Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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."

12 of 781 comments (clear)

  1. Big Sister is watching by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    Male bad, female good?

    1. Re:Big Sister is watching by dreamchaser · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You really need to get a sense of humor, or have you not ever heard the crude expression 'bros before hos?' It was a joke. You can laugh now.

    2. Re:Big Sister is watching by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Remember, git is a derogatory term in England/Great Britain.

      And that's exactly why Linus chose that name. "I'm an egotistical bastard, and I name all my projects after myself. First 'Linux', now 'git'".

    3. Re:Big Sister is watching by arglebargle_xiv · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "I have asked a feminist friend from the North American culture-sphere, and she advised against bro,"

      I asked a friend from a subgroup of the Congolese Luba people and in their dialect of Luba-Kasai "br" means "sodomise my three-year-old with a cucumber". Only three people actually speak this dialect and they're all over ninety, but still, someone somewhere finds it offensive, so your choice of "br" cannot be used as it is both offensive and racist.

      I demand that you change the extension to "cutefluffybunniessoftcottonwoolwarmness", but only after polling every single ethnic group, subculture, and political and religious belief in the world to ensure that none of them can figure out a way in which it offends them.

    4. Re:Big Sister is watching by jones_supa · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There's no need to artificially truncate filename extensions to 3 letters anymore. Just call it ".brotli" and call it a day. Adobe Premiere professionals deal with ".prproj" every day.

    5. Re:Big Sister is watching by Hognoxious · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Picking a neutral name that doesn't have any negative connotations is just sensible.

      It's not just sensible, it's impossible. If your whole raison d'etre is being offended, you will find something to be offended about.

      Now excuse me, I need to go and turn off the ... ummm ... green cauliflower.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  2. Re:Dear SJW morons by tnk1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Or failing that, perhaps they could not read gender politics into a three letter file extension.

  3. What next? by jbmartin6 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I guess the FAT filesystem has to go too.

    --
    This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
  4. Re:Dear SJW morons by Panoptes · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "bro' has a gender problem"

    No. North America has a gender problem.

  5. Re: What the fuck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The end of the patriarchy. And it is awesome. 50000 years of injustice are about to be unravelled.

    Because nothing says "We're strong enough to take over!" like screaming "I need to be protected!" whenever dealing with such horrible things as "offensive file extensions".

  6. Re:Dear SJW morons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    rant:

    No. The world has a "Whiny immature woman without a spine" problem. Lately we can't even bring up the topic of "gender" without having some fucking whore (yes, I'm using it intentionally. It's the internet. If you don't like it close the window. No one is forcing you to read this comment.) whining that "It's SOOOOOO offensive, and my little brain can't deal with the (non-intended) meanings so let's ban it!"

    /rant

    I've got a one step solution to all of this:
    1. Stop giving a fuck until these morons grow up and actually have a real issue to present.

    Seriously, every time I read shit like this, I wonder what kind of fucked in the head woman read / heard / whatever the material. Because a rational person would not read ".bro" and immediately think of "Gender inequality!" A person who would is either seriously fucked up in the head, or out to get something by taking advantage of others. This needs to stop. It's not solving any real issue and it takes away focus from the real issues that need to be addressed. For example: Equal pay regardless of gender, better support for abuse victims, etc.

    As for the sane women out there, 1. I apologize, but it needed, and still needs, to be said. 2. You need to start decrying these abusers and force them off the stage. Because for every single time you bring up a real issue that does need to be addressed, people think of these abusers and that puts them into a mindset of suspicion of intent, or just an outright unwillingness to help you.

  7. Re:Dear SJW morons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    > As amply demonstrated by the SJWs who down-modded my comment.

    If you are arguing that people shouldn't be so sensitive, your whining about being downmodded isn't doing your cause any favors.