian sense).

  Parent

  Starting Score:	1		point
  Moderation		+1
  Insightful=1, Total=1
  Extra 'Insightful' Modifier		0
  Total Score:		2

• Re:Only an year ago, this was a funny joke (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 14 2020, @04:34PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 14 2020, @04:34PM (#1007827)

  wooosh

  and if a name change like this destroys a project then it was likely infested with white supremacists and/or idiots, as usual wake me up when there is an actual problem

  Parent