[homebrewer]

master in the context of git never referred to slavery, it's derived from the "master record" used by the audio industry. The process of renaming the default branch was started by someone outside the project who never contributed to git in any way before or after that.

Thankfully, there are many countries outside the US where this sort of 1984-style language policing is not accepted and we'll continue "clinging" to our "legacy terms", tyvm.

[sergiosgc]

Portuguese has the word "mestre" from the same Latin origin. Since it has evolved in a separate context, it may give a glimpse of the original meaning, way before slavery. A "mestre", in Portuguese, is one of three concepts:

- Someone who has mastered some art;

- A teacher;

- The lead artisan in a team, the one who has mastered the art, teaches and leads.

The slave master is a very narrow interpretation on these meanings, and the woke push against the word is myopic. The word has a long history, none of it connected to slavery.

[b800h]

This is the same in British English. I found the main/master switch absurd. I went to school, and was taught by masters: an English master, History master and so on. In my cultural context, the switch was just cultural colonialism from America.

[TeMPOraL]

This is the same in other European languages. For example in Polish, the equivalent word, "mistrz", refers to all the things GP said, but doesn't even have a meaning that could be applied to slavery.

As for American English, wake me up when they rename Master's degree.

[b800h]

Well, the tide is going out now. That's unlikely to happen until the virus mutates and reappears in thirty years' time.

[bigstrat2003]

Also, even with the master/slave interpretation, there's nothing wrong with it. It's not offensive to use terms that refer to slavery. No reasonable person thinks "oh because this database has a master and slave replica the maintainers think slavery was ok". No reasonable person is so psychologically fragile that the mere mention of slavery hurts them.

[ben_w]

> No reasonable person is so psychologically fragile that the mere mention of slavery hurts them

And yet, weirdly to me, there's a lot of people acting like it costs them personally to switch words.

I never gave this topic much thought when it first came up, because it never mattered to me in the fist place if the default branch was called "master" or "A1" or "πρώτα".

Someone wants it called different because of aesthetics? Sure, have fun with the new name! It's no more significant to me than "jif" (the cleaning fluid) being renamed "cif", or Marathon, Snickers.

Of course, if anyone were to have suggested to me that the name alone would be enough to solve racism forever, I might have pointed that the Berlin Wall's official name translated as "anti-fascist protection barrier", as an example of the way people use words to divert from a complete lack of real action or worse to act in direct opposition to the normal meaning of the words.

[motorest]

> Portuguese has the word "mestre" from the same Latin origin.

I don't think this concept is unique to Portuguese. Whenever anyone talks about, say, the dutch masters, they are not talking about slavery.

[scotty79]

It's a bit like banning the word 'owner' because there used to be slave owners.

[LinuxBender]

Thankfully, there are many countries outside the US where this sort of 1984-style language policing is not accepted and we'll continue "clinging" to our "legacy terms", tyvm.

FWIW some of us in the USA will also continue using the original words as they were intended rather than injecting social issues into language and trying to control people with compelled speech. I for one put all the words back when people swap them out by using FoxReplace for Firefox, Word Replacer II for Chrome and nobody even notices unless I happen to quote them. The people trying to control language are quite selective. For example they have chosen not to tamper with "Masters Degree" but they will change master everywhere else.

[mrguyorama]

>I for one put all the words back when people swap them out

This is the silliest, pettiest, snowflakiest thing I've seen in a while.

"Words can't hurt you" say people who are so upset that languages change through various means (yes even intentional! Ask the French) that they go out of their way to edit other people's content to say what they would rather it say.

It's really funny to decry 1984 Ingsoc as you actively rewrite your individual view of reality to conform to your sensibilities, as if that isn't exactly the same ideology.

[LinuxBender]

This is the silliest, pettiest, snowflakiest thing I've seen in a while.

Partially agreed. I am silly and petty in response to other people trying to force BDSM on me. They try to force everyone into Domination, Submission and Humiliation so I neuter their pseudo mind-rape and teach others how to do the same.

[heeton]

I get that the core issue was frustrating for some and I agree it felt a bit performative, but: I’m always amazed when someone tries to claim that this incredibly thin step away via a music term _with the same originating meaning_ somehow completely disconnects “master” from slavery.

Why don’t we spend energy on getting to the issues we actually care about instead of standing on shaky arguments and calling it a day. It’s lazy thinking.

[marliechiller]

The thing is, most non-Americans dont connect master with slavery at all. In the same way we wouldnt connect cotton with slavery. It was a term used within the context of slavery, but wasnt created _for_ slavery. In fact, it long predates african-american slavery:

_late Old English mægester "a man having control or authority over a place; a teacher or tutor of children," from Latin magister (n.) "chief, head, director, teacher"_

So if we dislike the user of master, do we ban whip? Or any other term negatively associated with slavery that actually predates it? I think the actual answer is contextual, and in the context of git, there is no relation to slavery whatsoever for most of the worlds populace

[heeton]

I'd wager good money that if you did a rapid-fire word association test on a spread of non-us english speakers, over half would say "slave" after master.

[marliechiller]

Id wager we could do the same with the word "quarter". Whats your point exactly?

