> This essay introduced a few examples of Indian warriors with full headdress, but what if just one feather is presented—is it sufficient to conjure images of savage warriors? Well, probably not just one feather, unless it can be associated with some other stereotypical image. In this case, what if the feather is paired with the word “Apache”?
> It is interesting that the Apache Web site provides a link to a Web site devoted to the Apache people, providing “stereotypical proof” that the feather symbol and the foundation name are designed to evoke images of the Apache people. This is all the more interesting in light of the fact that perhaps history’s most photographed Indigenous warrior—the Apache Geronimo—was not inclined to adorn himself in this fashion. In fact, even Hollywood depictions of Geronimo eschew the feather look. Yet the stereotypical image of the feathered Indian persists.
As someone who will have to work on implementing this I don’t like this wording:
> Starting October 7, 2024, your usage of The ASF’s logo must be in compliance with the new logo and brand guidelines that will be available on our Brand Guidelines page.
If the logo is announced on 7th, how can someone be expected to adopt the new guidelines in a day. Why not just set it to 31 Oct or something? I know it wouldn’t matter in practice since ASF wouldn’t go after sites for using the old logo, but still.
3 months sounds about realistic for these kinds of changes IMO. Coincidentally, that's similar lead-time to what you seem to be giving yourselves here ;)
> Starting October 7, 2024, your usage of The ASF’s logo must be in compliance with the new logo and brand guidelines that will be available on our Brand Guidelines page.
Or else what? What's the penalty being threatened? How many people are they prepared to sue?
It's good that they are paying attention and listening. Changing the name is hard, but the logo is a good start.
> We thank Natives in Tech and other members of the broader open source community for bringing this issue to the forefront.
They asked the broader open source community, and I saw the blog post, but are the authors representative of any of the Apache tribes? It seems one obvious missing piece is the foundation reaching out to at least some of the tribes to ask them what they think about this. I am sure they did over the years but probably failed to mention it on their site. The people in these tribes are normal human beings living today [1]. You can talk with them and see what they'll say. They may well request to do away with the name and the feather, and foundation should then respect that, but they may not mind, either, or may suggest altering the logo, the description, etc.
Kudos to the critics for raising the issue, and to the Foundation for engaging with them. The changing of the convention name and the changing of the logo represent incremental progress. Changing the name of the Foundation may be challenging, but more incremental progress is possible — here are a couple ideas:
* Encourage projects to go by just "Foo" rather than "Apache Foo".
* Re-release the "Apache License 2.0" as the "ASF License 2.0".
Disclosure: Although I haven't been active for years I'm a past ASF board member.
Since you say this is progress, do you mind elaborating on what exactly this is progress toward? Even if the ASF fully changed their name tomorrow, what actual positive impact is that going to have on Native Americans?
Then state the obvious for me please because I don't think it is. I don't see how, in a multi-ethnic nation, making the neutral use of a name (in the case the use is actually positive) exclusionary to specific ethnicities is progress. It seems like a regression in our culture that we are having tribal quibbles over immaterial usage of language.
It gains Native Americans agency when they are able to determine how their culture is portrayed and represented, rather than be told that they have no choice but to have bear the representation that is foisted on them.
Self-determination doesn't show up as a bank sheet entry, but it's not meaningless.
Native Americans have the agency/self-determination to portray themselves however they want regardless of the name of ASF.
You seem to be arguing that Native Americans should have an exclusive right in determining how they are portrayed which is not only the opposite of progress, but is also treats them as a monolithic group, which is ignorant of sheer amount of diversity among Native Americans.
No, in this case someone (it's unclear who precisely since the linked blog doesn't have an About page) didn't like it. Why? Because using names that don't belong to you is stealing (according to their view). I'm not entirely sure I follow that line of reasoning, but looking at the blog that the ASF linked to which includes lines like:
> But I've got thousands of years of (re)learning to do and will never have the power of the matriarchs, so I follow the lead of the women in my life and do as I'm told.
It's no longer okay to reference or use symbols of other cultures, no matter how innocent or praising of that culture it might be without their permission.
What someone outside the culture thinks is "innocent or praising" might not be seen that way by someone inside the culture. That's why we ask permission.
Who within the culture is empowered to authorize you? Can I ask any Irishman for permission to use a shamrock? Or are there particular Irish personages who have authority and I must ask them?
> Who within the culture is empowered to authorize you?
Not you, or me
> Can I ask any Irishman for permission to use a shamrock?
