ZFS Removes References to Slavery - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/pull/10435 <comment><USER2> Nothing to see here except devs covering their asses from accusations. As a PoC, I recognize that actions like this do nothing to change the system and they are really just diversions from actually putting in effort to make a real impact.

<comment><USER3> (non-rhetorically) I wonder if actions like this are more harmful or beneficial. On one hand, they raise awareness, but on the other, they're just token gestures, and they might cause debate that'd be better spent on something for meaningful.

<comment><USER2> It's the kind of token gesture that actually just makes people more skeptical or angry at PoC who most of the time had nothing to do with the gesture.

<comment><USER4> I doubt that's specific to these kinds of efforts; it seems that any advance for PoC in America draws a significant backlash, whether or not the advance was substantive or symbolic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is Linux going to be next?

Let's ask Mr Torvalds nicely to remove all master / slave references in the Linux kernel because it is 'offensive'. /s

I don't think such a request is practical given the kLOCs of those references which will break other software.

<comment><USER4> My general take has been that we should probably avoid these terms moving forward, but that the technical cost of going through nearly a century's worth of technical stack and fixing every last reference is probably a pretty technically risky operation.

<comment><USER6> Technically risky yes but worth it. Inconsistencies in naming make code horrible to work with.

<comment><USER7> Perfect reason to leave the terminology as it is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Meanwhile searching for the term "kill" returns 75 code results in openzfs/zfs.

<comment><USER9> Well, there's nothing discriminatory about killing. We kill everyone eventually!

<comment><USER10> Slavery is not exclusive to black people either.

<comment><USER11> Your right, it's insensitive to every people group that's been enslaved for any period of time. Yet somehow that doesn't encompass all people groups in the same way that kill does. Maybe we should be considerate of all peoples/individuals who have experienced slavery directly or in their ancestry.

My Swiftian Proposal: lets just remain all uses of the word "slave" to "forcedChildLaborer". It's more accurate anyway, since in software a "slave" is usually "born" into the role and often times doesn't live very long. We are striving for accuracy after all, right?

And for my two cents that will inflame this even more: We should considering deprecating the use of "kill" to signify terminate. I haven't used it in my 15+ years of writing software professionally and no one has impugned my code quality for not using "kill" enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't know if deps is the best replacement. Ignoring the politics for a moment, iff this is going to be done across the board I think a naming convention needs to be well thought out and developed to replace these terms. We will no doubt be left with the resulting terms for a very long time. Intuitive and descriptive names go a long way to lowering the mental overhead of working with code.

<comment><USER12> This I think is the key issue, replacing a clear label with half a dozen almost synonyms is the dangerous part of this precedent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Can these project changing words at least agree on a single word to use? We're going to have 10s of different words representing the same thing that for decades of evolving technology was known as slave. It will make it confusing and difficult to move between technologies.

<comment><USER14> That's the funny thing - in almost all contexts I've seen the "master/slave" terminology, it's not actually technically clear.

In some contexts (e.g. Jenkins), a "master" tells the "slave" what to do and the "slave" does it. This at least is plausibly connected to the real-world meanings of the term, although given that the "slave" can start and stop work at any time and the "master" needs to accommodate that, the analogy isn't great. "Coordinator/worker" works well here.

In some contexts (e.g., MySQL), a "master" sends a copy of all its work to the "slave," and both of them execute it. The "slave" stands ready to replace the "master" if the "master" becomes unavailable, and usually at that point the "master" becomes the new "slave" once it catches up. This makes no sense. "Primary/replica" works well here.

In some contexts (e.g., network device bonding, and, I think, ZFS), a "master" is a logical construct, consisting of multiple physical "slaves". All interactions with the "master" are actually algorithmically sent to one or more "slaves," and if all the "slaves" are offline, there's no "master" left. This, also, makes no sense. Terms that would make sense include things like "bond device/bonded member" (the members being bonded _to each other_ ), "logical volume/physical volume", etc. In this pull request they seem to use "dependency."

In some contexts (e.g. disk drives), the "master" and "slave" are both devices that provide the same type of service to the host, but the "slave" connects to the "master" instead of directly to the host, and while the "master" is communicating, the "slave" can't. This, also, makes no sense. "Primary/secondary" works well here.

In pseudoterminals, the "master" is a limited API to the PTY object, held by the terminal emulator, which copies text to the screen, interpreters rendering commands, and sends input. The "slave" is a more featureful API to the same PTY object, held by the shell / the command under execution, which does what it wants. This, also, makes no sense. I don't know of a standard term here, but I'd sort of suggest "monitor" and "application" (or perhaps "monitor" and "session" if you want to keep the initials).

