Hi Otto, Thank you for providing an alternative voice in this discourse.
Otto Kekäläinen <o...@debian.org> writes: > Hello! > > Just my 2 cents: I hope Debian would not rush to any changes here. > Lets just stay neutral for now. The subject seems very US-centric and > there is a risk that it is creating division among people forcing them > to take sides on issues that previously were not political at all. > Agreed, although I do think that master/slave binary thinking is harmful. That said, I'm primarily concerned about the repercussions of unilaterally vilifying all words that match the string "master", eg: mastery, mastered, mastering (the learning process), masters degree, master of foo, martial arts master, master trades person, master craftsmanship (proof of mastery and excellence), ftpmaster[s], etc. These things are not negative and have nothing to do with slavery. Trades people, academics, martial artists, and everyone else who strive for excellence should not be made to feel ashamed of their titles. I suspect this sense of "master" comes from magister (latin, one who has achieved excellence such that they are qualified to teach) and I think "magis" might also have connotations of wisdom rather than domination or power, but "magistrate" also has that substring...Does anyone here know latin/etymology, and could you explain this please? Adam, thank you for introducing the medieval thought, that is what jogged my memory. The English sense of "headmaster" is also useful for explaining this, because the construction appears to be "head" (director/manager/authority) + "master" (teacher). eg: if "master" meant "director/person-in-power" then there would be no need for the "head" prefix. While it could be argued that high achievers are slaves to excellence, that's a metaphorical comparison, and is a bit cynical and/or for purposes ofhumour...and isn't it an even worse application of master/slave binary thinking to say such a thing? At any rate, a concrete example: While "ftpmasters" have "master" in the title, and they can reject packages and/or ask for additional work, there is §2.1.1 in the Debian Constitution: Nothing in this constitution imposes an obligation on anyone to do work for the Project. A person who does not want to do a task which has been delegated or assigned to them does not need to do it. However, they must not actively work against these rules and decisions properly made under them. So the ftpmasters are not masters of slaves, because they cannot compel anyone to do work. Thus, we have a precedent in Debian for how master/slave thinking does not apply to all circumstances. > Here is some background of what philosophical meaning the term had in git: > > https://public-inbox.org/git/20200618152300.cw7teo2jmxyfsl2l@chatter.i7.local/ >> This is actually an important philosophical point with software like >> git. There is no such thing as master.kernel.org for the very specific >> reason that we position kernel.org to be merely a convenient place where >> to get a *copy* of Linux. The "master copy" of the mainline tree exists >> only in one place -- on Linus's computer. > Exactly, thank you for the reference, and--in my mind at least--Linus "masters" a release by merging many "tracks" (git branches) into the "master" track (master branch), similarly to typical digital audio workstation workflow, or the "master" (also known as "mix") bus on an analogue console, then tags it (like pressing a "gold master record"). > Let's wait and see if upstream Git changes the default, then others > will naturally follow next time they run 'git init'. > > So far upstream git has removed a couple of mentions of slavs: > - https://github.com/git/git/commit/f33b5bddaf7ac1535c6c37fde168597e252872b3 > - https://github.com/git/git/commit/08dc26061f3ff9ee79e6cfda88f0c825b8730e54 > > Python had a similar discussion in 2018 and they concluded that the > term 'master' does not have any political undertone when used in git > master, postmaster or hostmaster: https://bugs.python.org/issue34605 Oops, should have read that issue first...it some overlap with what I wrote. Regards, Nicholas
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