Mozilla gives 15k to remove "Slave" from build bot documentation

Qizx

Executor
Feb 21, 2011
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thaluikhain said:
munx13 said:
Pluvia said:
Their money, they can spend it how they like. Don't think it matters if you get behind it or not.
I see a small problem here.
Only a small problem, once they get their money, they can spend it on whatever they want.

Sure, some people would be annoyed at them because of this, but I don't imagine they'd miss out on much in the way of donations.
Cauuuuuuuuse if you gave Mozilla your money you probably thought it was going towards running Mozilla Firefox... Not towards something silly like renaming something just cause it might offend someone. Here's a history lesson for anyone offended by the mere WORD slave: Almost every race, religion, people has been subjected to slavery. Slavery is a bad thing obviously, and America did great a terrible problem by it, some of which linger to today. However the SIMPLE WORD IS NOT racist.
 

Denamic

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Aug 19, 2009
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Next, we'll only have grey cables because having different colouring is racist.
 

Loonyyy

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Jul 10, 2009
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It's not like changing wording for 3rd world nations at all (In fact, that usage is, AFAIK, mostly colloquial, the term was designed for other things, and there are other terms that say more and describe things more).

Master and Slave are technical terms, and I've used them before, if you've done any amount of programming, chances you have too. And just describing them as such doesn't sound so awkward, but when you're describing the operation, it does get pretty awkward, and there is little reason to keep it. Standards vary from company to company, from language to language, documentation to documentation. I think some people fail to understand just how unimportant this is. Programmers change variable names all the time, even more often poor ones who can't be bothered adhering to some sort of standard. It's an old term, and they die.

Mozilla does run on donations, but those donations do actually pay for things and people. There is surely a far greater amount being spent on many more things that you personally do not use or care for. Picking this one says more about the person who takes issue with it than Mozilla. But of course, feel free to not donate, not that it's particularly likely that most people are. What Mozilla does run on, for the greatest part, is the goodwill of other developers who work with them, and they've made it clear in the past that they have an interest in supporting diversity amongst programmers. Yeah, that does mean making things more welcoming to people of all stripes, because innovation can and does come from anywhere, and the only person who believes otherwise is simply a bigot. If you don't want to pay for it don't, but the peanut gallery is just petty.
 

MysticSlayer

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Apr 14, 2013
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sheppie said:
The idea that the word is offensive, is being championed by American black supremacists and anti-white racists.
Where are you getting this from? And don't give me any bullshit about it being "common knowledge". It's common knowledge that some people think all these people are racists. They've still yet to show that it is anything more than a fantasy only driven by their own imagination and the occasional person they can cherry pick from the whole bunch to "prove" that they are right.

Smooth Operator said:
Well it's just bad form, you start mucking around with expected technical names and you confuse the fuck out of everyone trying to work with you stuff, not to mention everything that exists right now.
I doubt this would create any more of an issue than differences like coding standards, IDEs (including extensions), third-party (including in-house) libraries, or new ways of approaching a problem (or just new problems). All of these are things that programmers must get used to. Having "master/slave" changed to something else is hardly a major issue.
 

blackrave

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Mar 7, 2012
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Absurd absurdity is absurd
BUT
At the end of the day

Pluvia said:
Their money, they can spend it how they like. Don't think it matters if you get behind it or not.
If you donated to them inform them that you don't like them wasting money, demand your donation back and never donate again.
I don't use Firefox, never donated to them, so as far as I care they could make a campfire from those 15k (and they pretty much did)
Too bad that they didn't use it for better causes, though.
 

munx13

Some guy on the internet
Dec 17, 2008
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Pluvia said:
munx13 said:
I see a small problem here.
I can't tell what angle you're going for here. Is it that if you spend your money it's still your money? Or is it that you think Mozilla is entitled to your money?

Whatever the case, both those things are false.
It is implied that they need this money to keep the browser updated and running, and I have to assume most people are donating their money for this purpose. Then they decide to spend thousands on something as meaningless and wasteful as this. Nothing wrong technically, as its now their money, however still dishonest.
 

Revnak_v1legacy

Fixed by "Monday"
Mar 28, 2010
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I don't really see how this is a big deal. If somebody wants to change some rather tasteless terminology because of the very negative connotations with it, I say let them. After all, this is something that would need to be changed eventually anyway, assuming we ever create artificial intelligence or partially virtualized biological intelligence, so we may as well get it out of the way now.
 

