RFC: Conscious language in the Binutils

[Mark Wielaard]

Hi,

On Fri, 2020-11-20 at 08:45 -0700, Jeff Law wrote:
> On 11/20/20 7:26 AM, Ian Lance Taylor wrote:
> > On Fri, Nov 20, 2020 at 4:03 AM Alan Modra via Binutils
> > <binutils@sourceware.org> wrote:
> > > On Thu, Nov 19, 2020 at 03:46:28PM -0700, Jeff Law wrote:
> > > > Sad and disappointed :(
> > > 
> > > Yes, me too.  I probably should have just left it at "I oppose this
> > > nonsense".  And you all could write me off as an uncouth Australian
> > > without any racial sensitivity, which would be fine by me.
> > > 
> > > As it is, apparently someone complained to an IBM VP about things I
> > > said in this thread.  So it seems one of my co-workers dislikes me
> > > enough to cause trouble for me with my superiors, or the VP is not
> > > telling the truth.  Which is certainly an "interesting" situation to
> > > be in.
> > > 
> > > I'd still object even if I knew that would happen.  I don't see
> > > banning certain words as a trivial matter of politeness.
> > 
> > Very sorry to hear that.  That seems clearly inappropriate.
> 
> Agreed 100%.  I may not agree with Alan's viewpoint on this, but there's
> no good reason IMHO that someone should be going up the mgt chain and
> causing trouble for Alan.

There are some IBM VPs who have written about using conscious language
just like some others in this thread: 
https://www.ibm.com/blogs/think/2020/08/words-matter-driving-thoughtful-change-toward-inclusive-language-in-technology/
 And IBM is one of the founders of https://inclusivenaming.org/ So it
is not completely unexpected that they would have an opinion in this
matter.

But it does seem inappropriate for them to interfere with the upstream
discussion, especially if they make Alan feel like people dislike him
and he is in trouble. You would at least expect them to have a bit more
people skills than that.

I still hope we can get some consensus, without outside pressure, on
not using racially charged or insensitive language in the binutils
project. Even if it is simply agreeing to no longer use the terms
blacklist, master and slave. Which is really all that Nick is proposing
here.

Cheers,

Mark