Talk:Master–slave (technology)

A modest proposal
One could argue it should be OK to use the term master and slave for inanimate objects and to avoid it entirely for sentient creatures. After all, there's little harm in enslaving an inanimate device, so protecting them from discriminatory language makes little sense. With people, however, there should be zero tolerance.

The cultural issues that arise from the term in old human-slave-owning jurisdictions all involve enslaved humans. There are a veritable plethora of terms that are acceptable for objects but not people, and I don't see why this is not also an example. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 177.242.142.222 (talk) 23:27, 7 April 2022 (UTC)


 * @177.242.142.222 Thank you for your input. Unfortunately, talk pages are for discussing the article's subject in the context of improving the article itself and not the subject in isolation. If you have reliable sources that share your views, feel free to add them to the article. Happy editing! Somers-all-the-time (talk) 00:32, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Term origins
Who was the first to use these terms in computing? This article does not bring it up. --Bushido Brown 03:20, 20 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I do not know who was the first to use this term, but the origins are likely older than computing. I have hazy memories of various engineering projects where the term "slave" refers to any system that is controlled by another, as well as the term "slaving" used as a verb to indicate the status of such systems as slaves or independent. A few specific instances-


 * In hydraulics it's common to talk about master cylinders and slave cylinders. For example, the hydraulic brake system in your car has a master cylinder that is directly connected to the brake pedal and a slave cylinder that pushes on the actual brake discs. The master is designated in this context because it is where the mechanical force is converted to hydraulic force.


 * In photography, an optical slave is a sensor that controls multiple flashbulbs based on the detection of a bright flash. The idea is that you have one flash on your camera that illuminates when you press the trigger, and you have other slave flash bulbs that detect the initial illumination and fire themselves in response. This is in contrast to a system where all flash bulbs and the camera are wired into a single trigger. I'm not sure if the term "master" is used in this context.


 * In military avionics there is a problem where you have a single weapon that might be controlled by multiple different systems. For example, you might have a guided missile that can be controlled by GPS or by a laser designator. In this context, the nomenclature is to say that the missile is slaved to a specific sensor, and operates differently based on how it is slaved. Google the term "slave to SOI" (sensor of interest) to see this usage. I'm also not sure if "master" is used in this context either.


 * 24.107.185.147 (talk) 05:09, 12 April 2016 (UTC)


 * I think the slave flashes in photography should be mentioned as examples as well. This is a quite old technique in analogue photography since there are electronic flashes with photosensitive sensors.  Manorainjan  22:29, 16 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Added the "Origins" section. Ximaera (talk) 22:17, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Excel e-mail

 * I just want to verify whether or not the Microsoft Excel e-mail from Mr. Sandoval that someone added to the article needs to be confirmed as Fair Use or entitled to be public altogether. I mean, I do think it's appropriate, albeit not commonly found in encyclopedic material, but I think it's best to know for a fact that it's legal to add to the article.

Thanks,

-Alan 24.184.184.177 (talk) 03:49, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Wiki Project?
Btw, is there a Wiki Project we could list this under? I'd imagine there is and as such we should add it to that category.

Thanks again,

-Alan 24.184.184.177 (talk) 03:53, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

PC alternative
As a tech writer, I would be eager to not use "master/slave"... but has anyone found any suitable alternatives being used in the industry? Please add to article if so... wish City of L.A. had done so... ---Ransom (--67.91.216.67 (talk) 18:03, 29 September 2008 (UTC))

"ridiculous"
"noting that the master/slave terminology accurately reflects what is going on inside the device "

I mean, strictly speaking, it is not a literal description of what is going on. "Master", maybe, but "slave"? No. It is no more "accurate" than "general" and "grunt" or something that is more about simple command authority. Slavery is a more complicated system and transaction. I can understand people saying that they don't feel it is worth the change — but to say it is "accurate" in any literal sense is ridiculous. It is one of many loose metaphors for control out of many possible candidates, and is not even as literally accurate as many of them.

And of course, the idea that it causes offense is hardly related to whether or not it is literally true. It is no more "accurate" than "Slavemaster" and "Nigger" but the offense would be there regardless of whether it was "accurate".