All of these are different uses, and you can't generally map one to another. For instance, if you're used to a database where "master/slave" is used in the primary/replica sense, and you see a database where the "master" just coordinates requests for work and all actual data is sent to/from some "slave," your knowledge of primary/replica architecture is misleading here.

<comment><USER15> > [Jenkins] "Coordinator/worker" works well here.

Agreed, although my mind immediately went to "manager" and how that is one of the most useless names. See e.g. [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1866794](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1866794). Need to be careful with this type of naming.

> [MySQL] "Primary/replica" works well here.

Agreed.

> [ZFS] Terms that would make sense include things like "bond device/bonded > member" (the members being bonded to each other), "logical volume/physical > volume", etc. In this pull request they seem to use "dependency."

These names more than double number of syllables/characters, which will severely hamper adoption. I find "dependency" to be a bad descriptor for individual components fully making up a whole, but I expect that the ZFS people deliberated over that name and that my extremely limited familiarity with the topic(s) is the reason why I find "dependency" weird.

> [disk drives] "Primary/secondary" works well here.

Agreed.

> [pseudoterminals] I don't know of a standard term here, but I'd sort of > suggest "monitor" and "application" (or perhaps "monitor" and "session" if > you want to keep the initials).

I would strongly discourage overloading the meaning of "monitor" in the context of terminals. Otherwise, you all but guarantee confusion.

<comment><USER14> For bonding devices I usually say "bond" and "member" at work, or things like "I added eth4 to bond0," which seems at least as clear as "I enslaved eth4 to bond0". For disks I usually write and say "LV" and "PV" for LVM and "LD" and "PD" for MegaRAID, which matches what the respective CLIs use.

Re terminals, it's the end that's connected to the monitor (or terminal emulator), just like the other end is connected to the application/session. There aren't two actual pseudoterminals in any sense, just two views of the same thing, so the idea of "the pty master"/"the pty slave" doesn't quite make sense unless you're _very_ careful to realize you're talking about the open FD and not the actual thing. I'd probably say something like "the monitor end" and "the session end" (and continue to abbreviate them as "ptm"/"pts").

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> 1984 is slowly becoming a reality. Great work comrades!

<comment><USER14> What part of it specifically?

<comment><USER17> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak)

<comment><USER14> Newspeak removes terms from language so that certain ideas cannot be expressed.

This pull request does concern language, yes. But it retains the use of the term "slave" in existing APIs, while updating a script that is named "slaves" to use the term "deps," a term that is already used elsewhere in the API. At the end of the pull request, both terms remain meaningful. Furthermore, no attempt is made to hide previous use of the term - or to prevent using the term "slave" to refer to human slavery.

So I'm not sure I see the comparison.

<comment><USER17> The title right now: 'ZFS Removes References to Slavery'. Probably 95% of the commenters have not read TFA in sufficient detail to argue minutiae details. They see 'language changed in support of the dominant political current' and link it to Newspeak because that's the only frame of reference most people are aware of. It's not like it's an isolated incident, there is plenty of language redefinition, history rewriting and statues toppling as we speak.

<comment><USER14> > _Probably 95% of the commenters have not read TFA in sufficient detail to > argue minutiae details. They see 'language changed in support of the > dominant political current' and link it to Newspeak_

That might be the first Orwellian thing in this thread - people see a thing they've been told is bad and done by bad people and they need to get their Two Minutes Hate out, and they don't have the intellectual curiosity to spend those two minutes figuring out what's actually happening. (Actually, maybe there's a bit of _Brave New World_ in there too.)

> _there is plenty of language redefinition, history rewriting and statues > toppling as we speak._

Give me specific examples, and we can talk about whether this is _1984_ or not.

(I'm aware of some statues being toppled over the last couple of weeks that were originally put in place _by people who wanted to rewrite history_ \- and the act of toppling those statues has caused much more public discussion about the subjects of their statues and their true history than the statues themselves ever did. That hardly seems like _1984_ to me. I'm not sure what you mean by language redefinition and history rewriting, otherwise.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Since this is already flagged, and only RSS power users will see this now, I will risk a negative comment. Sometimes HN seems like a great community of the the mind, a bastion from the flame storm that is the general conversation on the internet.. But sometimes you catch a glimpse of all that even here.. Not to disregard those who were trying to have good faith discussions here. I just feel sometimes like nowhere is beyond manipulation anymore..

</comment><comment><USER19> I think this is a good thing. I'm not a fan of removing the master name, because master has more meanings than in the slavery context and its other meanings fit well the metaphor of master in IT. But they have not removed the master term. Only the slave term, which can go away. I will not miss it, it always felt weird to use this metaphor.

