'Master' and 'slave': Tech terms face scrutiny amid anti-racism efforts

[langwadt]

This is Jonathon Pie, a UK "angry" political comedian.


EDIT:  People slag the BBC off, especially when they ask us to pay like $200 a year whether we watch it or not.... but, the thing is, they aired that.  They aired Frankie Boyle.  No commercial TV network would dare to air that.  But because they do not rely on commercial sponsors and advertisers they can show whatever they like that's of interest to the public.

I love this guy, I wish he would put himself up for election. He always says exactly what i feel and struggle to articulate.

you do realize that is a fictional character played by Tom Walker ?

[langwadt]

Hopefully this is a side storm that will fade.  Let them make their changes.  In 6 months when school starts back up properly and a few more of  the younger realise it's always sucked and... we already know that.

In a year we won't even remember this.

EDIT:  They are lighting a beacon, the purpose of which I hope we all support, but it's badly aimed, poorly focused and will be ultimately ineffective.

I think it is worse than ineffective, it makes it all to easy to think there is no purpose and it is just
the language police that want to try and stay relevant

[langwadt]

but one did get a gender change so is the other one into transgender?

RP-SMA is basically an SMA that had a sex change so the pokey bit is now on what was the female

[donotdespisethesnake]

Sounding like I've changed sides.  Would you....

Consider a protocol which referred to roles and relationships such as Pimp, Whore, Trick inappropriate?

I think that is indeed the protocol used by Facebook.

[donotdespisethesnake]

Comments already disabled, I guess telling people what they can and cannot say is easier if you also delete all the historical words you disagree with.

hackaday also closed comments on the related article ( https://hackaday.com/2020/06/29/updating-the-language-of-spi-pin-labels-to-remove-casual-references-to-slavery/ ). Looks like they are supporting the initiative to the point of closing comments.
I am not liking where this is going, at all. I guess I'll have to re-think some of my usual sites and suppliers.

Almost as many comments as the article about Arduino pin headers or how long should lines in source code be. Hackaday know how to do clickbait.

Hackaday have had a long series of profiles of women in science and engineering, mostly very obscure with a minor role (like most men in science and engineering). It seems they forgot to include profiles of people of color...

[pardo-bsso]

I'm surprised that this article by antirez On Redis master-slave terminology ( [url=http://antirez.com/news/122]http://antirez.com/news/122 ) [/url] isn't making the rounds again.

Now to derail the thread a bit more.

During my first years of university I worked part-time as a taxi dancer (among other related nightly jobs). I grew a very thick skin but which kind of stuff can I claim as offensive to my very own little subculture?

[james_s]

During my first years of university I worked part-time as a taxi dancer (among other related nightly jobs). I grew a very thick skin but which kind of stuff can I claim as offensive to my very own little subculture?

What's a taxi dancer? Is that an autocorrect of "driver"?

[Simon]

you do realize that is a fictional character played by Tom Walker ?

Yes, and Tom Walker can now say what he likes under the guise of acting the part of Jonathan Pie, because he is supposed to be fictional he gets less heat than if he was saying it himself. The sort of stuff he comes up with is less and less comedy and more and more accurate critique of the situation. Having got the nation to accept and follow this fictional character he can now have it say what he likes - oh and it pays the bills.

I used to listed to satirical programs on radio four and not bother to listen to the news, so well done they were that what was actually going on was clear. I still often here it first on satire, it's less gut wrenching that way or if it is it is in a good way.

He is the first person I have heard point out accurately that reading the guardian is no better than reading the daily mail, both are polarized to the extreme and both are wrong.

[Simon]

Comments already disabled, I guess telling people what they can and cannot say is easier if you also delete all the historical words you disagree with.

hackaday also closed comments on the related article ( https://hackaday.com/2020/06/29/updating-the-language-of-spi-pin-labels-to-remove-casual-references-to-slavery/ ). Looks like they are supporting the initiative to the point of closing comments.
I am not liking where this is going, at all. I guess I'll have to re-think some of my usual sites and suppliers.

Almost as many comments as the article about Arduino pin headers or how long should lines in source code be. Hackaday know how to do clickbait.

