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

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Message-ID: <20200714203915.GK74252@localhost.localdomain>
Date:   Tue, 14 Jul 2020 17:39:15 -0300
From:   Marcelo Ricardo Leitner <marcelo.leitner@...il.com>
To:     Toke Høiland-Jørgensen <toke@...hat.com>
Cc:     Jarod Wilson <jarod@...hat.com>, Netdev <netdev@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [RFC] bonding driver terminology change proposal

On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 09:17:48PM +0200, Toke Høiland-Jørgensen wrote:
> 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?

Same here, and it's pretty much like how I see the bridge as well.
"bridge device" and "legs".

  Marcelo