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

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."

Comments

Re:Big Sister is watching

[fredrated]

How about if I just gag?

Re:Big Sister is watching

[AmiMoJo]

This. Google wants Brotli to become a widely used standard compression technology for the web. Picking a neutral name that doesn't have any negative connotations is just sensible. Like it or not, tech does have a brogrammer problem. I'll get modded down just for saying that, which shows how bad it really is. People won't even talk about it, they just try to bury any comments that mention it.