Loaded terms in free software

Posted Jun 17, 2020 21:17 UTC (Wed) by amk (subscriber, #19)
In reply to: Loaded terms in free software by rweikusat2
Parent article: Loaded terms in free software

In the novel "1984" history is being rewritten to erase the past. However, it doesn't seem like the history of the term "blacklist" is really relevant to, say, which ATA devices don't support DMA correctly and therefore need special treatment by the Linux kernel driver.

https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/... has a static array called "ata_device_blacklist", and it doesn't seem significant to change the name of this structure from "ata_device_blacklist" to "ata_device_denylist" or even "ata_buggy_device_list". I find the second new name is even clearer about the purpose of this variable. Similarly, "master/slave" is not more technically correct in any sense than "master/agent" or "controller/agent" or "primary/replica".

Loaded terms in free software

Posted Jun 17, 2020 21:41 UTC (Wed) by rweikusat2 (subscriber, #117920) [Link]

In 1984, recorded history is being changed in order to reflect current decisions of the ruling party and a new language is being phased in which has been specifically designed by «experts» to prevent people from «thinking improperly» by eliminating the possibilty of expressing something considered «improper». Another central trope is disassociating terms from their original meaning for propaganda-purposes, as in "War is peace! Freedom is slavery! Ingorance is strength!".

I consider your statement about how the meaning of the term «blacklist» is not relevant for uses of the term «blacklist» strikingly similar to that.

I'm not going to offer an opinion on what I think of this and I also won't serve as springboard for elaborating about what other people think of this any further.