On Thu, Aug 20, 2020 at 04:02:30PM +0300, Vladimir Oltean wrote: > On Wed, Aug 19, 2020 at 09:42:40AM -0700, Richard Cochran wrote: > > > > In any case, this is just the kind of bikeshedding discussion that I > > want to avoid. > > But you are the one who asked for it, aren't you?
;^) > I mean, yes, a slave is not only somebody who works for a master, but > somebody who does so for free and against their will. Whereas digital > entities don't really have a will, and therefore the term is > inappropriately used. In that sense, I think 'subordinate' is the word > you're looking for. Simple replacement and not as extravagant as > 'sheep'. My suggestion of "sheep" was meant to be sarcastic! > That being said, 'master'/'slave' is a well-established technical > terminology which has little to do with human slavery, mind you. I appreciate this point... more below... > I think you're going to have some difficulty fixing up config-visible > options such as 'slaveOnly' (without breaking deployments, which you > mentioned as one goal), so I'm not really sure what's the point, if > "words of dubious moral value" are not completely purged from the code > base. So it is clear that the configuration will need to be stay in place for the present, but it can be gradually replaced. My idea is to add "sinkOnly" as an alias and then eventually replace "slaveOnly" with whatever the revision of the published standard mandates. > In the end I believe it's a balance between what problems this change is > solving, vs what problems it's creating. At least in my mind, I don't associate the "loaded" terms with slavery when used in the context of computer networking. I am also doubtful whether changing the wording of the 1588 standard will actually have a positive effect on the world or not. However, it certainly won't hurt anybody to change the terms, and it is easy to do. Thus I am willing to make the change. I expect that the change in the IEEE standard and in the industry is coming. The Linux kernel has already amended its coding style guidelines. For this project, I want to take the initiative and switch to terminology that at least makes sense to me. After all, I will be the one who will have to stare at the source code for years to come, and if I see "leader/follower", for example, it will drive me crazy. If I follow through on this change, then it will be a top-down decision. However, I put up this as an RFC in order to allow people to air their opinions on the topic and gauge the community's response. You brought up the point of whether to make the change at all, and I think that is a valid question, but it is a different question from the choice of the replacement terminology. I will not enter a bike shedding debate about whether leader/follower sounds better or not. I have picked source/sink because that makes most sense to me. Thanks, Richard _______________________________________________ Linuxptp-devel mailing list Linuxptp-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linuxptp-devel
