This is an interesting and somewhat difficult topic, where I'm sure there are many different opinions.
I believe that the management groups of different open source projects should in fact ensure that the terminology they use going forward is inclusive. However, the degree on which each project decides to do this may vary.
Using the Master/Slave example, here are a couple of different replacements:
- One suggestion is Marshal/Soldier. This avoids the ownership metaphor completely, but on the other hand it introduces a military metaphor instead. This is definitely better, but is it good enough to be truly inclusive and not offensive?
- SaltStack uses Master/Minion. I personally find this completely inoffensive because of the cartoonish associations I get, and as above it is definitely better than the original. But where does the line go for when you can use "Master" in a context that's inclusive and not offensive?
That being said, I don't think questions referring to historical naming conventions should be edited. In my opinion, there is a very fine line when you begin to talk about "editing history" for the sake of political correctness.
Questions should be "correct" for the topic (and time period) being asked about. Imagine you needed to ask a question about a database installation using the old terminology. Here it would only be correct to use the actual terminology at hand.
However, I think it would be a nice gesture to include an explanation/disclaimer that these are "old" terms, that have now been replaced with more inclusive ones. In this way you show that:
- You are aware of the historical connotations of the past terms
- You are aware that history must be recognized and not censored
- You are aware that the terms are changing for something better