Panel Discussion: Words Matter: Inclusive Language in Software, Open Source, & the Enterprise
summary
Companies recount replacing master/slave and blacklist/whitelist across docs, APIs and tests, growing an Intel core team from two volunteers to six and expanding a steering committee company‑wide. Practical steps include changing documentation first, running CI/unit tests and betas, coordinating with upstreams and dependent libraries (one dependency forced a cascade), and publishing blog posts and surveys to measure progress; retrofits often break compatibility and require scoped effort rather than a blind replace‑all.
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chapters (39)
- 0:00Introductions
- 1:30Mark Miller
- 2:25Additional Resources
- 2:35Background Information
- 4:16What is Inclusive Language
- 5:23Definitions
- 6:43How did the topic of replacing exclusionary terms come up
- 7:35How did you get involved
- 9:07The murder of George Floyd
- 10:16The inclusive naming initiative
- 11:33How I came to this work
- 13:00Dealing with resistance
- 14:12Change is hard
- 16:30Resistance
- 17:45Authentic conversations
- 19:42The L3D example
- 20:44The bottom up approach
- 22:17Changing documentation first
- 23:30Master and slave
- 24:25Managing dependencies
- 24:44Change management
- 25:29Example
- 26:31Role of Education
- 26:46Importance of Base Level Understanding
- 35:13Language is always evolving
- 35:52Celebration
- 36:31Followup Survey
- 37:50Word Replacement
- 38:20Hard Decisions
- 40:50Suggestions
- 41:35Project Master Slave
- 42:33Driving Change
- 43:14Leading by Example
- 44:19Open Dialogue
- 44:59Get Informed
- 46:08Other Advice
- 46:18Its a Marathon
- 46:54Speak Up
- 48:07Resources
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