<comment><USER20> Why should we ban the word "slave"; aren't there more people living in slavery now, than ever before in history? Seems like if anything we should be raising awareness about that, not hiding it literally.

<comment><USER19> It's not about banning the word slave, we need this word, but the term slave in IT that is not necessary.

<comment><USER20> Then why are IT professionals so eager to hide that word from themselves, when there are more people living in slavery now than ever before?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The Julia community also does not use slave and actively encourages the use of that term in community chat. I am not sure how i feel about that. I am not made uncomfortable by that term but i can't judge whether others might be. So i can only ask, what does that term do for me? Nothing but i guess i can convince my brain to think "worker" instead "slave".

</comment><comment><USER22> I don't know if it counts, but I've noticed the use of Top Chef instead of Master Chef more and more often these days.

On the other hand, you have "old masters" referring to great historical artists or colloquially, their artwork, "Masters" referring to golf tournaments, "mastery" when you get better at something over time, etc. None of these connect to a slave concept.

The word slave, on the other hand, is more problematic since it doesn't have those other contexts, and always means some sort of subservience. We already went through this exact exercise back when multiple hard drives were referred to as a single master and however many slaves. We still call it a Master Boot Record, but any other boot sectors don't get called slaves anymore.

Primary is a perfectly fine word that we're already using in this context nowadays. I'd be perfectly happy if we didn't have a dozen names for the same things. Everything else is secondary.

</comment><comment><USER23> Yeah, get rid of "slave". The "master" thing I think is easy to remove too, so might as well, but I don't think it's nearly as bad. Think of all the things that are way more closely associated with "master": MasterClass, masterpiece, Jedi Master, master craftsman, mastery, etc. I don't think it's necessary to get rid of all those terms.

</comment><comment><USER24> What do Indians think about this topic?

P.S. - Indians were taken slaves to Africa, west indies etc. etc.

my opinion - I don't give a flying hoot. There's no way I am changing my codebase for this BS.

</comment><comment><USER25> I created an automated tool to deploy and provision Hadoop YARN cluster at work. I'm so glad that I named the non-master hosts "core" nodes instead of slave node :) or I would have to change the naming convention now. I still have the "master" node though.

<comment><USER26> In this sense master and slave is the correct term.

You have a master with unidirectional control over the slaves.

Just like in IDE drivers of old.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Why haven't the prehistoric computer people choose something else. I like 'master' and 'puppet'. Totally non-offensive and very close to the metal

<comment><USER28> I think a better is master-follower if they really must.

But this is silly, I totally understand for PostgreSQL change from master- slave to master-standby. Standby is actually much better word to describe node's function.

The change for the sake of word being offensive is just plain stupid. The use of it did not really encourage slavery based on race. So it feels less about offending then being reminded about horrible American's history.

If they want to go all PC, what about use of word "kill"[1]?

[1] [https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/search?q=kill&unscoped_q=kill](https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/search?q=kill&unscoped_q=kill)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Is removing references to slavery actually being PC or preventing from being reminded of dark time in American history in any way?

</comment><comment><USER29> Easy way to root out assholes when hiring: rename master to main. They'll show themselves the door

I'm gonna write a whole blog post about this

</comment><comment><USER30> I knew there would be these petty comments in here. For people who in general work in such an intellectual and ephemeral pursuit there is so much pathetic clinging to meaningless terms. The computer does not care. It's only the human beings in the community that do.

And it's our choice whether to be neutral and inclusive or miserly trolls clinging to meaningless out of date terms coined in times when these weren't considerations. Rise above it. Embrace other people's experiences that maybe you have not had and have no idea about. Just appreciate that it may have happened to someone and not you and you do not have to reject them by posting a petty comment. Call it Big Cantaloupe / Little Cantaloupe. It doesn't matter. At least then nobody would be reminded of a murdered ancestor or the nature of the person who named it when all they wanted to do was use a stupid file system.

Don't be a dick. Be nice. x

<comment><USER7> "meaningless terms" \- It's also our choice to avoid working with those who exhibit theatrical intolerance and objection to such "meaningless terms". "Embrace other people's experiences" such as what? How many in the IT field have experience as a master or slave (other than kinks)? None.

Pointless changing of words because of "feelings" is why the majority is laughing at you behind your back. If there is something you want to change, go for something with meaning. Stupid things like this illustrate that there is no issue and you need to make up problems because there are none.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Unsurprising that HN can't manage better than the level of pearl-clutching by people invested in maintaining "master/slave terminology" as its discourse.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> dang: just for context, I've posted this here for discussion... Don't know why it was flagged.

