this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2020

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GitHub will no longer use the term 'master' as default branch because of negative association (mobile.twitter.com)

submitted 4 years ago by AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml to c/technology@lemmy.ml

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[–] skrlet13@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 years ago

I know you Microsoft, I know this is just a PR move and you won't do anything else to challenge racism (considering all the power you have).

It's a good move, but I know that coming from Microsoft is not sincere.

[–] wraptile@lemmy.ml 0 points 4 years ago (2 children)

I honestly hate how america centric internet has become. Seems like every context is considered from american culture even though there are 7 billion more people on the planet.

The rest of the world doesn't really care about your internal politics. Don't change international standards because of some cultural issues in your home.

Also human trafficking is real world slavery that enslaves more people in a single year than in entire history of american slavery. How about we start from there and get rid of the word traffic?

[–] kixiQu@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 years ago

Github is an American company acquired by Microsoft which is an American company. Feel free to name your branches whatever is appropriate to your cultural context

[–] k_o_t@lemmy.ml 0 points 4 years ago (1 children)

I honestly hate how america centric internet has become. Seems like every context is considered from american culture even though there are 7 billion more people on the planet.

nah, you're just browsing the wrongs parts of the internet if you've gotten such impression :)

[–] roastpotatothief@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Show me the right parts!

[–] k_o_t@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

they're not in english :)

[–] roastpotatothief@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago

That might not matter. Language is not always a barrier.

And anyway, there is a kit you can learn from people you don't understand.

[–] falx@lemmy.ml 0 points 4 years ago (1 children)

What's next? Master/slave replicas should also be renamed, right? What about client/server? Black/white-listing? This is really dumb

[+] fruechtchen@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] falx@lemmy.ml 0 points 4 years ago* (last edited 4 years ago) (3 children)

Is this really a good way to move forward? Rename everything and pretend like it did not happen? It feels like this kind of approach is just hiding things under the carpet. Renaming things that may have negative connotations due to a troubled history is too extreme form of censorship (similar to book burning) and a bit lazy IMHO.

All these technical terms are very descriptive of the concepts they abstract, (eg. it could be argued that black/white-listing is in relation to physical light and how it reflects off white and gets absorbed by black).

Disclaimer: I am culturally very far away from the colonial history so I may be a bit biased when I say renaming things like that is just dumb.

[–] nutomic@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 years ago

Blacklist/whitelist is objectively a less accurate term than blocklist/allowlist.

[–] SirLotsaLocks@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 years ago

I dont get this "pretend it didn't happen" thing people like to push these kinds of changes as, because they are actively admitting that bad things did happen and they would like to avoid associating themselves and normalizing the idea of something as horrible as slavery and instead use objectively clearer and language and terms less rooted in historical trauma.

[+] fruechtchen@lemmy.ml 0 points 4 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] falx@lemmy.ml 0 points 4 years ago (1 children)

As for the anecdote in your third bullet point: instead of renaming black/white-list terms to something else, what if we actually educate that shop owner about racism and why it is idiotic and evil to discriminate against a person because of their skin color?

[–] AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml 0 points 4 years ago* (last edited 4 years ago) (1 children)

My opinion? Meaningless token action, basically a PR stunt. If they actually want to fight racism, this energy would have been better spent on more useful ways of doing it.

[–] nutomic@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 years ago

On the other hand, this doesnt have any negative consequences. In the worst case, it will do nothing but piss off right-wingers, and then it would still be worth the effort for me.

[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 0 points 4 years ago (1 children)

This is some really dumb shit. This use of "master" has nothing to do with slavery. Practically all uses of "master" have nothing to do with it. But let's just break all kinds of scripts anyways, for a fucking PR stunt.

[–] couldbeanybody@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 years ago

Wait but the words master and slave have meaning, don't they?