[heeton]

> The thing is, most non-Americans dont connect master with slavery at all

[marliechiller]

Exactly... theyd be associating it with quartermaster rather than slavemaster...

[esperent]

As a counterpoint, why do we spend huge volumes of energy trying to change minor linguistic term that is only tenuously related to a historical issue, rather than deal with the countless real social issues that exist today?

The reason: because it was easier, it allowed corporations (especially Microsoft) to give the appearance of making social change, and because it distracted us from dealing with the real issues. In other words, laziness.

And you know what, if you're firmly on the progressive left, as I am, that's no big deal. It's annoying, maybe it alienates me from taking part in social action. But it won't, for example, change who I vote for.

However, we (the West) live in a period of history balanced on a narrow edge between social progression and social regression, with all manner of bad actors waiting on the wings to take advantage of our slipups. And this was a slipup, no matter how well meaning the people who pushed it through were. This, and many, many other small annoyances, were in all likelihood what it took to push a significant number of people to change their vote in the recent election. It's not the only reason, perhaps not even the main one. But any change is significant when you're balanced on an edge.

[heeton]

> distracted us from dealing with the real issues Strongly agree with this. (And this kind of moral licensing in general. Ooh, well done for switching your toilet paper to an eco friendly version you were marketed on instagram, but why haven't you changed anything else in your life that matters).

But also, small things do have to change. If nothing changes, the status quo remains, and the status quo is stacked against many people. (Because of gender, race, culture, wealth, location, etc). It's easy to say "focus on the big things" but the small things can change along the way too.

[esperent]

This was not a small thing to change. It was a minor thing, in itself. But the actual process of changing was huge, and took months of energy and pointless discussion from millions of people. I would guess the change could be counted in the millions of people hours.

I'm strongly in favor of progressive social change. But when even the smallest of change takes this much effort and leaves people frustrated and alienated, we should not be focusing this much effort on insignificant changes. It's like trickle down economics - hundreds of minor changes like this will not trickle down into large changes. Most likely the opposite - they'll alienate and infuriate enough people over time to cause a societal swing in the other direction.

If we're gonna put effort like this into bringing about change, let's make it meaningful, something that effects our daily lives now.

[whatwhaaaaat]

Just understand if you’re the one forcing language, hiring based on race, and forcing people to take part in medical experiments — you’re the regressive one.

There is nothing progressive about any of that.

[esperent]

Nice strawmen, but I've never done or been involved in any of those things and I don't, personally, consider them progressive. I'm more inclined to think of changes like improved rights to self expression (as trans, gay, or pretty much anything else that doesn't too badly infringe on other people), social safety for poor people, more equitable sharing of generation wealth, especially related to land ownership, better care for the environment, better access to healthcare, education, and housing for all people, considering other species as sentient and according them the same rights as humans, and not viewing corporations as human as socially progressive issues.

I also recognize that in all of these things, balance and nuance are required and conflicts are common and won't always be resolved in a way that makes me, personally, satisfied.

> forcing language

This entire thread is a majority of people, on a generally quite progressive forum, arguing strongly against forced language change. I do not believe that the majority of genuinely progressive people want or believe in forced language changes, with the exception of a few specific ethnic and gender based slurs.

[whatwhaaaaat]

So you don’t believe in forced language unless it includes issues you believe should be forced language changes.

Thanks for making my point.

[heeton]

I agree.

[Ray20]

I think you are unfair to your leftist comrades. Yes, perhaps the problem of using disrespectful words is not very serious, and there are more important social problems. But this is not a reason to ignore them and especially to belittle the merits of people who SUCCESSFULLY solve those problems and little by little ensure social progress in our society.

[bigstrat2003]

> Yes, perhaps the problem of using disrespectful words is not very serious, and there are more important social problems. But this is not a reason to ignore them...

That is, in fact, a reason to ignore them. Even if you agree it's a problem (I don't), triage is important. Use your social capital on solving problems of importance, not on annoying people with solutions to minor problems.

[CRConrad]

> _with the same originating meaning_

[Citation needed], as they'd say on Wikipedia.

I don't think that's the origin at all. Why do you?

[heeton]

I personally thought it because of some exposure to that industry / video / AV over the years. But then I looked for some examples to confirm and easily found many.

Some decent examples here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26504086

Googling "Master Slave audio manual" has a bunch of examples. E.g. this manual from 1959 - https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Catalogs/Ampex/Amp...

[CRConrad]

Aha, interesting, thanks! I had no idea; I'd always thought it was from "master copy" like in, say, a manuscript that is duplicated by hand. (Sure, the life of a mediaeval monk working in a scriptorium was pretty strictly regulated, but I doubt anyone saw them as slaves, exactly.)

Though that Ampex manual isn't all that convincing in this context, IMO. It's about the hardware level, all capacitors and oscillators and stuff, in "master" and "slave" amplifying circuits. That has pretty much nothing at all to do with "master tape" per se; it's more like "master" and "slave" hydraulic cylinders in the clutch or brake system of your car.

Your HN link feels like a much better argument here. (Though I admit I haven't followed any of the links in it yet; going just by the quoted bits in the comment.)