<comment><USER6> Normally things are flagged here due to controversy. If a post starts political arguments it often gets flagged

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I will try to avoid controversy here and word this carefully: I can't help but think that something is wrong in the minds of people who take offense at something like this. If in the context of programming and system administration, the term master/slave is 'offensive' and makes you think of racism, and one group of people being oppressed by another, your mind seems to make some completely different connections from mine.

Maybe I am not fine-tuned into 'spotting' such things, which is the argument I would expect; but maybe some just have developed a sensitivity far beyond any reasonable amount in taking offense, which is my suspicion. How about we talk about meaningful ways to stop racism, which we can all agree is bad and unwarranted, jumping into action blindly might feel like you are doing something, but what exactly is this doing?

I am very annoyed by such blindly executed and in my opinion unwarranted activism, and as soon as one speaks out against, one has to hide from the incoming attacks. So I guess HR departments have to check naming conventions in programs now for misogyny / politically non-correct / possibly racist terminology before release?

By the way: I actually always thought of master / slave as completely racially independent terminology in general? If in a book a white man were enslaved by some Asian tribe, how would master/slave terminology be non-correct in describing the participants?

<comment><USER4> This seems to me to miss the point.

I genuinely doubt that many people are offended at master/slave terminology. I personally am not offended, yet I would prefer if we did not use such terms.

Why? Because words matter, and I recognize that where we decide to move terms into every day parlance has an impact on how people think. This after all is the basis of some groups trying to "reclaim" a word by trivializing it's usage.

As a thought experiment imagine if we got into the habit of naming services or concepts after the Holocaust. How do you think that the casual, daily reference to that event in a different context would affect our perceptions of the 20th century genocide? Would it make us treat the Holocaust more casually? Now imagine how you'd feel if German companies started using that term casually. Kind of icky, right?

That being said, I don't think that anyone who doesn't want to go to the trouble to replace every instance of these words going forward is a racist, nor should we tolerate such abuse from a crowd that's nominally supposed to be doing the right thing. We can advocate for well-meaning changes without being jerks, I hope.

Personally I plan on just using new terms going forward, but I won't go back and rename every single thing I've ever written.

Also, master/slave really isn't racially independent in America. Slavery is an institution that has cropped up in many places at many times; but here in America slavery refers specifically to the form of chattel slavery that occurred here, and therefore does carry more than a hint of racial overtones.

<comment><USER32> Thank you for this well written non-inflammatory response, I really appreciate it. I can see your point, but I guess we just have a different idea 'how high' sensitivity should be.

Obviously you don't name something in programming 'pimp' / 'bitch', or even more extreme I suppose: 'white_guard' / 'n_____', that's obviously childish, unwarranted, and just for the sake of provocation. Like I've said though I think of 'master/slave' as perfectly fine descriptions regarding their function and I have always thought of them as racially neutral terms, and if you want to change long-standing naming convention there should be a case for it. And I just think it isn't there.

By the way: For the very first time in my life, a few days ago, have I ever thought of 'whitelist'/'blacklist' in terms of skin color.

white vs black, bright vs dark, , "shining bright light" vs "tempted by darkness", etc, it was almost a Eureka moment: "How can people think of skin color there?"

That makes me think that people are spurted into activism, blindly 'looking for problems', and once you start looking it's easy to see it everywhere. We are pattern seeking animals - if I believe in conspiracy theories, I will over evaluate whatever confirms my beliefs - and I honestly think the same happens in cases of people who take social justice too far (thinking of 'master/slave' as inappropriate naming conventions in programming after decades of use) ; (and I hope it's unnecessary to add: I am not denying the reality of racism ; just trying to doubt the usefulness and legitimacy of taking the sensitivity into far off areas and to a degree that is unwarranted)

I guess I am just emotionally detached from this as can be, as someone who doesn't follow daily news, and is not an American. It's weird for me to accept:

'why can't I use master/slave anymore?'

'because a black man was murdered by police in a country across the Atlantic, and now they are looking to prune any mention of slavery from everywhere they can find it'

'what?'

You can't clean up the language to a point of where 'no one' is offended. Master/Slave seems like such a low level of 'potential for controversy' to me, that I am really worried about 'if that one isn't acceptable after decades of use anymore, what next'

<comment><USER33> So what's interesting to me here is that you note that some names are inappropriate to use, because of the cultural context surrounding them:

> Obviously you don't name something in programming 'pimp' / 'bitch', or even > more extreme I suppose: 'white_guard' / 'n_____', that's obviously childish, > unwarranted, and just for the sake of provocation.

These are all words with literal meanings that could theoretically apply to some aspect of some system. But you admit that these words are inappropriate to use, presumably because of the additional connotation and cultural context that comes along with them.

Is it so difficult to imagine that other words, words that you do not personally have the cultural context to find offensive, could feel the same way to other people who have lived through different experiences?