Can we get a real citation for people arguing in favor of the technology, not just some opinion of some Wikipedia editor? --Mr.98 (talk) 01:48, 31 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Where one object asserts absolute dominion over another it's more than simple command-issuing capacity; in many cases the "slave" is active (or "alive") solely at the whim of its "master". The proposed alternatives do not convey this absoluteness.
 * That you take offence at the nomenclature used (in the present case) to describe a relation between inanimate objects —even going so far as to assign a skin-color to the "slave" device (as if no other group of people has ever been subjugated by another)— reveals nothing beyond your own biases.
 * Many countries do not have centuries of African blood on their hands, why should the rest of the world cater to your national discomfort? 71.17.32.99 (talk) 22:50, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

It is a technical term no use to invent "nicer" terms on the whims of some uneducated people. It's about machines interacting. No bloodshed ;-) -- Manorainjan  22:34, 16 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Technical terms are invented by humans with all their fallibility, and inherent biases. Just because it is used in technical writing does not mean it is the best term to use - and it does not make anyone "uneducated" to say we can do better. No need to be insulting. I am plenty educated. I am an Electrical Engineer. I choose to abandon the term for the more PC COPI and CIPO, as per the open hardware guidelines. I hope others do the same and we allow our understanding of both technical and social topics to improve with time. 198.48.136.149 (talk) 03:51, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

The argument that master/slave terminology is not an accurate description because 'Slavery is a more complicated system and transaction' is ridiculous. Oxford dictionary defines slave as: "so strongly influenced by something that they cannot live without it, or cannot make their own decisions," which is an accurate, literal description of how the terms master/slave are used in a technical sense. Whatever 'complicated system and transaction' you're talking about probably does not have any value or relevance to the technical term. "Americans have trouble facing the truth, so they invent a kind of a soft language to protect themselves from it." (George Carlin, Parental Advisory, 1990). 76.88.80.245 (talk) 00:40, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Proposed alternative : "ruler" & "ruled"
Following up on user 67.91.216.67's request, I couldn't find any references to alternative terminology being used. I brainstormed a bit using WordVis, looking for words related to the concepts of "superior" & "subordinate", which though too long & wordy themselves to be good substitutes, still seem to be good, neutral equivalents to "master" & "slave". (Note that "master" is two-syllable & "slave" is one-syllable.) I came up with the shorter-word equivalent pair "ruler" & "ruled".

Wikipedia prohibits posting original research in articles, thus I'm posting here. If someone could please suggest an appropriate external site that I could post this to, I'll do that & we can then see what kind of response my idea gets. Brad (talk) 21:58, 3 December 2011 (UTC)


 * www.reddit.com/r/technology might be a good place to take it. Here at Wikipedia we simply report what terms are in common usage, but there is no reason why you cannot go elsewhere and try to influence common usage --Guy Macon (talk) 20:19, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Article needs improvement
This is a rather important article as Web Services have become more important in usage across the Internet. There are many rather good sources that exist. Example: http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/Master+Slave. The article should remove the criticism section due to an irrelevant conversation about the terminology. If the article had more content it might be open to debate, but the term is simply an architecture verbiage that has no reference to Western Slavery. Shaded0 (talk) 02:14, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Removed SATA/PATA from Controversy section
I removed the following from the controversy section because it only eliminates the need for the terminology in that specific instance (e.g. in database replication it still applies). It also violates NPOV because it implies that SATA was in part designed to elimnate the master/slave terminalogy, when in reality the goal was to use superior technology and designs. This also makes it a bit trivial to the subject matter.

With SATA replacing older IDE (PATA) drives, only one drive per connection is possible, eliminating the need for the terminology.

As a side note, I too wish there was better nomenclature for this, but Wikipedia is here to document notable information using well documented, reliable sources, not to spin up a new initiative. Argel1200 (talk) 19:25, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

list of alternative terms?
in addition to the examples already given, would it be useful to add a list of terms used as alternative to master/slave?

i think it would be helpful to show that these terms mean the same thing.


