Re: [PATCH ethtool v1] netlink: add master/slave configuration support

[Williams, Dan J]

On Tue, 2020-06-09 at 11:36 -0700, David Miller wrote:
+AD4- From: Stephen Hemminger +ADw-stephen+AEA-networkplumber.org+AD4-
+AD4- Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2020 10:19:35 -0700
+AD4- 
+AD4- +AD4- Yes, words do matter and convey a lot of implied connotation and
+AD4- +AD4- meaning.
+AD4- 
+AD4- What is your long term plan?  Will you change all of the UAPI for
+AD4- bonding for example?

The long term plan in my view includes talking with standards bodies to
move new content to, for example, master/subordinate. In other words,
practical forward steps, not retroactively changing interfaces.

+AD4- Or will we have a partial solution to the problem?

Partial steps toward better inclusion are meaningful.

The root problem is of course much larger than a few changes to
technical terminology could ever solve, but solving +ACo-that+ACo- problem is
not the goal. The goal is to make the kernel community as productive as
possible and if the antropomorphic association of +ACI-slave+ACI- can be
replaced with a term that maintains technical meaning it makes kernel-
work that much more approachable.

I recall one of Ingo's explanations of how broken whitespace can make
patches that much harder to read and take him out of the +ACI-zone+ACI- of
reviewing code. +ACI-Slave+ACI- is already having that speed bump affect on the
community. If we can replace it without losing meaning and improving
the effectiveness of contributors I think the Linux kernel project is
better for it.