Modbus Organization Replaces Master-Slave with Client-Server

The Modbus Organization Board of Trustees announces it is expunging all occurrences of inappropriate language of the query and response paradigm of Modbus communications. With recent events, all companies and individuals with the ability to make positive changes should do so. As the holder of the standard for an industrial network with one of the largest installed bases in the world, it is important to complete the replacement of the current terminology with more thoughtful references. All instances of "master-slave" in the
organization's literature and on its website will be removed. Current electronic content is being
updated as of this announcement.

Board Chair Todd Snide commented, "The time is overdue for these words to be removed. The terms are unnecessary and insensitive to the people who experience racism in this country andaround the world. We urge our member companies and all those who use the Modbus protocol to take similar action to rid their documentation and communications of these terms."

The organization is using "client-server" to describe Modbus communications, characterized by communication between client device (s), which initiates communication and makes requests of server device(s), which process requests and return an appropriate response (or error message).