 * master/minion (saltstack)
 * primary/secondary (bind)
 * primary/replica (drupal and many others)
 * leader/follower (django)
 * /worker (python)
 * master/standby (postgresql)
 * master/replica (mediawiki)
 * others? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.20.75.241 (talk) 16:58, 15 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Yes, I think that would be helpful. Mvolz (talk) 18:16, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Missing is only that non non consensual slavery is bad bud. With Conses there is nothing bad at therm Master/slave_(BDSM). Also devices are able to switch role witch also happens in BDSM practice. --MasterLee (talk) 16:41, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Master/Servant (mostly used in depeche mode)

Just a note that I added "marshal/soldier" to the list of possible alternatives. (I use it in my own and my collaborations' code, e.g. http://projectaltair.org and others.) Comments certainly welcome, here or to jalbert@uvic.ca. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.104.63.19 (talk) 02:38, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Marshal/Soldier

I have used these terms for decades. I adopted 'target device' or 'target' from the PCI spec' in 1999. In PCI, each board could be an 'initiator', target or both, depending on the design. I since used target device for SPI targets, CAN targets, FPGAs on a parallel bus and so on. In the UK, slavery of old is associated with the Roman invasion, not the much later and smaller one in the 17th/18th centuries. We seemed to have got over that invasion and enslavement and don't get upset with the Italians or demand an apology from them. Far more importantly, real slavery is alive and kicking and around us, not somewhere else far away. Getting upset or 'offended' at technology words is a billionth of what those enslaved people are actually going through, every hour every day right now. I find the lack of perspective offensive but there we go. Anyway, master and target. People master subjects. Dogs have masters. ToaneeM (talk) 09:15, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Master and Target

In PATA Master devices DO have precedence over slave devices

 * The terms also do not indicate precedence of one drive over the other in most situations'''. "Master" is merely another term for device 0 and "slave" indicates device 1.

This is not correct. If an IDE/PATA channel is shared between a master and a slave device, and both devices try to transfer data over the same channel, the master will be preferred. That is why you connected the devices to different channels, if possible.

Citation #22 on this page is not available in some geographical regions
Citation #22 (correct number at date of this comment) references www.seattlepi.com, and this generates an error 451 from some locations (including UK). Testing with a VPN connection to continental USA showed that the cited reference is accessible within that region. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.5.215.68 (talk) 19:12, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Master/slave in git
Since people keep re-adding news about the "git master" controversy on here: The master branch in git does NOT have an inherently special relationship with the other branches (unlike the examples listed in the article). There is not even a "slave" branch or anything like that (unless you choose to create it yourself of course, but I have never seen anyone doing that in practice). "Master" is merely the default branch when calling "git init". That is exactly the reason why developers are free to delete it and name their branches however they like.

The developer who picked the name "master" in 2005 said the following about why he chose master as the default branch:

Kenter34 (talk) 14:55, 17 June 2020 (UTC)


 * You should have read the entire thread: "(But as noted in a separate thread, it is possible it stems from bitkeeper's master/slave terminology. I hoped to do some historical research but health emergency in my family delayed that.) Regardless, the impression words form in the reader is more important than their intent."
 * Besides - what you do is primary research - the source is very well about exactly the problematic of possibly racist wording and that seems to be behind the discussion to rename the master branch to something else. --Rabenkind (talk) 20:21, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Whether the word "master" itself is racist or not is not the point here. It is just completely irrelevant to the article. Even if there's a consensus to rename master/slave to primary/replica as noted in the same section, git still doesn't implement that concept. It has never implemented it and that's why I linked the part of the book which explains that no branches inherently have any special status ("“master” branch in Git is not a special branch. It is exactly like any other branch."). If you still disagree for some reason, please find sources for how git is "a model of asymmetric communication or control where one device or process controls one or more other devices or processes and serves as their communication hub"? Which "devices [are] acting in the role of slaves"? You will find it is not the case.
 * Common_knowledge and Relevance are probably relevant here, but I did my best to explain it. The Twitter and Stack Exchange threads aren't good sources I understand, but the part of the book which covers it still applies.
 * Maybe somebody with history in the related categories (Network protocols & Distributed computing architecture) can join the conversation and resolve this issue as I do not see how else I can convince you except with git beginner articles/books which touch on the subject. Kenter34 (talk) 22:28, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I believe you are missing the point. It's not about if git uses master/slave. It's about that the proposed change is based on the ethical discussion of the master/slave principle. Even if it turns out that master didn't derive from bitkeeper's master/slave terminology. The sole fact that the change would be based on it suffices for mentioning it here. Although the topic is so important to you that you created an extra account for the matter... --Rabenkind (talk) 11:40, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I fully admit that I feel strongly about the subject as a CompSci student and that's why I created my first account on Wikipedia. After my third edit, I thought that maybe an article about all "potentially offensive words in technology" could be done to resolve this, but what Mvolz suggested is a good idea, too. Kenter34 (talk) 02:16, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Agreed, this doesn't belong here. This article is about a specific concept in technology. From the lede: "Master/slave is a model of asymmetric communication or control where one device or process controls one or more other devices or processes." This is NOT the case with git branching, this is not an example of it, and including it here confuses the article unnecessarily. This is also self evident from the fact that other earlier version control systems, i.e. subversion, use "trunk". Any information about the use of the term master in version control / git should go into the article on git. If this is confusing to the layman, then maybe we should do a disambiguation at the top of the article. Mvolz (talk) 15:11, 18 June 2020 (UTC)