That is unfair. American Indians, in the USA, are treated as if they do not exist.
To quote the Brian Behlendorf (of the ASF):
> Native American tribe called the Apaches, right, who succumbed to the invasion from the West, from the United States, and they were the last tribe to give up their territory and for me that almost romantically represented what I felt we were doing with this web-server project…
I think the Apache people take exception when the attempted genocide, of them, is "romantically represented"
> This frankly outdated spaghetti-Western “romantic” presentation of a living and vibrant community as dead and gone in order to build a technology company “for the greater good”
Yes
The Irish (some of my ancestors) are in a different boat. But if you want to coopt the Irish shamrock for your server software, it is still in bad taste if you have nothing to do with Eire.
But because the English did not eliminate the Irish, barely, they get to set the agenda. There are not so many romantic descriptions of the potato famine. Some, but they are in very bad taste.
Put yourself in the shoes of people who are told that the story of their near genocide, is "romantic".
The ASF are starting to do the right thing, and we should be calling them the ASF too. I appreciate the difficulties they are going to have changing their name, but that needs to be done too.
We cannot live in peace together when we do not listen to each other, and when re romanticise others tragedy for our own careless reasons
The name of the country in English is Ireland. The name of the country in Irish is Éire. Eire without the fada is not great in either language - in Irish it means burden, and in English it was used by the UK government and BBC for many years as they didn't want to acknowledge the actual name of the country for fear it would be seen as accepting sovereignty of Ireland over Northern Ireland.
I don't normally bother to correct people on this, but in the context of the argument you're making, it's a pretty poorly placed mistake.
Then who? If two parts of the same party, with equal bonafides, have differing opinions then how is that resolved?
It will get weird, and stupid, very quickly. Either it will turn into some outrageous purity contest or lead to the removal of any multiculturalism - or basically what @jackbravo said here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40998946
Dictators and mass murderer roots are not a problem.
For example I don't think there is much fuss about Hugo Boss (Sponsor of the Nazi's, designed and produced the SS uniforms), Volkswagen (car brand literally created by the Nazi's), Porsche (Ferdinand Porsche was a decorated SS officer and Nazi party member) or Ford (Henry Ford was a big fan of the Nazi's and was even decorated by Hitler).
And this will probably mark the end of Apache. All good things come to an end. I never even associated their name or symbol with native Americans. This is idiotic.
The idea that using a symbol across cultures is a misappropriation is an extension of the ideology that cultures should not mix. It's the thinking that everyone would be better of if each person stayed in their culture barrier - and you know which kind of thinking that is, from which political side on the spectrum. It's sad that an organisation like this feels the need to give legitimacy to that anti-multicultural ideology.
I am bothered by the implicit assumptions around property and ownership over cultural symbols which are tacit in your thinking.
as explicitly as I can, the very notion of saying "this is my culture, why are you adopting cultural practices or beliefs or symbols (or anything) from a culture that isn't yours!?" is why I'm raising a red flag here. I have a problem with that attitude.
It is not easy. Personally, I'm on the other side of the fence. As Mexican, we often see our culture "misrepresented" in media. But generally, all my friends and family hate it when they "correct it".
For example, we loved Speedy Gonzalez, Yepa yepa! Arriba Arriba! When he was canceled, I guess some people were bothered, but I'm sure there was no consensus around Mexicans whether we wanted it gone. I bet if you did a survey, most Mexicans loved the character. And the same happens with sombreros, nopales and huaraches. I love seeing people using them, people recognizing them, and even selling them (wish all times they were Mexican made, but hey, you can't have it all). It sometimes bothers us, especially when the stereotype affects us personally while looking for jobs, opportunities, etc. But I like having a strong culture that other people imitate, and would rather find ways to educate people in the wrong when the occasion arises and when it is not in our favor than just cancelling it for good.
Funny that you mention that, because I grew up watching both Speedy Gonzales and the Tijuana Toads. The latter one especially was pretty non-PC given the combo Japanese and Mexican stereotypes.
I _suspect_ the impetus here is slightly different. Reading the linked blog the driving feature of this request seems to be more one of "re-asserting ownership and power" than one of "purifying and isolating cultures and bloodlines". And there are definitely reasons for people to want to assert their value and ownership. That said, I think the end result will be a more _literal_ erasure of these cultures as reminders that anything was here before the Denny's was erected are removed from common culture and parlance. But maybe a "smaller, purer" awareness is what the instigators want?
