Liaison statement
Liaison response to LS SP-201142 on Use of Inclusive Language in 3GPP specifications

The IEEE 802.1 Working Group would like to thank 3GPP TSG SA for the
information provided in liaison statement LS SP-201142 on use of inclusive
language in 3GPP specifications.

We would like to inform you that efforts are being made in our organization to
use more inclusive and neutral language in our standards.

An IEEE SA resolution indicates that: “IEEE standards should be written in such
a way as to avoid non- inclusive and insensitive terminology (see IEEE Policy
9.27) and other deprecated terminology (see clause 10 of the IEEE SA Style
Manual) except when required by safety, legal, regulatory, and other similar
considerations. Terms such as master/slave, blacklist, and whitelist should be
avoided.”, see the December 2020 entry in
https://standards.ieee.org/about/sasb/resolutions.html.

IEEE Std 802.1AS is a profile of IEEE Std 1588; therefore, IEEE Std 802.1AS is
based on IEEE Std 1588 to a large extent, including terminology. The IEEE 802.1
WG prefers to maintain consistency with IEEE Std 1588 and to align to the terms
of IEEE Std 1588, which is being amended by IEEE P1588g to define suitable and
inclusive terminology.

The IEEE 802.1 WG is developing a Project Authorization Request (PAR) on
inclusive language for IEEE Std 802.1AS in alignment with IEEE P1588g and an
anticipated update to clause 10 of the IEEE SA Style Manual. We recommend that
3GPP also waits for the finalization of the IEEE 1588 alternative terminology
to allow industry standards alignment. We look forward to receiving an update
from you.

Note that the IEEE 802 work is open and contribution driven. Participation is
on an individual basis and technical discussion can be conducted based on
individual contributions. The TSN Task Group holds regular electronic meetings:
details are available at https://1.ieee802.org/wg-calendar.