I am glad that you realized that it's theoretically possible that the bias in our language of associating blackness with evil or badness might be something that affects people. I think it's easy to say something like, "oh it's never been about skin color, don't be so touchy" when you've never had that language constantly around you while society is also actively telling you that you are worth less because you are black. But if you're a black child being bullied in school for your skin color, that language might take on shades of meaning that seem much more sinister.

<comment><USER32> It's not at all difficult to assume that something is offensive to someone, but not to me. It's extremely easy that for any different person, different phrases are considered offensive. But the solution of 'let's create a world where nothing is offensive anymore' seems ludicrous.

I don't think there is a racial bias in associating blackness w/ evil or 'whiteness' with good, I rather think it has to do with night/darkness vs day/light. Do you think 'red' as a widely used 'warning light' somehow relates to 'native Americans'?

Like I've said, I never thought of it in terms of race ; once you start actively believing that biases are EVERYWHERE, you will see them everywhere, automatically. And I think for one, that this is an extremely obsessive way to live, and also a battle one can never ever win, and the question 'where does your quest for justice stop', is warranted.

I always thought there was a 'common sense' approach, pruning any mention of 'slave' as terminology in programming / system administration after decades of use for me seems to be extremely far away from it.

Whatever happens w/ naming conventions here, I will eventually adapt. But I seriously fear that this quest for justice, especially in 'language' goes far beyond common sense and is about actively looking for problems, that are none until identified.

<comment><USER33> > I don't think there is a racial bias in associating blackness w/ evil or > 'whiteness' with good, I rather think it has to do with night/darkness vs > day/light. Do you think 'red' as a widely used 'warning light' somehow > relates to 'native Americans'?

I think maybe I didn't make my point clear here. I don't think that in these particular examples there exists racial bias in the language. The language (most languages) is biased (but not racially) towards associating darkness with evil and light with good. If you personally are experiencing racial bias due to having darker skin, I think language like this can _feel_ very different than it would otherwise, even if the language itself is not explicitly racially biased. I'm not saying we should abandon the whole light/dark evil/good dichotomy, but just pointing out that things built in to the culture that aren't technically related to race in any way may feel very different if you're on the "good" side than if you're on the "bad" side.

> It's not at all difficult to assume that something is offensive to someone, > but not to me. It's extremely easy that for any different person, different > phrases are considered offensive. But the solution of 'let's create a world > where nothing is offensive anymore' seems ludicrous.

I agree that it seems impossible to avoid offending every individual. But, when it's so easy to avoid using language that has negative connotations for a significant portion of the population, why shouldn't we? Why cling so tightly to _not_ being kind, out of some kind of slippery-slope assumption that if we give ground and have empathy this once, the word will end?

It's really odd to me how offended people get by the suggestion that there might be something offensive about the language they use. I have no ties to the words I use. If I want to be friends with someone or to include them in what I'm doing, and they have a problem with some word I use because of some context that I haven't experienced, it does me no harm to use a different word.

> I always thought there was a 'common sense' approach, pruning any mention of > 'slave' as terminology in programming / system administration after decades > of use for me seems to be extremely far away from it.

Here I think you're taking offense at a situation that doesn't exist. What I've seen is people trying to avoid perpetuating the problem by not adding new instances of the world slave to new code/systems, or making updates to use different language when it's convenient and someone's already touching the code. These actions hardly seem to me to be pruning any mention of the term from decades' worth of software.

Language, it's important to remember, is descriptive, not prescriptive. It is always changing along with society and culture. It's therefore natural that what is considered acceptable or not is going to change over time, and we've always had to deal with this as a society. Look at people wanting to ban books for using words that have become offensive, as an example. The interesting thing about software, as opposed to books or words engraved in stone on monuments, is that it's often very _easy_ to change the words that are used, because software isn't a historical artifact but a living thing. And as a living thing, people are going to want it to reflect their own current societal norms. So changes like this seem an inevitable part of a long-lived industry that creates such mutable products.

Regardless, it hardly seems worth getting so worked up over someone else choosing to make this decision in the codebase that they maintain. It is their right as maintainers to do so, and if you disagree so strongly with them making this small token of empathy, you can of course choose to use another filesystem.

<comment><USER32> I am too tired to de-construct this in full, just a few short points:

\- It's about where the goal post is. Let's not forget what the original discussion is about. You invoke a lot of 'emotional imagery' ('why not be kind'), we are talking about long standing naming conventions that can be thought of as being non-racial and no one had a problem with 2 months or 2 years ago, now becoming a problem because people think they are doing something positive here, while it's not addressing ANY problem regarding racism at all ...