Re-asserting ownership and power is, maybe somewhat not completely obvious, exactly how the far right historically branded their calls for cultural isolation.
On the other hand, this is exactly the kind of thing I imagine people at the Apache Software Foundation to spend their day doing. True rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic stuff here.
What a major victory for birds all across the globe. A feather is not ours to steal and parade around as if it’s our own culture. Maybe the ASF could replace this with a lock of human hair instead.
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen such a short article so clearly demonstrate how much don’t actually care about the people who they are to trying to placate. They’re changing the feather because it’s apparently offensive to reference it, but they’re not changing the name because it would cost money. Even though the name is way more tightly tied to the people than the feather. I don’t actually care about the logo or the name I just find having the dichotomy so clearly spelled out interesting.
When a name has been in use as long and is as widely used as ours, the legal, technical, and financial ramifications are broad and deep. A name change effort would have a hefty price tag, would take multiple years to implement, and would have to be led almost entirely by volunteers. As a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization, it is not possible to divert the majority of our funding and volunteers away from our primary mission of providing software for the public good, especially as the foundation prepares for mandatory changes that will come from the Cybersecurity Resilience Act (CRA) and other pending legislation. Because of these very real challenges, at this time it would be very difficult to implement a legal name change for The ASF.
Because of these reasons, the ASF Board has decided to prioritize changing the logo and branding and not changing the organization’s name at this time. It is important to us that we take whatever actionable steps we can now to create a more welcoming and inclusive community.
I did read that part, I just feel that the idea that somehow something good comes from removing the feather (which is negligible expense relative to changing the name), is just plainly saying that we care about inclusivity but only so long as it’s not expensive. Which is more or less the policy of every large organization, but it’s rare that it gets said.
I read it as "we can't do it now because complex reasons, but we know it's still a problem and want to do it" and that feels pretty good. Like who's supposed to set the timeline for rectifying long-lived errors in judgement? Unwinding long-lived errors generally takes time.
As someone who once implemented a name change for a much, much smaller company, I can tell you this is just not so. You have to find and fix every contract, bank account, government registration, checkbook, domain name, knowledge base article…it’s endless. And some of those changes cost money in addition to time.
AIU using the feather along with the Apache name could be seen as mindlessly evoking the stereotypical image of a native American as in naive 1950/1960s Western movies, which adds insult to the act of cultural appropriation that is merely using the name.
Here's my cheap suggestion. Change the name from Apache Software Foundation to "A Software Foundation" (or even "ASF Software Foundation"). Change instances of 'Apache X' to 'ASF X'; ex Apache HTTPd becomes ASF HTTPd. The license becomes the ASF License.
You can do it in steps. Anything that's currently Apache X could become ASF X on its own schedule. asf.org seems to be managed by a foundation that changed its name away from ASF in 2010, so it might be available (presumably at some cost) for the ASF to make use of to replace apache.org over time.
This still costs money and time, but it would do the job over time, with a minimal upfront expenses.
Maintaining the trademark requires continued use of Apache. Without the domain name in control, the security implications are disastrous considering how much legacy technology has the domain name hard coded.
If they're going to change their name, they will of course need to abandon the old trademarks.
Anyone claiming their old trademarks for new, will have the same problem of appropriating an indigenous name, and also the issue of approrpriating an abandoned name. Trademark law allows it, but it's not a good look for the newcomer.
For the domain, I would imagine a very long transition. There's a reason the current owner of asf.org still maintains that despite changing their organizational name away in 2010. If ASF starts using a new name and domain name today, I'd expect it takes about 3 years for everything to be fully moved, but old links will need to continue to work for some time after that. Some sort of annual review with a usage threshold would be appropriate... if there's negligable requests to http(s)://httpd.apache.org by 2034, you can remove the A/AAAA records. And a year or two or five, after there are no longer any DNS records for apache.org, it can be transitioned to another organization. Perhaps a transition can be arranged sooner if shared usage can be agreed upon; the new owner could use www while deprecated names continue to redirect.
Things like Maven and numerous other XML namespaces come to mind that can’t exactly move. Then there’s the tons of dirty money to be made by domain squatting apache.org even if all the technical problems were solved because the site has a reputation. It would be like Google changing their domain name and letting the old domain lapse.
Letting the old domain lapse is silly. Presumably, it would eventually be transfered to an indingenous organization, after its use had been nearly extinguished.
There would be references that outlive a naming transition, of course. But if you read a 10 year old book and expect all the urls to work, that seems highly optimistic. It's uncool to change URLs, but stuff happens.
