netdev - Re: [RFC] bonding driver terminology change proposal

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Date:   Tue, 14 Jul 2020 21:17:48 +0200
From:   Toke Høiland-Jørgensen <toke@...hat.com>
To:     Jarod Wilson <jarod@...hat.com>, Netdev <netdev@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [RFC] bonding driver terminology change proposal

Jarod Wilson <jarod@...hat.com> writes:

> As part of an effort to help enact social change, Red Hat is
> committing to efforts to eliminate any problematic terminology from
> any of the software that it ships and supports. Front and center for
> me personally in that effort is the bonding driver's use of the terms
> master and slave, and to a lesser extent, bond and bonding, due to
> bondage being another term for slavery. Most people in computer
> science understand these terms aren't intended to be offensive or
> oppressive, and have well understood meanings in computing, but
> nonetheless, they still present an open wound, and a barrier for
> participation and inclusion to some.
>
> To start out with, I'd like to attempt to eliminate as much of the use
> of master and slave in the bonding driver as possible. For the most
> part, I think this can be done without breaking UAPI, but may require
> changes to anything accessing bond info via proc or sysfs.
>
> My initial thought was to rename master to aggregator and slaves to
> ports, but... that gets really messy with the existing 802.3ad bonding
> code using both extensively already. I've given thought to a number of
> other possible combinations, but the one that I'm liking the most is
> master -> bundle and slave -> cable, for a number of reasons. I'd
> considered cable and wire, as a cable is a grouping of individual
> wires, but we're grouping together cables, really -- each bonded
> ethernet interface has a cable connected, so a bundle of cables makes
> sense visually and figuratively. Additionally, it's a swap made easier
> in the codebase by master and bundle and slave and cable having the
> same number of characters, respectively. Granted though, "bundle"
> doesn't suggest "runs the show" the way "master" or something like
> maybe "director" or "parent" does, but those lack the visual aspect
> present with a bundle of cables. Using parent/child could work too
> though, it's perhaps closer to the master/slave terminology currently
> in use as far as literal meaning.

I've always thought of it as a "bond device" which has other netdevs as
"components" (as in 'things that are part of'). So maybe
"main"/"component" or something to that effect?

-Toke