Rastrelly

%PCName
Mar 19, 2011
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Pure idiocy. Pure. Let's also remove the term "bad" from all the documents in the world? What the hell are they smoking? Maybe they'd actually give those money to cancer research? Or actual anti-slavery campaign? I know they are doing charity already, but WTF, seriously?! You guys in the US are actually crazy or what? Someone thinks that device on slave port is an actual slave? I... I cannot wrap my head around it. It's beyond lunacy. It's actually harmful. It's a fucking direction to Orwellland, but it is even initialized NOT by Evil Government (c).
 

runic knight

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Mar 26, 2011
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Well this is a stupid waste of money in the name of... what, exactly? The term discomforts some, so it needs to be changed? I don't get it, master/slave relates to terminals, which haven't been that common, so changing it now seems like an excessive effort to accomplish nothing of value but flushing money down the drain.

Damn it, this is going to end up like microsoft's naming shenanigans again, isn't it? Where an establish name for various components is altered in some way to make it different, while merely making it more confusing. MAC address/physical address?

Hell, even if it works, it will only either breed confusion if someone used to the new term has to look anyone in the history of the computer term, or it will be revealed to be totally worthless as they have to remind people the previous term in order to prevent such a confusion, thereby rendering the bubblewrap protection of those apparently upset by the old term entirely worthless.
 

munx13

Some guy on the internet
Dec 17, 2008
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Pluvia said:
munx13 said:
It is implied that they need this money to keep the browser updated and running, and I have to assume most people are donating their money for this purpose. Then they decide to spend thousands on something as meaningless and wasteful as this. Nothing wrong technically, as its now their money, however still dishonest.
They actually seem to be quite transparent with what they'll use their donations for. The blog post shows it's supporting projects that Mozilla uses or relies upon, which falls in line with what they said they'll use donations for [https://wiki.mozilla.org/Donate#How_will_my_donation_be_used.3F].

So it's not even dishonest from them. In fact they're using it exactly the ways they said they would.
"In general, resources are dedicated to promoting openness, innovation and opportunity on the Internet in ways that will benefit everyone."
They just threw money away to rename some technical terms in some documents. This benefits nothing and no one.
 

kris40k

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Feb 12, 2015
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As a Dom, I'm offended that they are implying that "master" and "slave" are offensive terms.

Rabble, rabble, rabble!
 

Vigormortis

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Nov 21, 2007
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So it's official then? Context is dead and cultural baggage must be applied to everything?

Good to know.

Still, it's Mozilla's money. They're free to spend it how they wish.

munx13 said:
Pluvia said:
Their money, they can spend it how they like. Don't think it matters if you get behind it or not.
I see a small problem here.
A small problem with easy solutions:

Don't like what they're doing with the money? Stop donating.

Like what they're doing with the money? Keep donating.
 

Fappy

\[T]/
Jan 4, 2010
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There's a distinct difference between shareholders and donors. If you don't link it, stop donating.
 

Barbas

ExQQxv1D1ns
Oct 28, 2013
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There is no issue here. 15K seems like a pointless amount to spend on that, but it's their money and, as for donations, those are entirely optional. Don't like it, don't donate - there are several good alternate browsers to use.
 

Evil Moo

Always Watching...
Feb 26, 2011
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So I take it they're going to change the name Buildbot and every other 'bot' as well, what with the word robot effectively meaning slave as well. Or are they just going to be wasting money on arbitrary subsets of slave terminology?
 

munx13

Some guy on the internet
Dec 17, 2008
431
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Vigormortis said:
So it's official then? Context is dead and cultural baggage must be applied to everything?

Good to know.

Still, it's Mozilla's money. They're free to spend it how they wish.

munx13 said:
Pluvia said:
Their money, they can spend it how they like. Don't think it matters if you get behind it or not.
I see a small problem here.
A small problem with easy solutions:

Don't like what they're doing with the money? Stop donating.

Like what they're doing with the money? Keep donating.
I'm not sure how you came to a conclusion that I thought donating was mandatory.

Pluvia said:
munx13 said:
"In general, resources are dedicated to promoting openness, innovation and opportunity on the Internet in ways that will benefit everyone."
They just threw money away to rename some technical terms in some documents. This benefits nothing and no one.
The funny part is the fact you stopped that quote there, rather than quoting the whole thing where they say they will put it back into projects for Mozilla (would quote it myself but on phone) which falls in line with what they're doing.
Yeah, they didn't make money to put it back into the project, they just spent it. On a problem that didn't exist.