 * I've now pointed people to the article on git at the top, and moved the sentence to Git here -> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Git&type=revision&diff=963219028&oldid=963074632&diffmode=source. Hopefully this is satisfactory to everyone. If not, perhaps a separate article addressing all uses of the term "master" in technology is in order, so we don't conflate that with the control pattern itself. Mvolz (talk) 15:39, 18 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Just because the lede currently says that I'm not sure that limits the article. Just by the addition alone shows people are coming here for the terms as related to technology. If it's only about communication then the article should be renamed to reflect such specificity, IMHO - Strangerpete (talk) 00:09, 10 July 2020 (UTC)


 * Mvolz already linked the Git#Conventions for anyone looking wanting to read about git. That's why "mastering in audio processing" is linked there, too. That doesn't mean it should be included in the article when it has no relevance. Kenter34 (talk) 09:53, 10 July 2020 (UTC)


 * Again, the article is titled master/slave (technology), not master/slave (communication), or (control pattern), or anything the like. As far as I'm concerned, anything using those terms, and related to technology fits in this article, as per title.


 * Your desire to not make it fit, doesn't make it so; this needs to be discussed - especially since you're a WP:SPA, and you appear to have an agenda. Please do not remove sourced material without discussion - Strangerpete (talk) 11:55, 10 July 2020 (UTC)


 * The article is titled master/slave (technology), correct. Not Master (technology). Also citing tweets or other self-published sources (blog posts) inside the article is not good sourcing (aka WP:NOR) if you ask me.


 * It's not my desire or agenda, it's what I (and Mvolz) believe is technically correct. Kenter34 (talk) 12:37, 10 July 2020 (UTC)


 * (technology) doesn't imply one way or the other, its a broad category, and relevance to the terms being discussed is clear to me, and others based on the fact that people keep coming here to read about its use **in technology**, which is why renaming or broadening the scope of the article is critical. And i agree with Rabenkind, so there is clearly no consensus here.


 * If there are bad sources remove them, but BBC isn't a bad source...as for the actual tweets in question, the first from Una (a developer advocate @google) provides context to the reply by Nat Friedman (Github CEO) who is obviously a subject matter expert per WP:RSSELF, further backed up by the BBC article. Further,


 * "Atlassian as well gave a statement, specifying that "‘Master’ appears to be an inherited reference from BitKeeper which was adapted from a common technological analogy where asymmetric data & process relationships are described." -- this statement alone warrants the inclusion; these are experts telling you its related. Please heed. - Strangerpete (talk) 13:34, 10 July 2020 (UTC)


 * Una and Nat Friedman (yes CEO) said that they're happy to make the change, nothing more. Even if they mention slavery somewhere, git doesn't implement the master/slave concept. And the one who wrote the blog post is a project manager. From my personal experience I can tell you that PMs aren't necessarily technical (not a bad thing because work needs to be separated, but he's certainly not an expert on the control pattern or git) and all he did there is explain the decision which either came from above or he succumbed to the public pressure himself.


 * That said, nothing of that warrants inclusion because the phrase "master/slave" isn't replaced by "main" in git and consider what I've wrote in the OP of this section about how git branching works.


