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Discussion on: GitHub to replace racially-loaded terms (master, slave, blacklist and whitelist)

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Ben Halpern

I don't think anyone feels like this is a huge deal, it's a small gesture. I think the biggest thing this gesture relates to is the inherent need for software to evolve alongside new ideas.

A topic that's much more impactful, but related in essence: Software that needs to evolve beyond binary concepts of gender. There is likely a lot of software written today that literally stores m/f as binary inputs. There's also a lot of software that stores peoples' names as fixed unchangeable primary keys instead of a fluid concept (names can change for a variety of reasons, but is often an overlooked need).

If software can't change, what's the point?

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Manuele J Sarfatti

I agree 100% with you, and every step is important.

At the same time I can't help but think that this is not some independent OSS maintainer we are talking about, but a corporation that is currently in business with an organization that literally put people in cages like, last week.

I hope they do not feel off the hook.

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Dan Dascalescu

It's an insignificant1 gesture made into a cheap PR stunt2.


  1. See points 2 and 3 in my post. ↩

  2. See the end of point 4 on the same post. ↩