Aral Balkan
The GNU folks: Hehehe, we called it GIMP. And the main branch is called master. Because GIMP, get it?! We couldn’t possibly change it because *fart noises*
Also GNU folks: Why does everyone think we’re three misogynistic 12-year-old boys in a neckbeard suit?
There are so many low hanging fruits for you folks to embrace inclusivity and make a dedicated effort to clean up your act but you seem too bloody busy pissing all over the tree to mark your territory.
Aral Balkan
Free software is inclusive or it is bullshit.
(With apologies to Flavia Dzodan.)
Daniel Demmel
@aral on that note, "low hanging fruit" can also be problematic: https://theinclusionsolution.me/words-and-phrases-that-sting-black-marble-and-low-hanging-fruit/
Sadly, so many idioms and turn of phrases have pretty questionable origins...
Aral Balkan
@daaain Indeed. (And some are more arduous than others.)
Aral Balkan
@bitflipped @engravecavedave The point being that the gesture to show people who actually care about them is:
git branch -m master main
git push -u origin main
And maybe a note in the readme.
It’s not rocket science.
But you have to care about being inclusive. And maybe that’s the bit that requires the most work.
Cam
@engravecavedave @aral before all the complaints about the name of the software, I wasn't aware of the fact that it can also mean someone with a physical disability. In the UK, I've only ever heard it used to call someone stupid.
I'm not a fan of the name regardless tbh, but I think the "master" thing is a bit of a stretch considering that's a default branch name that predates even Git, and people are moving away from it now.
CaveDave
@aral I swear I'm not trying to play devil's advocate here but I genuinely do want to understand the sentiment. Why is the name not inclusive? I understand it's named after the sex thing which I guess is a bit weird tbf, but as far as I know the act of being a gimp or dominating one is pretty gender neutral. So who exactly is it excluding?
Aral Balkan
@mudasobwa How interesting and there I thought that with free software we were building parks for everyone.
Aleksei � Matiushkin
@aral entering other people’s houses and telling them how to name their pets is childish and pathetic.
Creating a great software for the public domain is not.
Do the math.
Aral Balkan
@petros Yes, this is how privilege works.
petros
@aral There are various meanings for the word gimp.
However, familiar with GIMP for long time I never thought of it. An abbreviation as a name for a program, nothing else.
At times it feels a bit confected. A master slave configuration describes exactly the way database replication works.
It's a bit insulting to our intelligence. It feels patronising.
CaveDave
@aral @bitflipped I guess that's why I'm asking. Why is it not inclusive and what can be done to make it inclusive?
Aral Balkan
@engravecavedave @bitflipped Look up “slavery.” And you change it to “main.” Boom!
gnutelephony
@aral since we are going here, yes, we need a political spectrum diagram for software. There can can clearly be cruelty and generosity on a graph. The selfish cruelty is the proprietary software quadrant. But what about generous cruelty then (gimp, looking at you)? I would put the small web under generous kindness. The selfish kindness is perhaps the strange one, or maybe free, but only as in cost, to kill competition.
Aral Balkan
@Chozo Yes, feeling like this is a trivial thing to take issue with is exactly what makes this community non-inclusive.
Chozo
@aral@mastodon.ar.al From 1997: https://www.xach.com/gg/1997/1/profile/1/It took us a little while to come up with the name. We knew we wanted an image manipulation program like Photoshop, but the name IMP sounded wrong. We also tossed around XIMP (X Image Manipulation Program) following the rule of when in doubt prefix an X for X11 based programs. At the time, Pulp Fiction was the hot movie and a single word popped into my mind while we were tossing out name ideas. It only took a few more minutes to determine what the 'G' stood for.The name is a movie reference. The word has multiple meanings, not all of which are derogatory. Suggesting that it's not inclusive seems ironically exclusive toward proud leather enthusiasts.
I feel like this is a trivial thing to take issue with.
Aral Balkan
@Chozo You’d literally write an essay rather than listen to people who feel excluded. And you can’t see why that’s a problem.
(And are you seriously equating the childish humour of a bunch of privileged intellectually-adolescent chinhairs to Black people reclaiming a word? Seriously? Wtf, dude, wtf?)
Chozo
@aral@mastodon.ar.al I respectfully disagree. Language is an ever-evolving process. Words can mean various different things in different points in history, and the intent behind the chosen word should be taken into consideration.
The origin of the app's name ultimately comes from the BDSM term, and not the ableist slur (as the developers directly cite the movie character as the inspiration for the name). Gimps in the BDSM community are proud to be gimps, and would probably feel insulted at the insinuation that their chosen word is non-inclusive. While the word can be used in a derogatory manner, that does not appear to be the usage that was in mind when selecting the name for the app. If anything, I find it rather progressive that the developers chose a sex-positive term for their app.
Gatekeeping language is the opposite of inclusive, in my opinion. Maybe I'm just not seeing some larger context at play here, but I feel like this is similar to telling Black people that they shouldn't use the N-word as a term of endearment because it can also be used in a derogatory manner by someone with ill intent. Modern usage of the N-word comes from the term being reclaimed from its earlier derogatory meaning, much like how the BDSM term is reclaimed from the older, ableist term that predates it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reappropriation
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