 * I agree that it could be renamed to "master/slave (control pattern)" to make it more obvious what it entails. But I don't think that the article should be extended with other uses of master, including "mastering in audio processing" (music technology). Maybe do as Mvolz suggested and write an article about 'all uses of the term "master" in technology'. Kenter34 (talk) 12:14, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

UNIX and Linux
UNIX: Linux: (...and so on. Linux pretty much has the same man pages as UNIX). --Guy Macon (talk) 14:56, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
 * http://www.nsc.ru/cgi-bin/www/unix_help/unix-man?yppush+8
 * http://www.nsc.ru/cgi-bin/www/unix_help/unix-man?pty+4
 * http://www.nsc.ru/cgi-bin/www/unix_help/unix-man?telnetd+8
 * http://www.nsc.ru/cgi-bin/www/unix_help/unix-man?yppasswd+1
 * http://www.nsc.ru/cgi-bin/www/unix_help/unix-man?ypchsh
 * http://www.nsc.ru/cgi-bin/www/unix_help/unix-man?loader
 * http://www.nsc.ru/cgi-bin/www/unix_help/unix-man?xterm+1
 * https://linux.die.net/man/3/slave
 * https://linux.die.net/man/1/xterm

Entrenchment of terms
Whether perfect or not, the following is an example of the how much specific terms can be found on the internet. On June 18 2020, the Google search engine returned the following results: • Sbmeirow  •  Talk  • 16:06, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
 * "Hard Drive Master Slave" matches about 27.3 Million results.
 * "Camera Slave Flash" matches about 19.1 Million results.
 * "Master Slave Cylinder" matches about 16.1 Million results.
 * "Master Slave Flip Flop" matches about 1.9 Million results.
 * "SPI Bus Master Slave" matches about 1.8 Million results.
 * "I2C Bus Master Slave" matches about 0.9 Million results.


 * those are meaningless numbers, and definitely not reference-able. For example, hard drive primary secondary returns 173m, hard drive main and secondary, the suggested replacement terminology, returns 232mil, with both blast your 27m outta the park. Unless you're going to check every one of those 27m results, its a hollow statement: by page 5 of your search its pulling up results for "Cooler Master" -- Strangerpete (talk) 15:12, 22 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Primary and secondary are more commonly used generic drive terms than master slave, so obviously they will return more matches. Your argument is an automatic failure.  •  Sbmeirow  •  Talk  • 01:49, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Good job, you proved racism dominates the culture and, by consequence, search results. This explains or defends nothing for terminology created during segregation and peak ignorance, unless your argument is that Wikipedia should be at least as pro-racist as the culture instead of based in current fact and understanding. There's a lot of pro-racist arguments, as always based in emotion and "tradition," rather than any rational thought or quality. Tradition is why these terms are entrenched. Wikipedia's stance isn't equal time to all perspectives, or a defender of tradition, but a summary of knowledge accessible to all. That means putting entrenched terms in their proper historical context, not bowing to mob rule. The main damning facts is that there is no new widely accepted terminology, although the direction moving away from these terms is clear despite that lack of agreement. The summary of these terms is clearly moving towards an anti-racist stance, and technologists on the whole are removing entrenched racism from technology. WildElf (talk) 18:16, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Problem solved!
I'm just saying. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:54, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Mastercard Changes Name To Equalitycard


 * Just a reminder that The Babylon Bee is a news satire website! For a list, see List of satirical news websites.  •  Sbmeirow  •  Talk  • 22:10, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Please don't spam the talk page. Thanks 198.48.136.149 (talk) 18:45, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Unbalanced?
Sbmeirow added an unbalanced banner, after previously having added one last week which was reverted. I'm confused about how the article is unbalanced. Terminological concerns about master/slave have received extensive coverage in the media in the past month (https://www.google.com/search?q=master/slave&tbm=nws), so it does seem to be a notable topic. If there are reliable sources arguing that the term "master/slave" should be maintained, those can be added, but I am not aware of any. —Enervation (talk) 01:31, 14 July 2020 (UTC)


 * I added some coverage of opposition to changing the term, as reported in news articles, although I suppose that it doesn't do justice to just how much opposition there is in comments on GitHub, Hacker News, etc. Again, if there are reliable sources covering more of the other side of the controversy, please feel free to add it. —Enervation (talk) 02:04, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
 * The article, the § Terminology concerns in particular, is still unbalanced toward native English speakers in industrialized nations that have a prominent problem with “racial” inequality (in other words, the US). I’m a German native and I’ve attended EE classes, in Germany, taught in German, and I claim nobody in class actually, even remotely thought of Sklaverei (slavery) upon hearing M/S, but were busy understanding why/how this wiring configuration works. I mean, of course, when borrowing words from other languages, any historical associations aren’t automatically transposed even though German has of course the words (Sklaven‑)herr and Sklave. ‑‑ K (🗪&#8239; | &#8239;✍) 17:53, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Please rename to primary/replica Suggestion
This article describes an obsolete technological mindset in modern distributed computing. For example, services following modern cloud-native patterns and microservices (reactive microservices, async messaging, architecture for scale, etc) can run headless (without the controller), because the state is distributed, replicated, and asynchronous.

