Linux is moving away from master / slave and blacklist / whitelist terminology
Linux will also use more neutral terminology in code in the future. Developers of the OS are moving away from using terms such as master / slave and blacklist / whitelist. Linus Torvalds approved a proposal for this. Several alternatives are available.
Linux lead developer Torvalds enters a pull request of the Linux 5.8 kernel agree on the use of the new terminology. It is specifically about the terms master and slave in networks, for example, and for terms whitelist and blacklist when it comes to authorization protocols.
There will be no universal alternative to the terms. The developers can choose different terms. In front of master / slave are the alternatives:
- primary, main / secondary, replica, subordinate
- initiator, requester / target, responder
- controller, host / device, worker, proxy
- leader / follower
- director / performer
In front of blacklist / whitelist to be denylist / allowlist and blocklist / passlist Allowed. Programmers can choose which terms they want to use.
The changes only apply to code written for Linux in the future. Old code is not updated retroactively. There are exceptions for cases where developers update an existing API or Kernel-ABI where the old terms are still needed.
Torvalds responds in the pull request an offer that a developer did at the beginning of this month. With the changes, Linux is following dozens of other software companies and developers who have adopted different terminology. That started especially after the demonstrations in America around the death of George Floyd. Microsoft, GitHub, Google with Android, and software developers around Go, MySQL, Rust and PHP, among others, have therefore started to use more neutral terms.