RFC: Conscious language in the Binutils

[Paul Koning]

> On Nov 20, 2020, at 10:45 AM, Jeff Law via Binutils <binutils@sourceware.org> 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.

I agree.  But if you've been watching US politics for a number of years now you've observed the growth of the "cancel culture".  That's what Alan encountered: the approach in some circles that freedom of speech is bad, and attempts to use your freedom of speech to say something that circle disapproves of will be answered by strenuous efforts to silence you and destroy your livelihood.

Unfortunately some companies are willing to go along with this sort of stuff rather than telling the perpetrators where to put their dishonest notions.

And this ties into the concern Alan voiced.  The list of "permitted" words changes randomly and frequently.  Using the wrong words puts you at risk of cancelation.  How will it do a technical project any good to accommodate such a thing?

	paul