The article should be renamed " Primary/Replica (technology)". The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), an umbrella for 1000's of technologies and computer science engineers, promotes a "primary/replica" mindset. The "master/slave" could be a section heading (historical), but the technology world has moved on from legacy system architectures, concepts, and terminology. My argument is based on technological reality. I acknowledge and support "BLM" values in modern computing and society. But a technical conversation is important too. Nmclough (talk) 12:52, 31 December 2020 (UTC)


 * The article is devoted to naming controversy, not technological concepts, principles, standards, implementations, patterns. Rename to "Master/Slave terminology controversy" or do something?. Nmclough (talk) 13:00, 31 December 2020 (UTC)


 * The problem here is that "master/slave" has been used to mean many things, for example "primary copy/replica", "leader/follower", "controller/controlled", "active/passive", "in service/standby" etc. etc. and lots of different organizations are choosing lots of different solutions for replacing the term. I think the best thing here is to turn this into an article about the term itself and the surrounding controversy, and create new articles for the individual meanings -- followed by a disambiguation drive to replace all the direct links to "master/slave" that refer to actual meanings rather than the controversy. -- The Anome (talk) 13:47, 31 December 2020 (UTC)


 * If someone wants to purge master/slave, they should also consider blacklist/whitelist.
 * https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/25/agency-ends-use-technology-terms-racist-associations-339880
 * https://www.techspot.com/news/85631-github-replace-terms-whitelist-blacklist-masterslave-racially-insensitive.html
 * https://uknewstoday.co.uk/2020/07/13/linus-torvalds-banishes-masters-servants-and-blacklists-from-the-linux-kernel-starting-now/
 * https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6148600/
 * https://www.techspot.com/news/85080-uk-cyber-security-agency-stop-using-racist-blacklist.html
 * Next up for purging: Black sheep of the family, Bugger, Cakewalk, Call a spade a spade, Cretin, Eenie meenie miney moe, Fuzzy wuzzy, Hooligan, Master bedroom, Master cylinder, Mumbo jumbo, Off the reservation, Paddy wagon, Peanut gallery, Plantation shutters, Putting a new tranny in your hot rod, Sold down the river, Hip hip hooray, Uppity... 15:46, 31 December 2020 (UTC)2600:1700:D0A0:21B0:6827:63C5:E936:33CF (talk)
 * Not worth mentioning, but everyone who’s graduated with a Master's degree will need to swap their certificate (unless you’d like to risk being branded as a racist). O-M-G.
 * (As of yet) I don’t agree with renaming this article (to a less insensitive name): This is the English Wikipedia, not the American Wikipedia. Maybe, in a couple years, when the terms are considered inappropriate globally, but not now.
 * The fact that M/S designs aren’t deployed that often (in new software) today (“obsolete”) doesn’t disqualify this article. There are many articles explaining “old” stuff/technology, but it’s not our duty to “modernize” them.
 * I do support though outsourcing descriptions about political discourse to a more appropriate lemma. Currently all kinds of articles have sections about their respective title being racially-charged or inappropriate in another way. We already have an article Gender neutrality in English, maybe there can be (if there isn’t already) some equivalent for this issue? ‑‑ K (🗪&#8239; | &#8239;✍) 17:53, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Re: "everyone who’s graduated with a Master's degree will need to swap their certificate (unless you’d like to risk being branded as a racist). O-M-G." don't forget the realtors who sell houses with a master bedroom and the masterpiece theatre shows on PBS. And Wikipedia's Master Editor award. Also, we really should talk about WP:BLACKLIST. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:01, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't think this is the place to be chest thumping about our politics. This discussion has drifted off topic and is no longer about the dispute at hand. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.48.136.149 (talk) 04:00, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Moved the page.

As you can see from the content of the article and by following the links, people (technological standard companies, the state of California, and numerous special interest groups) have been requesting this for at least 15 years.

The slave trade has been officially abolished for nearly 200 years.

