From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.2 (2018-09-13) on dcvr.yhbt.net X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.1 required=3.0 tests=BAYES_00,DKIM_SIGNED, DKIM_VALID,DKIM_VALID_AU,HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS, MAILING_LIST_MULTI,SPF_HELO_PASS,SPF_PASS shortcircuit=no autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.2 Received: from vger.kernel.org (vger.kernel.org [23.128.96.18]) by dcvr.yhbt.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9E2FD1F5AE for ; Thu, 2 Jul 2020 21:57:29 +0000 (UTC) Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1726029AbgGBV50 (ORCPT ); Thu, 2 Jul 2020 17:57:26 -0400 Received: from whinis.com ([198.205.115.165]:35486 "EHLO whinis.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1726010AbgGBV50 (ORCPT ); Thu, 2 Jul 2020 17:57:26 -0400 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by whinis.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id BCC647C51E8; Thu, 2 Jul 2020 17:57:24 -0400 (EDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=whinis.com; s=mail; t=1593727044; bh=Tdp0kKPvSxq8OXvCs9k/xZlCKdo/14QK3QruXQR1sNc=; h=To:Cc:References:Subject:From:Date:In-Reply-To; b=cso1nWhyXwJ1iVPW5OwpiDgetWXXSqfSC//t50qiClfjDZHHDrsJEXW1M2GZya2J/ ouk4A7o7wAGGQVCdydHs4jcYdRWQRg0zG/f2tT8qsKQkAqkscoSVHQJmJ4mQFRQKyJ C0kfjy8gz5hmK0y4V/bdUvXTNfTx/4PytJgNXKQk= X-Virus-Scanned: Debian amavisd-new at whinis.com Received: from whinis.com ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (asgard.whinis.com [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id MH-tZIUQ3iFZ; Thu, 2 Jul 2020 17:57:23 -0400 (EDT) Received: from [10.129.128.188] (unknown [129.171.6.200]) by whinis.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 0EC7F7C51C3; Thu, 2 Jul 2020 17:57:21 -0400 (EDT) To: philipoakley@iee.email Cc: Whinis@whinis.com, bturner@atlassian.com, git@vger.kernel.org, james@jramsay.com.au, me@ttaylorr.com, msuchanek@suse.de, peff@peff.net References: <4bbc8658-4dad-10ef-65a4-8f0f4f4fffd4@iee.email> Subject: Re: Consensus on a new default branch name From: Whinis Message-ID: Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2020 17:59:51 -0400 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:68.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/68.9.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <4bbc8658-4dad-10ef-65a4-8f0f4f4fffd4@iee.email> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Language: en-US Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org > The earliest claim I can find is from 2003, verified at Snopes in 2007 > [1] and reported in 2003 at [1] (and elsewhere) > > I would not expect that the original complaint had been withdrawn. I > don't know if the relevant US/local laws have changed. Not exactly proof in this sense nor proof they had an actual grievance as someone in US law might tell you. Sadly it was rather recently a lawyer would go around claiming to be disabled or speak for an unnamed disabled citizen and sue every single restaurant they came across for ADA violations. Same was done recently with a Lebowits but for copyright law where its easy as a lawyer to sue continuously to get an easy settlement until you are disbarred. Even from that link the official that wrote the memo said > “I do understand that this term has been an industry standard for > years and years and this is nothing more than a plea to vendors to see > what they can do,” he said. “It appears that some folks have taken > this a little too literally.” > > Sandoval said that he had already rejected a suggestion that the > county stop buying all equipment carrying the “master” and “slave” > labels and had no intention of enforcing a ban on such terms with > suppliers. > > A recent blog post on racial bias in AI [2] highlighted that "Algorithms > are our opinions written in code",  just as many of our naming > conventions are implicit stand-ins for unsurfaced opinions and biases. > There is a great deal of misunderstanding on the "bias" in AI and in AI in general. I think you may have linked the wrong comment as [2] goes to a BBC story on the same story as the snopes article. However if you are talking about the recent depixelator it was shown to have similar performance if you darkened the images. This is not a bias its a technological limitation as darker images have less contrast on facial features, its also a well known issue in photography where its difficult to get enough dynamic range to properly expose an image with both darkskin and light skin individuals. Outside of extremely expensive cameras that even professional photographers don't want to use the technology is not in the hands of people to take proper photos with the needed dynamic range. This is also why lighting in films and TV are so important. I feel a great many people want to attribute bias due to lack of data whenever no bias exists. > One area that is far more obvious in the UK, is the use of euphemisms > and innuendo, which can be grossly misused. It is quite easy to create > subtlety different phrases which actively discriminate that wouldn't be > noticed except by the careful or 'in the know' listener.  This can > easily be done with 'master' in Git. Unless you are making some allegation that anyone using the word master is racists or that somehow every technical field is inherently racists I have no idea why you are claiming its the same as actively discriminating. Or maybe you are trying to say the UK using its euphemisms is trying to be covertly racists? It would do well to clear up this confusing reference as it currently could be seen as insulting or making implications which clearly do not exists. > From a comment in [3], the link [4] provides details of the association > of 'master' with 'slave' in Engineering literature, beginning in 1904 > for a pendulum & clock arrangement. In electronic clock circuits it > wasn't till 1966 the use extended to flip-flop circuits, while hydraulic > master/slave cylinders started in 1959. I am rather unsure why you are reference either. Maybe you mixed up 2 and 3 because 3 has nothing on master or slave but as you have mentioned its orthogonal since git has no slave branch. 4 is a admittedly short paper as the author recognized that it could be its own doctoral thesis and only did a cursory search although many are using it as proof that no references exists prior to this time. It also adds its own heavy biases as mentioned in the paper while gill was the first to use the slave reference that they can find it was used for many years without much discussion and even when challenged it was determined it would be better than a much wordier alternative because it would be better understood. The paper also claim that Gill would be disapproving of the words use however has nothing to back this up considering they not only used the term but appearntly did so for many years afterwords at lectures. > The other issue is that Git doesn't do unique masters anyway. If you > have the correct commit hash you have a perfect, indistinguishable > replica of the original object - It's not a master (in the old 'version > control' sense) any more, so we don't need that name for local clone's > branch, unless it happens to be copied as the remote tracking branch. > Though that is orthogonal to this discussion. How does each commit have a perfect indistinguishable replica of the original? My understanding is each commit is a record of changes compared to the last. As such only the first commit is truly 'perfect' > As I understand the change process, this will not be the catastrophic > change many are suggesting. Existing repositories will still continue > working. New repositories will have options for choosing the defaults. > The usual level of great care over backward compatibility is being taken. Is it? Because it seems to be that its waved off as a necessary cost of changing "outdated" language.  Being that its been used now for at least 110 years and being that its the understood vernacular and multiple projects and scripts assume, even if wrongly, the master branch is the one you should work from means changing this default is not usual great level of care. Certainly main seem to think its as simple as changing the letter and nothing will break. Sadly that rarely true > Anyway, that's the back story, with references,  that I've been able to > track down. Hope that helps. Unfortuntely no as the references being asked for is who this change actually impacts. We could go to twitter but that has it owns biases and every issue on this topic outside of this mailing list is either locked or biases by assuming it must change and leaving out master or tainted due to brigading. Just based on what I have anecdotally seen however most of the people pushing for this change is not the affected minority group its claimed to help. -Whinis