Am Mittwoch, dem 12.02.2025 um 11:44 +0100 schrieb Ekaitz Zarraga: > We also execute programs (and we have many references to that word in > our docs), and some people I know had members of their family > executed because of their ethnicity or beliefs. I think all of us > understand those are two different meanings of the same word, and > that's what the dictionary says. Even assuming that those meanings of "execute" map to the same words in all languages (they don't) and that there are no alternatives to "executing" programs (there are, e.g. "running" them), this point is not as good as you're trying to make it. To my knowledge, all uses of "master", even the "master's degree" cited below, do come with a bit of an elitist connotation ;)
> I also hold a masters degree but never enslaved anyone with it. We > all understand I didn't go to a slavery school, but an engineering > school. > > Master doesn't have an obvious derogatory meaning, and in Git there's > no slave. I would support this change if we had something called > slave and would like to change both words. Funny that you mention git, given that it comes with the following hint: > Using 'master' as the name for the initial branch. This default > branch name is subject to change. To configure the initial branch > name to use in all of your new repositories, which will suppress this > warning, call: > git config --global init.defaultBranch <name> > > Names commonly chosen instead of 'master' are 'main', 'trunk' and > 'development'. The just-created branch can be renamed via this > command: > git branch -m <name> > Also, why is this about black people specially? Which group of black > people specifically? All of them have been slaved? Are all of them > specially sensitive to words in the English language (which btw is > probably not the first language of most of us)? It is not. Hartmut simply recalled the most relevant bit of information within the current cultural Zeitgeist. "No gods, no masters" has been a slogan even before git was a thing :) Within the predominant discussion, it is typically the fate of African American people, who first suffered from slavery, then overtly racist laws and now still racist enforcement of "the law", which may be less overtly racist but still serves to oppress minorities wherever they may be oppressed. These people have been forced to learn English as their first language, same as we have been forced to learn it as our second or third language. So yeah, I would hazard a guess that some sensitivity exists for a not that small group of people. > Are we suggesting here that all black people are the same? Isn't that > more racist than the word "master" alone? No, that's just you extrapolating without a cause. > I think this is just a trend that got popular in the narrative in the > US, and they are trying to export it. The world is not the United > States. Even if true, the usage of "master" as the main branch for Guix development is dated. If a move to Codeberg does not find consensus for whatever reason, a rename can still be sought after as a standalone change. But IMHO it would be weirdly conservative to switch platforms while keeping the old branch name. Cheers
