Loaded terms in free software

Posted Jun 22, 2020 10:14 UTC (Mon) by milesrout (subscriber, #126894)
In reply to: Loaded terms in free software by mjg59
Parent article: Loaded terms in free software

If the only thing people wanted to change was 'master/slave' that would be one thing but you know that isn't it. They want to change blacklist. They want to change 'master' on its own unrelated to slave. They want to remove uses of 'cop'. They want to take away our language because it gives them a short-term thrill and every time we acquiesce they will just wait a couple of months and find something else to feel offended by.

I mean really, who a couple of months ago could have predicted people would be asked to change the name of their repository because it had 'cop' in it... absurd

Loaded terms in free software

Posted Jun 22, 2020 11:18 UTC (Mon) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link]

They want to condemn the local Black Lesbian homeless woman for having a dog she loves and is the light of her life, and calling herself the dog’s mistress, because that’s how it is called in normal English, but using normal English and not their invented Newspeak proves she is a traitor to her own acestors and is at best hiding, at worst aiding and abetting racist people.

That’s were this whole insanity is directly leading to.

Loaded terms in free software

Posted Jun 22, 2020 16:26 UTC (Mon) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (2 responses)

> They want to remove uses of 'cop'.
"They" are also coming to abduct you in black helicopters and do experiments on you.

Loaded terms in free software

Posted Jun 22, 2020 16:28 UTC (Mon) by milesrout (subscriber, #126894) [Link]

See RuboCop. I'm not making it up or talking some conspiracy theory. A large number of people descended on a the GitHub repository for RuboCop and tried to bully the author into changing the name because 'Cop' is now considered offensive by these people.

Loaded terms in free software

Posted Jun 22, 2020 16:35 UTC (Mon) by amacater (subscriber, #790) [Link]

As lovely -and illustrative - as this thread has been - it might be time to wind it up (literally)? Our esteemed editor does have to live with whatever we create here. I have no particular authority: Jon did already ask us politely once to cease and desist - could we all (myself included) bear to leave discussion here and move on to, say, (non-human) computers and their software again?

Loaded terms in free software

Posted Jun 22, 2020 19:45 UTC (Mon) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (1 responses)

> If the only thing people wanted to change was 'master/slave' that would be one thing

But you've made it pretty clear that you're opposed to that as well.

Loaded terms in free software

Posted Jun 22, 2020 20:49 UTC (Mon) by milesrout (subscriber, #126894) [Link]

Yes because it's not actually harmful.

If one stupid change was made but that was the whole issue that would be fine. But it won't be one change. It will be a long series of stupid changes. If we let this one happen then they'll just move on to the next like cop or blacklist