SoylentNews

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

---

Original Submission

• Re:In keeping with the current atmosphere - UC Pro Re:In keeping with the current atmosphere - UC Pro (Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday June 18 2020, @12:50AM (2 children)

  by Arik (4543) on Thursday June 18 2020, @12:50AM (#1009363) Journal

  It's a practical problem. Many of us may well be able to digest posts in several different languages; especially if allowed to utilize machine translation. But there would still be a very wide difference between those that rely on the machine translation; those that at least have the skill to correct some of its more important flaws; and those that need no aids at all. Only the last set would truly understand the post, and the poster might not be in the first set to boot. Determining who actually knows what they're talking about becomes very difficult in such situations; and many monolingual posters would simply recoil from any involvement.
  
  I think it's great to throw in bits of whatever language you actually know; and expect the reader to be able to figure it out. But I feel a bit betrayed when I wind up getting a native speaker to review and confirm that you're just using google translate or a bilingual dictionary without a clue what you're actually saying. And I would feel a main page submission that wasn't in English and did not include a good (human) translation to English was a bit of dirty pool; even if it were a language I am able to read fluently myself.

  --
  If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?

  Parent

  Starting Score:	1		point
  Karma-Bonus Modifier		+1
  Total Score:		2

• Re:In keeping with the current atmosphere - UC Pro Re:In keeping with the current atmosphere - UC Pro (Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Thursday June 18 2020, @01:20AM (1 child)

  by c0lo (156) on Thursday June 18 2020, @01:20AM (#1009369) Journal

  one word at a time

  What's a few hundred years when you (aristarchus) already lived for 2300? (grin)

  --
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford

  Parent

  • Re:In keeping with the current atmosphere - UC Pro (Score: 2) by Arik on Friday June 19 2020, @02:27AM

    by Arik (4543) on Friday June 19 2020, @02:27AM (#1009865) Journal

    I am definitely not fake Ari.
    
    I am true Ari'. Ari' ben Yehuda. The Lion of Judah. Shæmshåm Herkulitiriot. The true Samson behind the legends of the Herculean one.
    
    He, or she or nêêêêê omdenvill was probably a slug when I was carving the stars into the pillars at Çatalhöyük.

    --
    If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?

    Parent