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

Posted by Soulskill on from the trying-harder-than-academia dept.

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."

3 of 781 comments (clear)

  1. .vag is PS1 and PS2 audio by tepples · · Score: 5, Informative

    Except .vag is taken by ADPCM audio on the PlayStation 1 and 2.

  2. Re:EFI, the NEW boot standard, requires FAT 8.3 by zdzichu · · Score: 4, Informative

    EFI is 20 years old, it's hardly a "new" standard. And if you look into current version's (UEFI) specification 12.3.1.2:
    http://www.uefi.org/sites/defa...
    you will see that filesystem used on ESP supports long file names.
    So please stop disinformation.

    --
    :wq
  3. Re:The North American culture-sphere? by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 4, Informative

    Hunch correct. I've met Jyrki. He's a great guy. Also - a Finn who lives in Switzerland, not an American.

    Jyrki is very smart, not prone to bullshit or nonsense. He surely knows this issue is ridiculous, which is why they moved on so fast with only a minor comment about "not understanding why people are upset". There are more important things to do in life than argue with people who are wrong on the internet.

    (irony of me posting this to slashdot well understood)