Hiawatha Webserver
hiawatha-webserver.org
hiawatha-webserver.org
In the meantime, web servers got more slim, routers for actual FCGI or reverse proxied HTTP applications behind. Lighttpd and nginx were pioneering in that direction in the 2010s, and while I never heard about hiawatha, I guess it falls in the similar direction (having FastCGI already 2006).
Another funny thing is that nowadays, when people say "security" along with "webserver", they mostly mean something like integrated certbot ("automatic HTTPS"), like https://caddyserver.com/ does.
https://www.hiawatha-webserver.org/weblog/132
It's encouraging to see recent releases since the above post.
I don't think I want my webserver to stop…SQL injections?
Otherwise, glad to see this project!
Just another layer of defense like a WAF that can also be part of nginx or your CDN like Cloudflare. I don't see it as a particularly odd choice.
I do think it can add value, especially when done right, especially considering the context of 2005 when it was added and when these sort of things were horrendously common. These days, I probably wouldn't bother so much, although it would depend on the context. If I were to allow random people to host WordPress or some such I'd probably add something like this, even today. Not because WordPress is bad, but because you never know what random plugins people are going to install, and the quality of that is a lot more ... variable ... than WordPress itself, and your users having their entire database leaked/dropped/overwritten also sucks for everyone.
[0] https://www.hiawatha-webserver.org/about [1] https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/43915/202...
I agree with you.
Or, is the idea that calling a server by the name of a disadvantaged group a bit like calling them servants? You might have a point.
Hiawatha didn’t know what “America” was and presumably wouldn’t have conceptualized himself as being part of a pan-“Native American” identity.
Assuming you could even explain the concept of a web server to a pre-industrial person, it’s impossible to know how he himself would have felt about this.
I'd love to have input from people who are Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayugaa, or Seneca.
BTW, I decided to take a look at Apache Incubator's projects to see if there's any outrage over (non-exhaustive list):
- Kafka (Bohemian Jewish writer)
- Chukwa (a dialect of Kulung language of Nepal)
- Geronimo (Apache leader)
- Hama (a city in Syria)
- Apollo, Hermes, Aurora, Aries, Isis (multiple Greek, Roman, and Egyptian gods)
- Joshua (Hebrew name)
- Kylin (name of a mythical creature from East Asian legends)
- Omid (Persian name)
- Onami (Japanese destroyers)
- Pig (insensitive to Muslims)
- Trinidad, and, you guessed it, Tobago (also many other geographical names)
...
Not saying this is the case here, because I didn't even know Hiawata was a historical person.
And it's not a cultural issue that's particular to the US. It appears that the author of the Hiawatha web server is not from the US either (Wikipedia suggests he is Dutch), so you might ask what link he has to Hiawatha and what justification he has for using the name and laying claim, in whatever small way, to a piece of the original Hiawatha's prestige.
The term to research is cultural appropriation.
(Clearly all these web servers are following Apache's lead in their naming. ISTR a story in the past that ASF had (retroactively) sought and/or received the blessing of the Apache Nation leadership for their use of the name; there's some related information at <https://www.apache.org/apache-name/> though nothing as clear-cut as the story I'm vaguely remembering.)
The grandparent post was wondering what the issue is, and my post described what IMHO is the main potential issue.
You have your opinion on to what degree this might be a problematic instance of cultural appropriation, and I have my opinion (which I haven't stated).
But the point is that the opinion that matters is that of Iroquois people and other descendants and (cultural) inheritants of the person whose name is being used. (Not that they are obliged to have an opinion on this, or to speak with a single voice on this matter.)
I find this all incredibly hard to navigate. I also feel that language in general and naming things in particular would suffer from strictly not being able to reuse concepts or names from cultures we are not part of.
And at the same time you say.
> you might ask what link he has to Hiawatha and what justification he has for using the name and laying claim, in whatever small way, to a piece of the original Hiawatha's prestige.
> The term to research is cultural appropriation.
You've already decided that:
- it's cultural appropriation
- the person has no right to use the name
I wonder, are you of Iroquis descent? If not, what right do you have to claim their cultural appropriation on their behalf?
Also, what are your views on such projects as Apache Kafka or apache Chukwa?
But it is important for people like you and me to be aware of the concept and issue in general.
Ah yes. People "like me" (a Jew from Moldova, born in the USSR, who lived 7 years in Turkey, and has now lived 10 years in Sweden) have to be taught about some concepts like "cultural appropriation" by people who claim to be offended on behalf of cultures they've never been part of.