For XML namespaces, I think it's reasonable to keep the existing ones, but a) when there's a new version, use the new domain name exclusively; b) after some time make provisions for publishing old versions under both domain names. My experience with XML namespaces is that they look like a URL, but there isn't always useful content at that url anyway, it's really just a string that's hopefully unique. It's been a while since I used them, but I seem to recall some useful namespaces being tied to domains that were no longer in use as well.
I've used active standards where the standards body had disbanded and no original sources were available... You had to rely on documents saved and shared. It happens, it's part of life. At least if the ASF changes its name, it will continue to exist.
It's work, perhaps a lot of work, but it's tractable. IBM changed its name to IBM, AT&T changed its name to AT&T, ASF can change its name to ASF. Heck, GMAC changed its name to Ally.
It’d be great if the Apache Nations wanted to control the domain name, but they’re still mostly concerned with basics like clean water and other government services.
If you change the name of your company without informing the bank, your creditors, your secured creditors, your shareholders, the state corporation commission, and your firms statutory agent, you will run into some legal problems quickly.
The legal ramifications of changing your name is a ton of documentation, notification, and registration.
You're not really describing that much effort in the scheme of things: make a filing and notify several parties. Annual accounts are a far bigger burden, and they have to be done.
Would you say there are “no legal ramifications,” or that there are legal ramifications that don’t constitute “that much effort”? I’m left a little unclear from your posts.
Just because the ASF's officers won't go to jail for changing the name doesn't mean there aren't any legal ramifications. Trademarks are a legal issue, for starters. Defending the Foundation's trademarks is a big part of what goes on, even if most of that work is done quietly and non-confrontationally.
Technical issues would involve for example the apache.org domain, and all the security issues from decades worth of links pointing to it.
The irony is that the name is much worse than just the logo. Feathers are pretty common, even if they're often associated with Native Americans. The word "Apache" is only one thing: the actual name of a Native tribe. So changing the logo without changing the name doesn't do much, while changing the name while keeping the logo would.
To be blunt, I think the arguments in this blog post are very weak. First of all, they completely fail to demonstrate how the name of ASF has any actual material impact on native peoples. Regardless of that glaring flaw, this piece focuses on the issue of respect for Apache culture and history. Framed another way, their thesis is that using the name of a nation for something unrelated is disrespectful, especially because this nation has suffered historical injustice.
There are a couple ironies about this argument. One being that the ASF is a widely respected organization with noble efforts. They chose the name Apache because of admirable aspects of that peoples past. This leads to positive feelings and respectfulness toward the Apache people. Another irony is their claim that a name should be off-limits for other uses or by other people is exclusionary, entitled, and childish, which paints the Apache as a people who deserve less respect.
The last thing I'll say is that their entire section about romanticization is just strange. In what world is attributing (even falsely) positive attributes to a nation/people a bad thing? They have a problem because it isn't dynamic enough? But why does historical memory have to be dynamic in the first place? I fail to see what is inherently virtuous about accurately deconstructing every topic all the time.
tbh "community over code" branding of the conference is more irritating than the logo controversy, but anyone can re-license their code under a new framework. these organiations are fluid. maybe someone should just stand up a new license and call it the Pioneer foundation and use an arrow logo, because everyone in the world used arrows, and they say that you can always tell who the pioneers were because they're the ones with the arrows in their backs.
Voices like those from Natives in Tech would just get downvoted to oblivion and greyed out, no matter how civil and guidelines-compliant. This is a place where the marginalized are erased.
Think of engaging with HN as venturing into hostile territory and you won't be as disappointed.
https://www.endasfmascotry.com/
https://blog.nativesintech.org/apache-appropriation/
The quotes about the feather:
> This essay introduced a few examples of Indian warriors with full headdress, but what if just one feather is presented—is it sufficient to conjure images of savage warriors? Well, probably not just one feather, unless it can be associated with some other stereotypical image. In this case, what if the feather is paired with the word “Apache”?
> It is interesting that the Apache Web site provides a link to a Web site devoted to the Apache people, providing “stereotypical proof” that the feather symbol and the foundation name are designed to evoke images of the Apache people. This is all the more interesting in light of the fact that perhaps history’s most photographed Indigenous warrior—the Apache Geronimo—was not inclined to adorn himself in this fashion. In fact, even Hollywood depictions of Geronimo eschew the feather look. Yet the stereotypical image of the feathered Indian persists.