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Software Google Mozilla Open Source

There Is No .bro In Brotli: Google/Mozilla Engineers Nix File Type As Offensive 781

theodp writes: Several weeks ago, Google launched Brotli, a new open source compression algorithm for the web. Since then, controversy broke out over the choice of 'bro' as the content encoding type. "We are hoping to establish a file ending .bro for brotli compressed files, a command line tool 'bro' for compressing and uncompressing brotli files, and a accept/content encoding type 'bro'," explained Google software engineer Jyrki Alakuijala. "Can I talk you out of it?," replied Mozilla SW engineer Patrick McManus. "'bro' has a gender problem, even though the dual meaning is unintentional. It comes of[f] misogynistic and unprofessional due to the world it lives in." Despite some pushback from commenters, a GitHub commit made by Google's Zoltan Szabadka shows that there will be no '.bro' in Brotli. "I have asked a feminist friend from the North American culture-sphere, and she advised against bro," explained Alakuijala. "We have found a compromise that satisfies us, so we don't need to discuss this further. Even if we don't understand why people are upset from our cultural standpoint, they would be (unnecessarily) upset and this is enough reason not to use it."
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There Is No .bro In Brotli: Google/Mozilla Engineers Nix File Type As Offensive

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 10, 2015 @07:09PM (#50700805)

    Call it .sis or .vag, that'll work, right?

    Male bad, female good?

  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 10, 2015 @07:09PM (#50700809)

    Who says that?

  • What next? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jbmartin6 ( 1232050 ) on Saturday October 10, 2015 @07:13PM (#50700827)
    I guess the FAT filesystem has to go too.
    • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 10, 2015 @07:22PM (#50700881)

      Oh noooo. Don't forget the man pages.

      Better prerapre for person pages now...

      • Re: What next? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 10, 2015 @07:45PM (#50701029)

        You're too late.

        http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/FreeBSD's_man_page_misogyny

        Note the example there with gendered terms... Is being called fucking HATRED OF WOMEN.

        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7121268.
        Bro pages (man pages with example) are raked over the coals

        http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Man-Page/
        Man pages now have disclaimers to explain that man is short for manual, so please don't be offended

        This HOWTO explains what you should bear in mind when you are going to write on-line documentation -- a so-called man page -- that you want to make accessible via the man(1) command. Throughout this HOWTO, a manual entry is simply referred to as a man page, regardless of actual length and without sexist intention.

      • Re:What next? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by angel'o'sphere ( 80593 ) <{ed.rotnemoo} {ta} {redienhcs.olegna}> on Saturday October 10, 2015 @09:30PM (#50701573) Journal

        Actually one of the first "better man page browsers" I ever installed on unix systems (around 1990) was called "woman".

      • by Tom ( 822 )

        Don't forget the man pages

        Don't tell them.

        Welcome to the age of being offended by everything. Seriously, some people are actively searching for things that they can feel offended by, aren't they?

    • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Sunday October 11, 2015 @05:56AM (#50703019)

      FAT has to go. It will be replaced by the CURVY table.

      "man pages" are now "person pages" and include a provision to reword everything to a gender neutral wording.

      "cat" is no longer acceptable due to the outcry of people allergic to feline fur and is now "domestic_animal". Softlinks to "cat" may be permissive if the owner of the system can show that no allergic person could ever be subjected to the computer, which means that laptops, tablets and the like must not use such a symlink.

      It will no longer be able to use the "force" option in commands. Such behaviour is unacceptable and the option is now being ignored by the command and its use logged, with mandatory monthly reviews to correct such behaviour in users who continue to try to use it.

      "sendmail" is no longer acceptable due to the obvious gender bias and is renamed "sendmessage".

      The "touch" command may only be used on files the creation date of which is longer than 18 years in the past and where the user is in the touch_permitted database of the file. By default touch is not allowed until the program explicitly allows it to a certain user.

      "LaTeX" is no longer to be used due to environmental concerns.

      "kill" has always been a command of great concern and is now entirely limited to use for root only, who may only execute it after the process has been deemed required to be killed by at least 12 other processes running.

      "history" has been completely rewritten and will now be "herstory".

      abort() is now choice()

      And finally, XWindow is now NC-17Window.

  • by vandelais ( 164490 ) on Saturday October 10, 2015 @07:14PM (#50700837)

    Even PC principal says .bro

    I guess they just didn't want to throw down.

  • by kheldan ( 1460303 ) on Saturday October 10, 2015 @07:18PM (#50700859) Journal
    Call it 'Bratli' and use '.bra' as an extension instead; problem solved! :-)
  • by EmeraldBot ( 3513925 ) on Saturday October 10, 2015 @07:22PM (#50700879)

    Is anyone going to do something about Symbian's SIS [wikipedia.org] file format? I feel unfairly pressured and discriminated against, and I demand that Nokia immediately change it. Right now.

    ...

    I feel it ungentlemanly to swear, and so I apologize most sincerely, but this is fu**in' ridiculous.

  • Seriously? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rossz ( 67331 ) <ogre@@@geekbiker...net> on Saturday October 10, 2015 @07:27PM (#50700911) Journal

    Have the claims of victimhood progressed so far that this is considered offensive? Wow.

    Fuck those shrieking harpies. /yes, I am being offensive on purpose.

  • by Dadoo ( 899435 ) on Saturday October 10, 2015 @07:32PM (#50700955) Journal

    ...and they want their 3-letter filename extensions back. Seriously, "br" would be fine, as well as "brot" or even "brotli". It amazes me that, 20 years after MS/DOS basically reached its end-of-life, people are still thinking within those constraints.

