Hector Martin

Example usages: master document, audio master(ing)/master recording, master of an art/technique, master of ceremonies, git master branch, etc. All seem pretty standard and free from slavery connotations, but I'm not qualified to opine.

The other question is, what words would be preferable to "slave" if you are referring to a portion of the system that is under complete control of another and has no agency of its own? It seems like almost any term would have been used to refer to a person in the same position.

Those are actually pretty rare in my experience, but "agent" itself seems like it would work.

To me, "agent" implies the exact opposite power dynamic - an agent of X has the authority to act as a substitute for X, but generally has a fair bit of discretion in doing so.

As opposed to a scenario where Y must do as X commands and has no choice in the matter, which is something that would normally be termed a "slave".

The thing is "power dynamics" are rarely much of a thing in technology, given that usually there is no free will involved. Things usually do what they're programmed to do, so there is no "choice" distinction, right?

They do what they're programmed to do, yes. But in a distributed system some entities have a control relationship over others. Some parts execute any command they're given while others think about it, reject some according to policy, etc.

What i'm really getting at is, don't blindly replace one word with another unless you understand all of the subtle implications that has to the engineers reading the documentation. There likely isn't a 1:1 replacement for any problematic term.