Change / rename "master password" to e.g. primary or main password

Short summary

Linux team has banned the use of terminology like ‘master’, ‘slave’, ‘blacklist’,‘whitelist’ etc and instead recommend developers to use more neutral words to welcome everyone.
For ‘master’ they recommend

primary/secondary
main/replica or subordinate
initiator/target
requester/responder
controller/device
host/worker or proxy
leader/follower
director/performer

I am not saying that the team should change the word master as it may require a lot of work to change the code. Is it really necessary? I just brought up this issue because I saw this post on r/firefox.
https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/ign07r/was_this_really_necessary_creating_racism_issues/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
https://out.reddit.com/t3_ign07r?app_name=web2x&token=AQAA_xNGX1ZclwQxkXRNNe_3i3TCt37mKczEDs9PC8kgVTFzSueR&url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FqMBi1vN.png&user_id=555999597801

2 Likes

this post was made 4 years ago and it has just 3 votes for it. this is not good. I do think it’d take replacing a lot of words, but i’d say the change is necessary.

Current state of affairs: A racist term is used for the password that enables access to the Bitwarden vault, whether on mobile, browser or desktop, namely “m_ster password”. The same term is used within the (web) app in various places when referring to this password.

Feature request: To change this racist term at the password prompt and everywhere within the (web) app.

Given an otherwise unmodified password manager, the following terms could be used instead: Bitwarden password, vault password, main password, access password. I’m sure there are more, these are just suggestions.

What’s important is that the racist term (“m_ster password”) is changed, and that that is understood as one of many necessary steps on the way to a just and equitable society, within Bitwarden, within tech and beyond.

3 Likes

I would love to see Bitwarden update their language so that “master password” is a “main” or “primary” password. Many organizations are acknowledging the negative connotations of the word “master” and making that change to be more inclusive. I hope Bitwarden will, too!

1 Like

@carolinesf Welcome to the forum!

I moved your post into this existing feature request to the same topic.

Sidenote: I changed the title from “Change Master Password to Primary Password?” to “Change / rename “master password” to e.g. primary or main password”, to help the search function…

@pears_and_apples Welcome to the forum!

A little late… but I moved your post into this existing Feature Request to the same topic.