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

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Date:   Tue, 14 Jul 2020 17:24:47 -0400
From:   Jarod Wilson <jarod@...hat.com>
To:     Marcelo Ricardo Leitner <marcelo.leitner@...il.com>
Cc:     Toke Høiland-Jørgensen <toke@...hat.com>,
        Netdev <netdev@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [RFC] bonding driver terminology change proposal

On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 4:39 PM Marcelo Ricardo Leitner
<marcelo.leitner@...il.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 09:17:48PM +0200, Toke HÃ¸iland-JÃ¸rgensen 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".

I did toy with the idea of "torso" or "thorax" for the bond aggregate
device and "legs" for the bond components, but at this point, I guess
it's mostly bikeshedding, the bigger issue is "how messy would it
be?". I've scripted most of the changes, but not all of them. Still
working on it... :)

-- 
Jarod Wilson
jarod@...hat.com