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Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2020 18:46:45 +0100
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Organization: Parliament Hill Computers Ltd
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] About the use of the terms master/slave and blacklist,
 proposal to replace.
From: addw@phcomp.co.uk (Alain D D Williams)

On Mon, Jun 15, 2020 at 10:00:22AM -0700, Stanislav Malyshev wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> > I think the time has come for the PHP internals to discuss the use of master/slave and blacklist terminologies.
> > As everyone can see, we are going through times of change in the world, see #blackLivesMatter for example.
> 
> While your quest for more just and fair world is noble and laudable, I
> think your energies are misplaced in this case. Terms like "blacklist"
> are established industry terms (and are used also outside the industry -
> there's a TV show which is called literally "The Blacklist") and have
> absolutely nothing to do with race or any other human traits. Objecting
> to "blacklist" makes as much sense as objecting to terms such as
> "whitespace", "blackout", "white paper", "red-black tree", "rainbow
> tables", or declaring the keyword "final" to be anti-Semitic because
> there was "final solution". I think there is many other ways to more
> productively spend your time than inventing reasons why innocent words
> suddenly have nefarious meanings. However, you are, as literally anybody
> is, with no regard to any political labels, free to submit a pull
> request against PHP source and we will take a look at it then.

+1

The word/term 'blacklist' seems to go back to 1639:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacklisting


Master/slave is used in many places in engineering where something makes
something else do something. There is nothing that suggests of one human
controlling another. Eg: in car brakes:

https://www.carthrottle.com/post/how-master-cylinders-and-slave-cylinders-work-and-their-importance/



Let us say that we do eliminate terms that some people somehow think refers to
them, where does it stop ? Today it is race (or 'black' skin colour). Tomorrow
it could be:

* 'black hole' (as in collapsed star)

* 'brown out' (as in what happens when the electricity is not good enough) - is
that offensive to people with brown skin ?

* 'yellow pages' (as in NIS) as it might offend some oriental people ?

* 'fat client' (as in client software that does a lot) as it offends people
with a weight problem ?

* 'male/female connectors' ?

* 'zombie processes' ?

There are many, many. Quite hard to write a list because we use the terms every
day with without any intention of offending anyone.

Then other people who identify as groups, eg: sexual, disability, hair colour,
age, jobs, ...

Once you have a list: then come up with lists of words in other (non English) languages.

Once we have done all that then it will need to be revised in a couple of
decades time when different words will, by some people, regarded as offensive.

In other words: you can never win.


It is very easy to take offence when none is meant at all. One needs to look at intent.

-- 
Alain Williams
Linux/GNU Consultant - Mail systems, Web sites, Networking, Programmer, IT Lecturer.
+44 (0) 787 668 0256  https://www.phcomp.co.uk/
Parliament Hill Computers Ltd. Registration Information: https://www.phcomp.co.uk/Contact.html
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