Words like Floppy disk, Netscape, Napster, and MySpace enter the language almost overnight, and then they quickly become obsolete and are forgotten.

The master/slave terminology is a hold-over from a time when this was thought to be the natural order of the word, and it was unquestioned received wisdom that some people were masters and some were slaves and this was right and good.

However, there is evidence that there were objections to this terminology nearly 2000 years ago (See: Matthew 23:10, Galations 3:28).

Anyone searching for master/slave will still be able to find the page.

Revert if you like, or move it somewhere better, but this issue is not going away any time soon.

By using master/slave in the name of the article, Wikipedia unintentionally chooses the side condoning it, and its biased viewpoint was flagged.

(I removed the flag; although it still contains bias, it is no longer so egregious.)

Many of the arguments against the change are slippery-slopes -- if we allow this change, it will lead to x and y, but this is a well-known fallacy, and should be taken with a grain of salt. Mechachleopteryx (talk) 11:53, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Master/slave is what it is called
A lot of effort has gone into discussing whether this phenomenon ought to be called something else. But it is not Wikipedia's task to choose the terminology. We are to describe the phenomenon using the terms that are used by others. I came to this article to get knowledge about the roles master and slave in communication connections. The abhorrent history of enslaving people from Africa in America were not in my mind at all. And it shouldn't have been.

About the moot point: The term blacklist implies that black is bad. In some sense this term has a bad effect. Saying that a connection end-point is a slave does not imply that people should be enslaved. Some people seem to have seen a similarity between the role of the human slave and the role of the connection end-point. So they called the connection end-point a slave. This doesn't say anything about the morality of enslaving people. If some people are disturbed by the word slave being used in this new way, then that is caused by a pure misunderstanding of what is happening.

--Ettrig (talk) 09:04, 3 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Agreed. An encyclopedia always has a (time) lag, a delay until it documents the actual state of the art, and currently M/S is the (primary) term used around the globe, especially outside US colleges.
 * In technical jargon a blacklist isn’t necessarily always “bad”: I can use a  just to exclude certain hardware, because the software doesn’t support it. The used hardware isn’t “bad”, the program just won’t work on it as expected. Likewise, if I put certain websites on my 8-year-old child’s internet filter’s whitelist, these aren’t necessarily “good” websites, just not bad.
 * In that spirit: usingwhitespaceisracism!andusingcapitalizationiscapitalism!? ‑‑ K (🗪&#8239; | &#8239;✍) 19:00, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
 * The term is currently in the process of being replaced as such the current state of it's usage is relevant to the topic. Encyclopedias are not required to protect semantics that are changing in a living language. That is not their role. If the language changes so will the article to reflect that. If you want to write more on the technical details or history of the process as compared to the etymology you are welcome to add to the article. 198.48.136.149 (talk) 00:36, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

This political correctness has gone too far. I just discovered today that ARM replaced all occurrences of Master/Slave in their AXI specification document. It got changed to Manager/Subordinate, this is confusing and ridiculous. I have never ever associated the terminology with slavery or any kind of oppression. What next? People are going to have their Masters degrees changed to Managers degrees??? 86.130.90.94 (talk) 22:32, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
 * That it seems to have gone too far or to be too ridiculous are poor arguments. None of this has been spilling over into an effort to universally replace the word "Master". I agree though that it can be confusing, switching from "Master/Slave" to anything else will be confusing. But if that change can make any community that does it "better", as is the claim, then being confused is a small sacrifice to make. 75.172.138.71 (talk) 02:15, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Can you show me the exact proof that changing master-slave technology in the IT world has solved a two-century long moral dilemma in your country? Will removing the term 'slavery' from the dictionary improve in any way? Will modern slavery in India cease to exist after I stop writing the word slave in a technical manual? 89.242.18.154 (talk) 21:19, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Disproportionate (American) politics
The contents of this article are disproportionately represented by (recent)(localized) American politics rather than actually explaining the nature of the technology. 96.55.138.35 (talk) 21:52, 11 December 2021 (UTC)