\- software is both, living and artifact - we are not talking about a new program written in 2020 using some weirdly offensive and arcane naming conventions, we are talking about retroactively updating naming conventions in programs. Regarding societal norms we always play catch up, should I vet my code once a week to check if it is still conforming to PC-culture?

\- software is a technical thing, we programmers like to think of it as non- political ; like I've said multiple times I think already: when I read source code thinking about racism is so far off my radar, that it's insane to see 'master' and 'slave' and think of it (for me, at least). Which also ties in with the point I tried to make, that some people are so ingrained in their social justice war, that I think they just see 'racism' and 'bias' EVERYWHERE.

\- a lot of people feel 'pressured' into complying with what they regard to be ridiculous changes (when it comes to technical merit) because there is a certain amount of people who view non-compliance with whatever their current crusade is about as 'unkind' \- if you think me using master/slave terminology has something to do with the topic of racism in the United States, I refuse to make that connection I guess.

\- ultimately: it's probably more about people patting themselves on the back, for having done something, and for having changed nothing - and I deeply resent that. In other words: blind activism at its best.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is kink shaming.

</comment><comment><USER35> We're witnessing mass insanity on levels never thought possible.

<comment><USER36> Some people just have too much time on their hands. And it doesn't help that media is spreading this, as it generates clicks which in turn generates money. As such, total non-issues will be made an issue.

The thing is, it's not even "mass" insanity. Working people who are busy with a family and such don't really post on social media, as they simply have no time. This creates a pretty large divide between the internet and real life. Though, I say this as someone not being part of the tech world which is more closely connected with social media.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> > The horrible effects of human slavery continue to impact society. The casual > use of the term "slave" in computer software is an unnecessary reference to > a painful human experience.

What a strange world, really. Imagine the Germans renaming the command "kill", SIGKILL and so on for the same reason. (Or even stronger, as direct victims of WW2 are still alive.)

</comment><comment><USER38> I think this word censorship is meaningless and dangerous. It sets a bad precedent, anyone can get offended by anything. That doesn't justify censorship.

It's not even a white/black thing. White people has had white slaves (millions), black people has had black slaves (also millions).

The Atlantic slave trade is just example of slavery. It has existed in many civilizations:

"Evidence of slavery predates written records, and has existed in many cultures. [...] the practice of slavery [...] proliferated after the invention of agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution, about 11,000 years ago.

Slavery was known in civilizations as old as Sumer, as well as in almost every other ancient civilization, including ancient Egypt, ancient China, the Akkadian Empire, Assyria, Babylonia, ancient Iran, ancient Greece, ancient India, the Roman Empire, the Arab Islamic Caliphate and Sultanate, Nubia and the pre-Columbian civilizations of the Americas."

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery)

<comment><USER39> Sure... But _why not_ remove imagery of slavery from tech syntax?

We have plenty of other organisational terms to denote a higher rank. What's wrong with those? They might even be more accurate. I don't suppose DBAs get in a ship to pillage and loot foreign lands for their database redundancy.

I see too many people arguing semantics or historical bias, or whataboutisms but barely anybody giving positive arguments to preserve the master-slave terms in tech. If "all races have had slavers" is the best you've got, perhaps it's time for change.

<comment><USER40> There's no technical reason to make this change, it's an annoying change with literally zero positive impact on the world, this won't abolish slavery nor will it help anyone, it may help the promoters of this stupidity to feel better about themselves, like "look at us! we are aligned with the PC agenda! We're sooo progressive and docile!"

<comment><USER39> No technical reason, but clearly a political reason. And politics matter in an open project where diversity and collaboration are so important to their long- life goals.

You don't agree —and that's fine— but does it harm you to rename it? That is past the initial inconvenience of it not being the word that it's been before... Is that any more inconvenient than the other API changes that almost all software goes through at some point?

I can understand some light grumbling, but I don't see why people get so bent out of shape they feel the need to start summarising slavery through the ages.

"It's just a word" swings both ways.

<comment><USER40> What harm does it do to rename things based on nothing but the pathetic impulse to abide by the nonsensical PC agenda? Well, it introduces the need for me as a developer to adjust to a new naming scheme for no good reason, we know APIs change all the time, and adjusting to new naming schemes is part of the job, but when a project decides to break an API its always for a good reason, no professional team will ever break an API on a whim, because in most projects, people are aware that breaking APIs immediately deprecates massive amounts of code, and that these changes should only be made only if it's absolutely necessary; breaking APIs and forcing everyone else that just want to get the work done to comply to this nonsense is not going to help slaves around the world, if you really want to take action, set a donation prompt for a charity on the README or in the program itself as Vim does, but don't annoy the rest of us with this bs just so that you can feel better about yourself ffs

<comment><USER39> I can't tell if I'm just spinning my wheels at this point, but they're not trying to make themselves feel better, it's about fostering an environment for including those who do care. OpenZFS wants a more diverse user and developer community. Good for them.

