Re: IESG Statement On Oppressive or Exclusionary Language

[Victor Kuarsingh <[e-mail]>]

John,

I am wondering if master/copy would be appropriate since that is what do we
in a number of cases.

As with things like recordings (e..g music, video, etc) , we have a master
of information and copies which operate quite independently.  This use of
the term - “master” -  is not connected with the historical issues with the
previous terms.

Not specifically advocating for this per se.

Regards,

Victor K

On Sun, Jul 26, 2020 at 18:12 John C Klensin <[e-mail]> wrote:

>
>
> --On Monday, July 27, 2020 09:32 +1200 Jay Daley <[e-mail]>
> wrote:
>
> > A question I can't resolve by Googling - has anyone
> > attempted to create entirely new words to represent the
> > concepts that master or slave have been used to represent?
> > e.g. a word that means "authoritative source of data that has
> > no dependency on another source" and has no other meaning?
>
> Jay,
>
> At least in the DNS sense, some of us (despite being old white
> guys with white beards) have objected to "master/slave" for
> years, not just because the usage may be offensive but because
> it is wrong technically.   In that context, the so-called slave
> is actually fairly independent.  It (or its operators) decide
> when check for and fetch relevant values (whether based on
> timeouts or on server request) and can reject and not install
> such updates.
>
> Unfortunately, in the DNS context, "authoritative" means someone
> else, but "primary" and "secondary" have been used for years.
> Of course, someone could probably find those offensive too, but
> then we get into problems with, e.g., "Director" ("Executive" or
> otherwise).
>
>     john
>
>