Hackaday have had a long series of profiles of women in science and engineering, mostly very obscure with a minor role (like most men in science and engineering). It seems they forgot to include profiles of people of color...

I left the green party when the leader issued an apology for not including any black women in her list of women that should run the country......

[EEVblog]

Comments already disabled, I guess telling people what they can and cannot say is easier if you also delete all the historical words you disagree with.

hackaday also closed comments on the related article ( https://hackaday.com/2020/06/29/updating-the-language-of-spi-pin-labels-to-remove-casual-references-to-slavery/ ). Looks like they are supporting the initiative to the point of closing comments.
I am not liking where this is going, at all. I guess I'll have to re-think some of my usual sites and suppliers.

Oh, I didn't know it was the Open Source Hardware Association (OSHWA) doing this too.
https://www.oshwa.org/a-resolution-to-redefine-spi-signal-names
What next, you aren't allowed to get an open hardware certification number if you don't do this?
They say they "encourage" it, but it really only one step away from banning it in project they certify.
Would be interesting to see what happens if someone submitted a project with the terms and they "encouraged" you to remove and you refused.
Their wording is quite forceful:
" it needs to stop."
"It’s unfortunate and embarrassing that our community has gone this long without acknowledging the need to treat all humans with respect."

[bd139]

Do they even matter though? I mean it’s a free market. You don’t need to even give a shit about them existing. Which is exactly what I would expect everyone to do if they forced people’s hands.

[Simon]

I had never heard of the open source hardware whatever they are. I mean who are they? who cares?

[magic]

Open Sores is a cult
And it's mostly a left-leaning cult, so no surprise.

They really have similar mentality and talking points to the ultra radical far-left, if you think about it:
- the world is screwed by profit seeking
- we will change the world
- here's ten reasons why logic and facts prove that our model is superior
- we are winning and you can't stop us
- if you really want to make money, you will, but only as much as you deserve

I sincerely encourage everyone to consider hating Open Sores and recognizing that Free Software (or Free Hardware if you wish) is the only truth and Richard Matthew Stallman is our prophet.

There is still a bunch of crazies around FSF, but at least they are a different sort of crazy. They do this shit because they want it to exist, not because they have been radicalized by some Internet nutjob claiming that this is a technically superior development methodology, despite all evidence to the contrary.

I left the green party when the leader issued an apology for not including any black women in her list of women that should run the country......

You could have seen it coming when they made a woman their leader in the first place

[Simon]

I left the green party when the leader issued an apology for not including any black women in her list of women that should run the country......

You could have seen it coming when they made a woman their leader in the first place

not really, we had a female leader of the conservative right wing party that did not feel the need to make a list of women that she hypothetically would want to see running the country. I don't know why Caroline Lucas who to be fair is generally right about a lot of things felt the need to decide for herself who should make up a hypothetical un-elected government and why she chose to be sexist and only pick women at which point someone took the equally pathetic stance to accuse her or racism for not including any black women at which point the whole hypothetical exercise became real news.

The problem with the left is that think every is intelligent and will listen to reason, the right realize that there are not very many intelligent people and so pander to the ignorant masses and win elections.

This is why i would now just tell people spouting rubbish that they are spouting rubbish and should shut up rather than trying to debate their stupid ideas because they are too stupid to have a debate.

[EEVblog]

I had never heard of the open source hardware whatever they are. I mean who are they? who cares?

A bunch of people who decided that use of the OSHW name and logo needed to be controlled by them. They also organise the OSWH conference each year. Then they added official "certification" of OSHW project where they give you an "official" number that you can put on your product that it meets the OSHW principles as endorsed by them.
It hasn't been hugely successful from what I gather.
This is why it would not surprise one one bit if they eventually refuse to certify any product that uses the master/slave terms.
I'm willing to bet that if you submit a product for certification using these terms then you'll get a nice email "encouraging" you to modify you project to remove them. Will be interesting when someone refuses to do this, but otherwise meets the OSWH terms.
They have effectively added politics into the OSWH community where many would not that sort of stuff to intrude.

[Simon]

But I don't understand who gives a rats arse about them and their certification? what does their certification get you?

[EEVblog]

Do they even matter though? I mean it’s a free market. You don’t need to even give a shit about them existing.