  • by Tokolosh ( 1256448 ) on Saturday October 10, 2015 @07:41PM (#50700999)

    I invite posters to list below everything that offends. I expect a long list, so I'll start the ball (!) rolling:

    The Minnesota football team perpetuates the stereotype of violent northern Europeans, bent on raping and pillaging. Their name and mascot must be banished - they are deeply offensive and racist.

    • by serviscope_minor ( 664417 ) on Sunday October 11, 2015 @06:49AM (#50703149) Journal

      I invite posters to list below everything that offends. I expect a long list, so I'll start the ball (!) rolling:

      I'm really, DEEPLY offended that some random people on the internet decided to change a file extension for a file format I have never used and have no say in. It offends me to my very core for reasons I can't fully explain.

      Yes, I am being sarcastic about a large number of comments on this thread from the permanently offended crowd.

      It's a file extension and it's not yours. Person gets to change it if he likes for any reason he likes. Don't like that it's not ".bro" any more? Well, your only recourse is to whine all over the internet about it.

  • This is insane (Score:3, Insightful)

    by NotInHere ( 3654617 ) on Saturday October 10, 2015 @07:43PM (#50701009)

    Centuries ago, you got into serious problems if you ran around claiming you have a mission to fulfil the devil gave you. Now, this gets replaced by feminism, and everybody who doesn't join in the holy movement is an infidel who should be punished. The level of intolerance towards people who aren't "feminists" is raising and raising.

    If they really wanted to help women, they should go to india, help solving its rape problem, or to saudi arabia, where women get stoned when they sleep with men who aren't their husband.

    • by PRMan ( 959735 )
      Or go to school. Or drive. I mean, I can understand why some people might frown on breaking up families...
  • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Saturday October 10, 2015 @07:44PM (#50701013)

    Damn feminists, grow a pair!

  • by Dunbal ( 464142 ) * on Saturday October 10, 2015 @08:30PM (#50701269)
    So now a gender is "misogynistic"?
  • by nickweller ( 4108905 ) on Saturday October 10, 2015 @08:30PM (#50701273)
    Yet another example of political-correctness gone insane. People are not upset, some SJWarrier decides to be insulted by 'bro' and therefore it must be changed. Anyone who says different is a misogynist. Enough of the PC bullshit already. If some people decide to be insulted by some aspect of contemporary culture then that's their prerogative. It's got nothing to do with me, I am under no compulsion to adjust my behaviour or opinions to suit them.
  • A timeline... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 0xdeadbeef ( 28836 ) on Saturday October 10, 2015 @08:31PM (#50701277) Homepage Journal

    Frat boys call each other bro, such that it becomes part of a stereotype.

    Feminists start using the word as a slur to evoke the stereotype in order to ridicule anyone they perceive as too masculine.

    People start using bro ironically in a totally different context.

    Feminists lose their shit and call *that* "offensive".

    I'm guessing what they're really upset about is their insult losing its negative connotation.

  • by TeknoHog ( 164938 ) on Saturday October 10, 2015 @08:54PM (#50701405) Homepage Journal
    For the sake of the mental health of people like me, please stick with the .bro extension.
  • by BitZtream ( 692029 ) on Saturday October 10, 2015 @11:28PM (#50701985)

    "Can I talk you out of it?," replied Mozilla SW engineer Patrick McManus. "'bro' has a gender problem, even though the dual meaning is unintentional. It comes of[f] misogynistic and unprofessional due to the world it lives in."

    Patrick, YOU are the one with a problem.

  • by mysidia ( 191772 ) on Saturday October 10, 2015 @11:37PM (#50702019)

    People conceding to irrational objections, just because it will avoid bothering unreasonable people.

    Why? Because it sets a detrimental precedent that other developers should do the same.

    Then suddenly, we're going to have to get rid of programs like "Bash" as a login shell, because it sounds so violent.

    Also, "Master Slave" clustering/replication schemes are going to need to be renamed, because the reference to 'Slave server' may offend people.

  • by Urkki ( 668283 ) on Sunday October 11, 2015 @12:42AM (#50702203)

    The rational thing is to change the extension to something neutral. It's just a technical detail and does not matter that much, so it's sensible to just be polite to those idi... humans who feel there is a problem.

    Of course once you're polite, you get a bunch of other idi... humans saying they find the change of the extension without a technical reason offensive, and would like it changed back, failing to understand that they want it changed back for an equally non-technical "feel-good" reason.

    Oh the irony.

    Obviously it would be different if there was a good technical reason to demand just that one particular extension, but there isn't. It'd also be different if the new extension (instead of the act of changing it) was potentially as offensive.

  • by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Sunday October 11, 2015 @12:51AM (#50702231)

    replied Mozilla SW engineer Patrick McManus

    Pretty sure that should read "replied Mozilla SJW engineer Patrick McManus"

  • by jjohn_h ( 674302 ) on Sunday October 11, 2015 @03:55AM (#50702727)

    Brot means bread in German. In some German speaking regions brotli means little roll. The world doesn't have English as mother tongue.

  • by Spaham ( 634471 ) on Sunday October 11, 2015 @03:56AM (#50702733)

    And we'll explain in the man page why it's called .bro...

I tell them to turn to the study of mathematics, for it is only there that they might escape the lusts of the flesh. -- Thomas Mann, "The Magic Mountain"

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