quaid
commented
2 years ago Conversation in the meeting occurred but we didn't have a quorum to open and record the meeting.
We discussed if this was something in scope for the project and what that might look like.
There did seem to be a consensus of a possible value in having a page for "man" that would:
- Identify uses that are fine, such as "man" for "manual" or "manager".
- Identify uses we recommend to change, which is any gendered use as a prefix or suffix.
- Suggestions on how to clarify/disambiguate uses so it's clear to others which meaning is intended.
As such, it would be helpful to have the examples table broken down to show those three uses, like this (with my best guesses for which are which):
| *man* for "gendered-as-man" | *man* for "manual" | *man* for "manager" | plain *manager names |
-- | -- | -- | --
barman | | podman | GNOME Power Manager
| libmodman | | NetworkManager
paman | | | Virt-manager
blueman | | | Redis-manager
mailman | | | butter-manager
pixman | | | swift-package-manager
byteman | | | cert-manager
| | man-db | Boinc-manager
| pqliteman | | Backup-manager
clipman | | | WifiManager
| | man-pages | home-manager
Progman | | | LocationManager
ConMan | | | matchbox-window-manager
| | man2html | mirrormanager
ProxyMan | | | ModemManager
gpsman | | | nest-manager
| | | manageIQ |
RenderMan | | |
| | help2man |
| | mandoc |
ShaderMan | | |
| | kapman | |
| | manedit |
| shaman | | |
leatherman | | |
| manpm | |
| vim-man | |
| libgearman | |
| myman | |
| watchman | |
| libirman | |
pacman | | |
| xml2man | |
markcmiller86
I had a quick conversation with @quaid today about this concern and he recommended I file an issue about it in order for your group to potentially advise on it (thank you :) ) I put together a writeup to provide the context - let me know what you think.
Podman Inclusive Naming
1. Problem statement
There has been community feedback about the name Podman potentially being problematic because it includes the word man. Part of the concern is that Podman is a part of the broader open source / technology community, which has historically been a male-centric space. The term man could be interpreted as gendered language and potentially frame the project as unwelcoming to other genders.
2. Background
The name Podman is a combination of the term pod which refers to a grouping of containers, and manager because it enables users to manage their containers and container pods. The command line command for running Podman is
podman.Podman brand recognition
The earliest release of Podman available from Podman's current Github repository is v0.3.5 released 5 April 2018; the initial commit to the Podman repository was 1 Nov 2017.
Worldwide interest in Podman as a topic, as assessed by Google Trends, has been on a steady upward trend, from 0-2 interest per week in May 2017 to a peak of 100 the week of February 6-12, 2022.
Projects with similar function or naming
One counter point to the concern raised about Podman that's been shared by a number of people is the ubiquity of "man pages," another shorthand -- this time for "manual" and not "manager." It seemed important to think about what other projects use the shorthand "man" in their names, so below find a non-exhaustive list of such projects:
Specific concerns raised about the name
Here are two conversation threads started by one community member (on behalf of another) that served to raise the concern to the Podman team:
Podman branding background
Máirín Duffy in consultation with Dan Walsh and Tom Sweeney proposed a selkie mascot for Podman's branding. Máirín thought it would be a good idea to have an animal-based mascot as the Buildah mascot was a Boston Terrier and it would be nice to have continuity between the logos. Máirín and Tom researched all the animals for which a group is called a pod, and seals was among them. At the time, Máirín's children were obsessed with the movie Song of the Sea about a family of selkies (seals), a mythical Celtic creature that is a feminine creature that transforms from being a seal to being human and back. This led to the artwork below being developed, and the central one with three selkie seals in a group (a "pod") was the design the Podman team chose as it was closest in concept to the core function of the project:
Podman as a project was also featured in The Container Commandos Coloring Book released in 2018. Podman is represented by an androgynous, purple-eyed superhero in a wetsuit, wearing scuba gear with purple and yellow accents (see far left:)
3. Inclusive naming principles
In order to assess a path forward to address the concerns raised, I researched inclusive naming principles, which included evaluating the name "Podman" against the following inclusive naming recommendations:
Inclusive Naming Project
Reviewed resources provided by that project and evaluation against Podman naming:
Word lists ("man" does not appear on any of the lists of words to remove or consider removing.)
Language evaluation principles and framework:
Implementation Path Considerations
IBM Inclusive IT Language Recommendations
Reviewed IBM Inclusive IT Language Recommendations. Man" is not included on the list of terms, but relatedly "Fellow" is. This group classifies "fellow"as "no change recommended:"
LinkedIn's Leading Inclusive Teams Course
LinkedIn has a training course called Leading Inclusive Teams that includes a chapter called "Using inclusive language." Notably, the term "man" with respect to naming occupations comes up around 0:01:15 in the video:
This advice doesn't quite fully apply to Podman's branding, since there is no such profession - historically gendered or not - called "podman," nor is "podman" a term that existed previous to the naming of this software project. It is a novel portmanteau of two words - "pod" and "manager" - that are considered neutral with respect to gender. (The etymology of the word "manager" is traced - via horse trainers - to the Latin "manus," meaning hand.)
Máirín's Assessment
My assessment, which is ongoing and may evolve further:
Based on this review of inclusive naming project documents and guidelines, the use of "man" in the name of the Podman project is not an egregious issue with respect to inclusive language.
Significantly, however, it has been brought up as a concern both internally and externally. This merits both acknowledgement and examining ways we might adjust the project's branding and supporting artifacts (such as the website and other marketing materials) to help the project's outward face reflect more accurately the project's inclusive attitude and nature.
Proposal
There are multiple places where a potentially masculine perception of Podman could be tempered, and multiple options per location that can be considered. These will be outlined below.
Podman's mascot
As mentioned earlier, multiple mascots were drawn up during the process of the current logo's creation, all based on the feminine creatures called selkies in Celtic mythology:
The currently-used illustration, depicting three selkie seals in a pod (center, above,), was determined to be the strongest image conceptually due to its showing multiple selkies. To build on that concept, some ideas:
Sketches of other potential treatments to mock up are below:
Podman's tagline
Podman's website (both current and the current version of the proposed redesign) has a tagline under the project name towards the main logo area of the page header. On the current podman.io (as of 26 May 2022) this tagline is:
The most recent version of the proposed new website design has the following tagline:
A proposal to improve this to re-emphasize the "manager" component of Podman, would be to explicitly use the term "manager" or "manage" in the tagline. A few proposed taglines to replace these:
Podman's full logo lockup
I suggest the development and usage of a new form of the full Podman logo that includes the tagline in the lockup, and that this version of the logo (which we'll call the "full logo lockup") be used in instances where the context of Podman being a manager might be called into question. For example, the title slide of a slide deck presentation, or the front page of the project website.
Here is an example of what this might look like using one of the replacement tagline ideas above, with a draft of a different logo graphic:
Podman's website
I suggest an audit of the website content for both the existing podman.io website and the proposed redesign with an eye for reinforcing the project's core function as a manager, and replacing / re-ordering / re-phrasing language in order to emphasize this. This is the top of the current Podman website at podman.io as an example, with some specific highlights:
Small content tweaks like this might seem minor but have an overall effect on how the project is perceived and can be very helpful in reinforcing the meaning of "Podman." This work could be conducted relatively quickly with little effort and submitted as a PR to the website repository.