And if you think that no professional developers ever break their APIs on a whim, you're either very young, or haven't been paying attention. Google does this _all the time_ across their ecosystem. It's annoying, but you learn to get over it.

If you don't like it, fork it.

<comment><USER40> "it's about fostering an environment for including those who do care", that's exactly right, and my whole argument is that those who do care are not the ones that are affected by slavery, the people that care about these innocuous things are first-world neocons who haven't had to deal with any real problems in their lives, and my annoyance comes by the fact that people now just don't seem to have the guts to stand up to these trolls; this literally won't help make their community or userbase more diverse, in any case, it introduces confusion because any guides or tutorials around the net that used the term slave are now misleading/deprecated

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Small note: this is openzfs specifically.

If that makes them happy then good for them. Although I personally think that this is a waste of time and also dislike the moral high ground that they attempted to take (trying to take advantage of the current climate to advertise their virtues), as if these that do not change the terminology used are somehow morally inferior. I do wonder if that would cause some form of incompatibility (between existing zfs tools and other zfs implementations, including previous openzfs versions) but I presume that they were careful about that. In addition I am annoyed that they decided to censor the linked thread.

Edit: apparently it did not change any API names.

Edit2: Surely I am not the only one who finds it ironic that they are using GitHub - a company which supports ICE, right?</comment>


How Important Are Long Work Hours at Startups? - <AUTHOR> https://innospective.net/how-important-are-long-work-hours-at-startups/ <comment><USER2> Depends on the stage. If you're super early - and not a founder you'll be expected and might have to work grueling hours (although be aware you'll likely never see those hours turn into $$$).

If the company has money, 3-4 months burn is reasonable, long hours can be a nuisance and make everyone less efficient and more prone to introducing bad ideas or bugs that waste time late.</comment>


US hunters shoot down Google fibre - <AUTHOR> http://www.itnews.com.au/News/232831,us-hunters-shoot-down-google-fibre.aspx <comment><USER2> I think it is more likely some reclusive luddite or kids, rather than random hunters. Hunters take their occupation seriously. Nobody wants to be hit by a stray bullet when hunting.

<comment><USER3> Not all gun owners are hunters in the sense you mean here. Drive out west, particularly on secondary roads, and you will see road signs used as target practice.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Two VC pitch videos. Which one is better? - <AUTHOR>

We're just about to launch our new startup, Page99Test.com, and we're submitting an application to a startup competition. If our application gets their attention, we'll be invited to pitch to VCs.
We'd really like to get invited to pitch. But getting that invitation will depend on submitting a great demo/commercial that explains our solution to our customers.
That's where we need your help, please.
Can you go to http://page99test.wordpress.com/2010/09/25/we-need-your-opinion-on-2-demos-for-vc-pitch-contest/. You'll find two 2-minute videos there.
Please watch the videos and tell us which you prefer. It'd be great to hear WHY you prefer the one you do, too --- or any other tips you might have for us.
Much appreciated,
Lance, Steven & Joanna at Page99Test <comment><USER2> You definitely need to randomly decide the order of the videos if you want this at all to be a "fair" poll. Most people are going to pick the first one they watch because since they already know what the content is going to be, and already have the image of the product "branded" in their mind, the second video will be both boring and dissonant [1]. They won't be able to wait for it to just get to the point, and they won't be as comfortable with the different image of it. For even better accuracy, you could try showing people only 1 video, and having them rate it from 1-10 on a just a few questions, then compare the results.

My personal preference was for #2, which I happened to watch first. I liked the music, and every frame got me more and more interested in the next. The theme of "the world has you up against a wall... no here's the solution" resonated very well with me, and I think it's just the right approach to take with writers. It was entertaining, the music was catchy, and after it thoroughly explained the problem, it showed the glorious solution of test99. The flow of it was really awesome, it was well-scripted, cute, funny, just great. Really, I actually enjoyed it. It explains the problem brilliantly, even if you're not familiar with the domain of publishing, and explains how test99 is a great solutions. The attitude is generally pretty "kick-ass". I think it would work well with VCs.

The second video I watched (video #1), I found to be boring, and extremely trite. It seemed like a poorly done and unimpressive Apple commercial. I just couldn't stomach it after awhile. I quit a few seconds after seeing "step 1 -- start an account" and the user going really, really slow. I understood where it was going from there: "Here's how you use this, step by step, you fool! We'll go extra slow so you can follow." I could see the appeal of this video for people who want to be feel "comforted" with a product and have a slow attention span, as opposed to people who have drive and ambition and want to break ranks quickly and fairly (that is completely video #2). Which would you classify aspiring writers as?