Which is what most people do. Huge numbers of designers don't even know or care they are a thing.
I proposed an addition to the OSHW logo to make it clearer your terms and intentions, like a Creative Commons type letter system.
It was met by deathly silence (and I'm sure gnashed teeth) from the OSHW organisation and affiliated companies like Adafruit and Sparkfun, but otherwise was quite well receive by the community.

[Simon]

Yea well if "anyone" can came up with this stuff if reduces their monopoly as anyone else ran do it too and so dilutes their power.

[EEVblog]

But I don't understand who gives a rats arse about them and their certification? what does their certification get you?

Nothing but a nice number and logo to put on your PCB silkscreen and your website.

[nuclearcat]

Do they even matter though? I mean it’s a free market. You don’t need to even give a shit about them existing.

Which is what most people do. Huge numbers of designers don't even know or care they are a thing.
I proposed an addition to the OSHW logo to make it clearer your terms and intentions, like a Creative Commons type letter system.
It was met by deathly silence (and I'm sure gnashed teeth) from the OSHW organisation and affiliated companies like Adafruit and Sparkfun, but otherwise was quite well receive by the community.

As with all opensource - seems time to fork this project. Viva Libre Hardware!

[bd139]

Open Sores is a cult
And it's mostly a left-leaning cult, so no surprise.

They really have similar mentality and talking points to the ultra radical far-left, if you think about it:
- the world is screwed by profit seeking
- we will change the world
- here's ten reasons why logic and facts prove that our model is superior
- we are winning and you can't stop us
- if you really want to make money, you will, but only as much as you deserve

I sincerely encourage everyone to consider hating Open Sores and recognizing that Free Software (or Free Hardware if you wish) is the only truth and Richard Matthew Stallman is our prophet.

There is still a bunch of crazies around FSF, but at least they are a different sort of crazy. They do this shit because they want it to exist, not because they have been radicalized by some Internet nutjob claiming that this is a technically superior development methodology, despite all evidence to the contrary.

I write a fair bit of OSS stuff but the GNU stuff is quite frankly mental. I build and contribute to stuff which might be useful to me. If someone else benefits from it then good for them.

The point of OSS with OSHWA is marketing and branding, nothing more. It reminds me of the whole “genuine arduino” bollocks a few years back. If it’s open source the isn’t the clone genuine too?

[donotdespisethesnake]

But I don't understand who gives a rats arse about them and their certification? what does their certification get you?

I think the OSHWA is pretty much irrelevant. But the list of signatories contains some well known "White Knights" who have shown they have time and resources to pursue SJW type campaigns. There is a set of people with some close links. They will be using their platforms and influence to lobby companies to change terminology, they will likely just give in that face down media campaigns on twitter etc.

The people who condemn fascism nevertheless have shown a willingness to use fascist tactics to further their cause. That is, controlling speech and thought.

I've been trawling through comments trying to find out if POC have ever expressed discomfort with the terms master/slave. The two I found both said it is stupid and insulting to their intelligence. It really seems to be a campaign by white allies presuming to know what POC think. It has become a "loyalty test", people are forced to take sides. Either you swallow the kool-aid, or be branded the "enemy".

kentrado 17 hours ago [–]

As a black person, I find this to be pretty racist. The idea that this will appease blacks or is wanted by us is deeply insulting.

How disconnected from black experience can you be that you think this is important or desirable?

It trivializes our very important concerns about police brutality and systematic racism. Do you want to fight against slavery? Then lets campaign to abolish the exception in the 13th amendment.

[EEVblog]

More politics from the OSHW association:
https://www.oshwa.org/2020/06/26/black-lives-matter/

[SerieZ]

The problem with the left is that think every is intelligent and will listen to reason, the right realize that there are not very many intelligent people and so pander to the ignorant masses and win elections.

You are fitting quite all off the stereotypes as an ex-green party member saying that the left assumes everyone is Intelligent and listens to reason and ending the same sentence with that the masses are Ignorant and vote for the pandering Right without realizing the Irony in that.

Are you by any chance also driving a Porsche?

[Simon]

But I don't understand who gives a rats arse about them and their certification? what does their certification get you?

Nothing but a nice number and logo to put on your PCB silkscreen and your website.

Oh, that all - like I say who do they think they are.