I’m currently a Thunderbird user looking for a better email client. Their recent update to replace “Master” password with “Primary” angers me.
If I switch to MailSpring, will things like this also happen eventually?
Thanks.
I have no insight into whether the Mailspring developers might want to change the language used in the app (it doesn’t use ‘master’ at the moment in any case AFAIK). However, I would ask you to ponder for just a moment why not using ‘master’ spurs you to anger. Why do you have such an emotional attachment to the term? And also ponder whether, perhaps, if you have a strong emotional attachment to this word, other people might have different emotional reactions to it that you might want to take into account.
(Speaking personally - I’m just another user and have no official connection to the project.)
Thanks John. I see that didn’t explain my point sufficiently.
I don’t have an emotional attachment and am fine there is no “Master” password. What angers me is the political movements that seek to ban and censor what is deemed offensive yet isn’t, or push the ideologies of a group on the rest.
For example, Github uses a “Master” branch, because it’s a logical word use, and has nothing to do with slavery like some groups make it out to be.
This isn’t really the venue to do this, but: that’s literally the definition of “master”. Without “servant” at best and “slave” at worst, there can be no master. And, again, consider whether something might not offend you and yet be genuinely offensive to other people and in other contexts, rather than that those other people just “make it out” to be so.
You’re wrong on that. The music and entertainment always used the term “Master recording”, as the original recording. The “master” on Git repositories have the same meaning.
Yes, that’s the word that’s been used in various contexts. But that doesn’t mean the word is somehow divorced from its historical meaning. GitHub may have copied the usage from music but where did music get the term? (Don’t forget that the “master” recording was originally used to make all the other copies, as physical copies from it. The use of “master” in music is therefore wrapped up in ideas of control and purity.) And none of this means some folk aren’t legitimately offended by its use. Again, why would anyone be angered by changing that usage? I get a bit of annoyance at having to re-learn a bit of language but surely no more than that.
Again, you’re finding meanings for words that were never being there, and this is specific what’s pissing off the OP. In my case, I don’t care, I have much more important things to do than care about people getting emo about words (either because they feel offended, either because they being offended, offends someone else). But the ones that defend this must be aware that, yes, you are disfugiring the meaning of the word in the name of pure identity politics.
Just grown ticker skin. Everything Is Offensive - YouTube
OK, as I said originally, this isn’t really the place. But, no, you’re wrong as a matter of etymology and history: the word “master” as used in music and software did not spring from nowhere. It was a pre-existing word with a meaning related to power dynamics and specifically slavery, that was used in a new context because people saw enough overlap that it made sense to them. But I don’t think there’s much to be gained by extending this thread much further. Feel free to respond but I won’t (unless you have a direct question).
GitHub (and git) is changing the default from “master” to “main”