Linux Kernel Will Stop Using ‘Master/Slave’, and ‘Blacklist/Whitelist’ in Code
Jul. 13, 2020AfterGoogleand several other tech companies, Linux kernel has now formulated anew policy that aims to replace racially sensitive terminologies with neutral alternatives.
The following are the recommended replacements for ‘master / slave’:
Similarly, therecommended alternatives for ‘blacklist / whitelist’ are ‘denylist / allowlist’ and ‘blocklist / passlist’. As you can see, Torvalds has given developers the choice to adopt any of the suggested ones.
“The discussion has tapered off as well as the incoming ack, review,and sign-off tags. I did not see a reason to wait for the next mergewindow,”reads the commit on Linux 5.8 repository.
The decision comes after Linux maintainer Dan Williamsraised a proposalthat read,“Recent events have prompted a Linuxposition statement on inclusive terminology. Given that Linux maintains a coding-style and its own idiomatic set of terminology here is a proposal to answer the call to replace non-inclusive terminology.”
As mentioned above, this is not the first time we’re seeing such changes in the tech industry. Ever since the protests against police brutality in the US burst out after the death of George Floyd, several companies including Google, Twitter, GitHub have taken steps to make the development community more inclusive and neutral.
Subin writes about consumer tech, software, and security. He secretly misses the headphone jack while pretending he’s better off with the wireless freedom.
