Re: Rename offensive terminology (master)

[Konstantin Ryabitsev <konstantin@linuxfoundation.org>]

On Sun, Jun 14, 2020 at 09:20:20AM -0300, Sérgio Augusto Vianna wrote:
> There's nothing to be resolved because there is no problem. If someone reads
> "master" and gets triggered because all they can think of is racism, that
> person needs therapy.

Well, to be honest, if the software was written in German and used 
perfectly innocuous German words for "leader/worker" (fuhrer/arbeiter), 
I'm sure a lot more Europeans would get "triggered," as you say. We are 
not some kind of emotionless species, so historical connotations behind 
words do matter -- so it is not a "waste of effort" to have these 
discussions.

I support moving away from "master" for the default branch name -- and 
that is regardless of the negative connotations behind the word.  
Frankly, the word "master" is not very descriptive for the default 
branch name:

- most English-as-a-second-language speakers don't know the meaning of 
  "master copy," so even if we stick to this interpretation of the word 
  "master", then it's obscure and arbitrary to most new users of Git
- having a branch named "master" is already not required, so any 
  existing software that expects there to always be a "master" branch is 
  already broken and wouldn't get any more broken by the move away 
  towards more descriptive terminology
- as it stands, the "master" branch does not have any special meaning 
  anyway. It may or may not exist, and even if it exists, its contents 
  can be arbitrarily stale. You almost always have to check which branch 
  you want for your needs, so the implication of "master copy" is 
  largely meaningless in many workflows anyway.

Grosso modo, I see having a more descriptive branch name than "master" 
for the "default branch" as an improvement for the project in general.  
Making this configurable should assure full backwards compatibility to 
existing workflows.

-K