Video #1 isn't as terrible as I make it out to be. Both videos get the product pitch across quite nicely. But, I'd have to go with #2, all the way. It explains the problem (possibly for too long), makes me believe the problem is really a huge problem that is unfair and that needs to be corrected, then shows your product at the climax, and gives a brief enough description of it for me to want to try immediately.

Either way, I _strongly_ suggest doing this in a more controlled manner if you plan to make a decision from the polls. And, great work so far. This product seems awesome, and I'm quite excited for you.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance>

</comment><comment><USER3> You did a real good job with both videos creative wise, and for video 1 sales wise. It was not what I was expecting, but the first class production definitely caught my attention, enough that number 1 would persuade me to want to find out more about the team and product.

I like video number 1 better. For me, the word choices of number 2 are not nearly as hard hitting as number 1. Also for number 2 the color and music seems less effective than number 1.

I think number 1 presents a definite "Google" feel to the presentation, and I think that is a positive for you guys.

If the presentation were being done only for me personally I would like 2 things to be altered.

1\. Insert a quick opening from the company CEO showing the CEO, and saying "Hi I'm X, and we have developed this new product, and here it is, etc...".

2\. Just a little slower presentation of each series of written words. Because for a new unknown product the features panned by just a little too quickly for me to get a good overview of exactly what the product does. Although number 1 seemed interesting enough to me to replay it to get the information I wanted from it.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't like either of them, but I'm not a VC! I find the following things annoying and distracting: repetitive music, fast moving text, text keeps moving around the screen so it's hard to read.

For some reason, I felt stressed watching the video, really having to focus hard to find out your core message. I think a simple narration with the website itself in the video would be a lot more effective in getting your point across.

[Edit]: As per the YC app guideline, I'd at least do away with the whole suspense building and state the idea clearly in the first 10 seconds.

There was a really good mixergy interview where a top entrepreneur gave very good step-by-step tips on how to pitch to a VC. But I can't remember who it was! If you have time, it might be worth emailing Andrew Warner or searching through the site.

</comment><comment><USER5> Didn't like the music on #2 - too aggressive. Music from first was less 'in your face'.

Both could stand to be a bit shorter, imv. The 'setup' phase is a bit too long, and I don't see enough of what the feedback process is to help improve my writing.

Also, I think the 'improve your writing, connect with readers, self publish' angle should be pushed more than 'have agents clamoring at your door to publish you'. The notion of being 'published' is going out of style some, and you have an opp to stand as an agent of change for the self-published and indie publishing revolutions.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER6> Just from experience, I'd really suggest getting a pro voiceover done. Text on these kind of videos should be minimal, the same advice people give for powerpoints. People just dont read or pay attention. Get a pro voiceover for less that $100, it really makes a difference. I make these videos so am kind of speaking from experience. examples of my work <http://vimeo.com/7982259> <http://vimeo.com/3313085> <http://vimeo.com/9131485>

</comment><comment><USER5> Clickable:

[http://page99test.wordpress.com/2010/09/25/we-need-your- opin...](http://page99test.wordpress.com/2010/09/25/we-need-your-opinion- on-2-demos-for-vc-pitch-contest/)

</comment><comment><USER7> I like the first video better, it gets to the point and explains the value to the writer. With the second one, you're almost putting words in my mouth. I might not agree that I'm scared of that question.

What I would change is to show the value prop you offer to the agents and publishers better. I'm sure they get enough good authors and manuscripts sent to them, why would they take their time to browse your site? I'm not sure if they would consider top-rated content on a website as pre-screened enough for them.

</comment><comment><USER8> I prefer the first one because it gets to the point a hell of a lot faster.

The second one is not without its charms, but it doesn't seem like pitch material to me.

</comment><comment><USER9> Both video are undoubtedly nice, but I would still prefer the first one as it gets to the point without beating around the bush. But the slides still seem to run a little too fast. You would want to slow it down a notch. The live demo parts like creating an account did not make much sense to show. You can just list the 3 easy steps on 3 screens. Nice music. Would like to know the source

</comment><comment><USER10> I like the 1st video. I would move the value prop to the beginning. "Introducing a new way... What did you use to make it? Good Luck.

</comment><comment><USER11> like apparently 90% of folk, I liked the first one. Which speaks well as a VC pitch. I would be curious to see if you limited the audience to writers... how they would perform. Is the first one just more approachable to the HN/tech crowd?

</comment><comment><USER12> You lost me in the first 30 seconds in both the video.

</comment><comment><USER13> Your link is not loading.</comment>