--- start quote ---
So you might ask what link he has to Hiawatha and what justification he has for using the name and laying claim, in whatever small way, to a piece of the original Hiawatha's prestige. [ questioning people's motives, being offended on behalf of Iroquis people -- d. ]
The term to research is cultural appropriation. [ assuming your opponent is ignorant of this -- d. ]
You have your opinion on to what degree this might be a problematic instance of cultural appropriation, and I have my opinion (which I haven't stated). [ as we see above, the opinion has been clearly stated -- d. ]
But it is important for people like you [ assuming I know nothing/little/not enough about cultural appropriation -- d. ] and me to be aware of the concept and issue in general
--- end quote ---
I don't have to put words in your mouth. You're speaking loud and clear. Perhaps you should reflect upon that.
We've yet to hear your views on views on such projects as Apache Kafka and Apache Chukwa.
I think an identity is a mutable, self-defined tool for being in society. If you say that your identity depends on something external, that is a lie, since you're implicitly saying that your self-definition is depended on something outside yourself.
I think Stoics' discourse on the subject is very accessible. This is Epictetus in Enchiridion:
> Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things. Death, for instance, is not terrible, else it would have appeared so to Socrates. But the terror consists in our notion of death that it is terrible. When therefore we are hindered, or disturbed, or grieved, let us never attribute it to others, but to ourselves; that is, to our own principles. An uninstructed person will lay the fault of his own bad condition upon others. Someone just starting instruction will lay the fault on himself. Some who is perfectly instructed will place blame neither on others nor on himself.
So what's it called when someone appropriates a Disney character name for their own use? Should the Debian project have to worry?
Because he's a free man ? And free men get to choose their words. All by themselves.
I do it all the time. You should have a go at it.
Especially with Open Source projects, where you are dumping lots of worker into something you will (on average) get little recognition or thanks for.
Said another way: if this project hadn't been named Hiawatha, you probably would not have done "a little digging", so on balance the naming of this project has increased the awareness for Native American tragedies. I certainly don't see a way in which this hurts Native Americans.
Otherwise, since the project doesn’t seem to be directly referencing a tragedy and couldn’t reasonably have been named with the knowledge of the connection, how can this naming choice strike someone as inappropriate?
[0] https://www.hiawatha-webserver.org/images/hiawatha_logo.png
The cartoon on the other hand is something I'd skip. It's generally a bad idea to promote caricatures like that. A nicer example is the Apache logo which is just a tasteful feather. A good balance between native american theme and abstraction.
Based solely on what I have heard from some, a respectful homage to a specific well-known leader is quite different than a caricature of an entire tribe/people into a cartoony mascot for a sports team. It also makes a difference if you are monetizing their images for your personal gain.
But again, I'm the wrong one to ask. If you really want to know whether Hiawatha is an acceptable name for this specific project, I'd contact the current tribal leaders and ask.
Just like what would happen if you asked Anglo-Americans about their opinion on any controversial issue. And for what it’s worth, Joe Biden’s personal opinion would only get you so far.
It is definitely in bad taste to take a meaningful symbol from an existing marginalized culture and use it to brand your open source project because you think it sounds cool. But, this is something that was not widely recognized as bad until very recently, especially outside North America, and obviously this already happened a lot in the past so I don’t think it reflects badly on the authors or contributors at this point. That said the name should change and, at bare minimum, that cartoon has to go.
It’s a great idea, though, for us all to learn the real story of Hiawatha, the Great Peacemaker, Jigonsaseh, Tadodaho and the origins of the Five (now Six) Nations. It’s not an exaggeration to say that it helped inspire the structure of the early USA. It’s also a refreshing alternative take on power and leadership from what we are usually shown in the West. One of the world’s great cultural treasures, I really think.
A company I once worked for used "Crusade" as their internal product code for a product I was working on. As shipping became closer, and it became clear to me that a major client for the product was the Kuwait government, I drew product management's attention to the fact that that product code was unlikely to meet a warm reception in the Middle East. I was criticised for grumbling, and the product shipped with "Crusade" spattered throughout the source-code and the documentation.
This happened shortly before 9/11.
The product wasn't successful; probably because it was crap, rather than because of the naming debacle.
Big orgs have marketers on-board who spend their time looking for product names that aren't offensive to anyone in the world, don't mean anything offensive in any language, and don't step on trademarks. Small companies don't have that luxury.
Black people in the US today experience poverty, violence, and government apathy at exceptional rates, but at least they've been spared the embarrassment of there being a black man on a box of rice.