 * That's OK, you'll catch up culturally in time and be sensitive to these issues in lour locale eventually too. 177.242.142.222 (talk) 23:22, 7 April 2022 (UTC)
 * What an arrogant statement. American society must be embraced at an international level, but not the other way around? No, it's not OK, there's not such a thing as 'catching up culturally', one day you'll learn that America is not the only country (or continent) on the map, and that will help expand your narrow perception of the world.
 * Every country has its historical flaws, the United States has a controversial past with African slavery, so does the UK with its empire, or Australia with its native population and so forth. But we don't impose our guilt to others. We learn, debate, travel and share in an effort to improve our surroundings.
 * As a non-native english speaker from a non-American country, for me master-slave doesn't relate with American slavery, but with Roman and Ancient Greek slavery, and that's just part of my European education. There's no social endorsement in any way, it's just how the hierarchy of devices is organised. 89.242.18.154 (talk) 21:04, 11 April 2022 (UTC)
 * The English Wikipedia should really be renamed to the "American Wikipedia". Signed, a Slav (from which the term "slave" originates) who's sick of woke culture dictating language worldwide. Noxian16 (talk) 06:25, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

`By the 21th century' is misleading
`By the 21st century, it had become a subject of controversy`

Nonetheless, all three sources cited were written in summer 2020. This sentence is misleading as it generalises a relatively recent fashion with a whole century. In other words, look at a revision of this article from before 2019, if it were a long-term problem, it would have mentioned way before. But it doesn't. This so-called controversy of the 21st century started with the influence of the black lives movement to re-write computing terminology. So at least correct it to specify the real dates from when this `controversy' started. 79.71.60.124 (talk) 21:32, 13 January 2022 (UTC)


 * The issue did not emerge only in 2020 -- see this 2003 article: https://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/11/26/master.term.reut/ -- AnonMoos (talk) 22:29, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Leader/Follower
Is the terminology used by apache solr https://solr.apache.org/guide/8_8/index-replication.html (although they need to update their images as of 2022-08-19). Pier4r (talk) 13:35, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Note on my changes
I have trimmed the section on the naming controversy, but I expect my changes to be contested, so I wanted to post my rationale here. The terminology debate is clearly relevant enough to be mentioned, but I agree with many of the comments above that it is 1. not germane to the topic of the general principle of two or more tasks in this relationship, or examples of that principle; and 2. highly Western centric and an example of recentism. Another issue was that it used many primary sources to establish different existing terminology for the master/slave concept, but only some of those sources established that it was a replacement term, versus simply alternative terms, many of which predate the wider controversy. I left the Python, Google, GitHub, and Linux examples as I think these are particularly large and well-known projects, that inform the reader of how influential the campaign had become. Ovinus (talk) 20:01, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

2024
This naming controversy is idiotic. -- Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.74.108.114 (talk) 18:07, 5 February 2024 (UTC)


 * However idiotic or otherwise it may be, if it's notable and reliable sources are available, it's probably suitable as a topic for a Wikipedia article. AnonMoos (talk) 03:29, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 5 December 2023

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) NmWTfs85lXusaybq (talk) 02:11, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Master/slave (technology) → Master–slave (technology) – MOS:/. Master and slave (technology) is acceptable as well. –LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄ ) 01:38, 5 December 2023 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Support - Slashes typically indicate an or rather than an and. Primergrey (talk) 19:03, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Support per MOS:SLASH Bensci54 (talk) 13:45, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Lazy writing without critical thought
The article currently says, "...although in the context of version control, the term master simply refers to the gold master, a term borrowed from the recording industry which refers to the final mixed version of a recording, and does not have a corresponding slave."

No source is cited for this, and whoever wrote this didn't stop to think, "Hmm, I wonder where the term `master' in `gold master' came from?" The word "master" is older than both its computer usage and its recording usage, and has the same language origin, no matter how you cut it. So yes, "gold master" is still related to "slave", even if "slave" wasn't used in the recording context.

I've seen this argument before online and it's IMO just a lazy way to dismiss the issue, and not rooted in facts.

recommend deleting 2604:3D08:6B7F:DEB0:CCEC:4E0B:D65A:D9CC (talk) 20:58, 29 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Kind of think you're wrong -- expressions such as "master thief", "chess grandmaster" etc. have nothing to do with slavery. The "Master boot record" has no slaves (merely "partition volume boot records")... AnonMoos (talk) 10:15, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I've just deleted that part of the sentence you puts in quotes... it was tangential and uncited anyways. There is stuff in Wiktionary about the history of these words anyway, so I've added a template box to link to their Wiktionary entries instead. Em3rgent0rdr (talk) 05:52, 2 March 2024 (UTC)