Change the "Master" nomenclature

[Jon-AtAWS]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
Coming from #2589.

Describe the solution you'd like
Change all code, parameters, APIs, and documentation to refer to "leader" nodes instead of "master" nodes.

The goal is to have a consistent term to refer to this node function, while avoiding offensive language.

Describe alternatives you've considered
Other possible terminology
Manager (Keeps the"M" for abbreviations and existing diagrams)
Controller

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Added on 04/18/2022:
Workitems in Plugins

• Deprecate the "Master" nomenclature alerting#320
• Deprecate the "Master" nomenclature anomaly-detection#397
• Deprecate the "Master" nomenclature index-management#285
• Deprecate the "Master" nomenclature k-NN#307
• Change the "Master" nomenclature sql#463
• Change the "Master" nomenclature asynchronous-search#99
• Change the "Master" nomenclature  cross-cluster-replication#319
• Deprecate the "Master" nomenclature performance-analyzer#152
• Deprecate the "Master" nomenclature performance-analyzer-rca#139
• Deprecate the "Master" nomenclature security#1664

In Other Projects

• [FEATURE] Change the "master" nomenclature documentation-website#450
• Deprecate the "Master" nomenclature OpenSearch-Dashboards#1318

[dgomesbr]

Suggesting Main instead of Leader as standard following https://github.com/github/renaming

[sharp-pixel]

I believe the context is very different between master/main branch in a repo and master/leader node. Master nodes are not the main nodes in the cluster.

[sharp-pixel]

@Jon-AtAWS , you mention code and parameters, should we update cluster settings and APIs as well (e.g. /_cat/master)?

[Jon-AtAWS]

Ideally, we would change from master/(slave - implied) terminology across the board. So, yes, changing the _cat APIs as well.

Also, I agree "main" doesn't really fit for me. The function of the nodes is to hold and broadcast state, so "manager" is a close second for me.

[morsik]

@Jon-AtAWS words are not offensive by themselves! It's time to start learn that finally!
There is nothing offensive in word "master" which here refers only to software. Don't change things that work. Don't bring stupid naming, because someone told you so.

Eh, this talk again…

Simple example: If I shout at friend in a friendly-laughy-way: "hey, stupid! ;)" it won't be offensive. But If I should: "Hey You! Stupid!" to someone else - it is offensive. It's not words, it's context. And software context has nothing to do with offense at all.

Changing words like that is very bad and not helpful with your "real world" (I mean slavery) problem as it more like sweeping it under the rug. You're just pretending there's no anything like master-slave relation - while here - in software - it is! Let alone, we don't have slavery right now here in our countries and you're trying to wash your hands by doing such change (like something like that never happened in your country). This is just pure madness and world is broken.

Good luck with project because I'm looking into it, but please leave stupid ideas behind and do something that is really meaningful to us - users - which is actual software.

And don't get me wrong - I'm from Poland - we didn't have slavery and stuff like that, I'm just looking at all that crap from outside of America region and I may be not aware of your internal problems (but it's still your internal problems, not rest of the world!) - but from my point of view it's like: You are just trying to wash your hands from history by removing those words. And I know that because I live in country which was occupied in WW2 by Germany (not Nazis! Nazis was a political party in Germany country!) and they are trying to wash that history too in their country by forbiding telling anything about WW2 and by changing "Germany" to "Nazis" like it is another country so people can forget that Germans did (quite similar to your word changing, isn't it?).

@YtFI apart from my personal opinion regarding this change - "Control Plane" in Kubernetes is different thing from "master"/"manager" - so definitely big no for "control plane" in ES. Especially that "Control Plane" is general term for all set of services that makes kubernetes master, database and other tools needed to operate Kube cluster - while here in ElasticSearch it's just single application (I mean: ElasticSearch; or here called: OpenSearch).

[sercasti]

I think this issue should be closed and ignored.

[Redacted]

Every minute we spend with this stupid nonsense is a waste of time. Jon, nobody is forcing you to use this product, if you don't like it, you're free to use a different one. Period.

Note: This comment was edited to remove content the that was in volition of the project code of conduct. Comment was flagged by @stockholmux.

[stockholmux]

On behalf of the maintainers of the project I agree that the term 'master' may be offensive to some people. This project is committed to being a community where everyone can join and contribute. This means using inclusive and welcoming language. The repo defaults to main for the branch and, in a similar vein, supporting inclusive language should extend to the API and the rest of the software as long as it can be made in a backward compatible way.

[dblock]

Thanks @stockholmux. I would kindly ask for future comments to please be limited to technical arguments, and we really appreciate all your suggestions and thoughts and contributions.

[Jon-AtAWS]

Thanks for the replies, folks. I appreciate that this is a possibly difficult, and politicized discussion. I want to encourage everyone to stick with the technical. And I want to +1 @stockholmux's comment above on a commitment to inclusivity.

[morsik]

@Jon-AtAWS sorry, but I just don't see how "inclusivity" connects with some people's personal problems with wrong understanding of word in this context. And @sercasti has point here. Any word can be offensive to anyone. If "world" decides one day that >any other word< is offensive, will we go with this nonsense over and over again?

You can't make everyone's happy - that's unwritten rule to this world. And inclusivity doesn't mean changing words - inclusivity means we welcome all people to commit to project, we welcome everybody to be part of community no matter who they are. And this I can just write in very simple Code of Conduct rules:

Be human, not asshole.

That's all. So, be human, be welcome to other people, be nice and I encourage everyone to take part of this (and any other projects) - but please don't change real inclusivity into some political war (like even you mentioned) or some day this will turn to those people who didn't wanted such "offensive" words (which - they are just not offensive, let's be honest - and there's even prove to that because you ignored @sercasti's comment here who makes good point here).

I just try to understand all of this "political correctness", but I simply can't.

[rursprung]

disclaimer: this is very much my personal opinion (anything not 100% technical will always be my personal opinion and not reflect any opinion of an employer or other 3rd party if not explicitly mentioned).

i very much try not to be pulled into a political discussion here (you can only lose if you try to be part of such a discussion), but: i agree that changing words in a software (which has nothing to do with slavery) does not change anything in the real world. want to end modern-day slavery or increase equality in society? then work on that, rather than doing virtue signaling.

with that out of the way, i have a simple technical reason why this renaming shouldn't be done: this nomenclature is part of various APIs (e.g. in the cluster API). changing this would change the API. besides this being a breaking change (and you should break as little as possible) it'd also break compatibility with elasticsearch 7.10. and the statement was that you want to be compatible with ES 7.10 for as long as possible.