By default, GitHub uses the term "master" for the primary version of a source code repository. Developers make copies of the "master" on their computers into which they add their own code, and then merge the changes back into the "master" repo.

"On Oct. 1, 2020, any new repositories you create will use main as the default branch, instead of master," the company said.

Oh my god. Can you people just fuck off with your arbitrary terminology changes?!?!?

@jespersh Haven't had to create a new repo for ages. Tried to push to master and got an error, noticed my branch was called "main" and instantly got triggered.

Sucks really bad... I really liked my slaves

I have a feeling Microsoft did this specifically to generate controversy so it gets a lot of attention for making an equality-related change. Probably to distract from the massive diversity issues within the company that would require more work to fix than renaming everyone’s master branches.

I’ve seen a lot of debate over the master/slave terminology in CS. It seems to me that those are the most accurate terms to describe the relationship between, for instance, a master and a slave process. I don’t necessarily see a problem with this relationship existing between bits of code because bits of code aren’t human. If we had to change all the vocabulary to remove any words that would be unacceptable in a human relationship we’d have a lot of work to do. It seems like these are the debates that companies give attention to distract from the actual discrimination, lack of diversity, and unequal pay issues that are much more glaring.

@demoralizeddev Not just Microsoft. A lot of big tech companies doubled down on making the smallest possible changes to make themselves appear inclusive, all while black people were probably more concerned about the police murdering them than the word used to describe the primary branch of a git repo. They weren't protesting against IT terminology.

@whiskey0 Considering how late you are to complain, your understanding is remarkably flawed.

But looking only at the naming, the most arbitrary part is use of the word "master" as it doesn't reflect the properties of any other (proper) application of the term, e.g. it's neither the primary version that others should replicate and follow nor the final iteration that should be copied for distribution.

The name "main" is not really good or descriptive enough, but wins in not being too far from "master"; better options could be something like "base", "standard", or "default" but the most important part is the change in the first place.

I don't mind some terminology changes.

This one is 'a bit much' to say the least.

It feels like this kind of thing is handing power to whatever evil was associated with the word ... at the expense of everyone else.

@demoralizeddev The problem is not as much in those who do not see a problem as those who might be affected... A much broader and more descriptive relationship using similar terms could be "boss" and "worker" which would level the field a bit...

But as neither punishment or profit is the incentive for any of the activity, why not just go with "leader" and "follower" or something equally neutral?

I was racist before October 1, 2020, Now I am not, thanks to GitHub.

@N00bPancakes it seems to be more a case of forgetting the origin of choice of words, which is more about letting the evil in it win simply from laziness :/
https://english.stackexchange.com/a...

@Flygger

If you have to do a bunch of research debate to discuss the origin of a word where otherwise everyone knows what I mean when I say "push to master" ... I think the issue of it being bad to use is highly questionable.

If we can no longer say "slave repository", what am I supposed to call my basement?

Just to make sure everyone is aware, Github didn't change the default branch name because snowflakes pressured them, and they didn't change it to avoid looking bad either. This was a minor topic when they announced it. They changed the default branch name because it was a very cheap way to appeal to a very loud audience.

@N00bPancakes I meant it more to the effect that Linus should have given it a bit more thought when he took the term from what was seen as a master/slave system into a new system that didn't have the same relationship...

@JustThat and this just emphasises the problem, as even the more semantically neutral terms have been corrupted to a point where you're against using them... But still it's not a problem to use "follower" in a lot of contexts where it describes subscribing to something...
Maybe using "broadcaster" and "subscriber" is a fitting terminology?

@JustThat it probably just comes easy, as these words have become so ingrained after trying to own the world for so long, that we don't even think about the fact that "white-listed master" means "male in charge who is automatically allowed and accepted" ;)

@JustThat basically, though I'd say ignoring is too passive in denying...

And how many angry voices do you think we'd had hear if the change was to "mistress" branch? How fast would people have wanted a change if we had always described the relationships as dom/sub?

Everyone is always less inclined to wanna change something that doesn't make _them_ uncomfortable...

@Flygger Words or symbols that evolved from a logical construct into their own individual syntactic element are called simulacra and are generally accepted to be separate words that aren't really affected by the standing of the original logic which created them. A whitelist is a collection of allowed things, and any other historical data doesn't change this pure meaning.

So nobody gonna mention Darth Vader (who is wearing a black suit, and voiced by a black actor) says, "I am the Master now." to Obi Wan Kenobe?

Its all bullshit predicated on more bullshit.

@Demolishun The Empire are literally an imitation of Nazi Germany, I don't think this specific detail matters all that much.

@Flygger so what about the master and the apprentice? The master record? The word master has way more to it than connotations about slavery, my feeling is that this is a very American way to look at it

@matt-jd And github is owned by an American company.

@matt-jd Git took the word from a previous SCM which did use it to distinguish masters from slaves. Tbh I don't think it was the right terminology to borrow either because diverging branches have no natural hierarchy in Git and this was apparent from the very beginning.

But main doesn't help this real technical issue either. It is, without doubt, a decision made and approved at management or PR, without involving anyone who actually cares about git more than push/pull/commit/merge and having the latest version synced.

@homo-lorens true, trunk which for instance is used by others would make more sense since a trunk with branches would make likeness between a tree and the branches more solid

@Voxera and git is invented by a Finnish guy used by people all over the world so I think that open source should have a more international mindset as well

@matt-jd git hub is not git, just a repository provider.

I do agree, just stating the fact that as an American company they will have to respond to American politics.

And this fight would be impossible since most non tech people would side with the other side which would be enough to kill the company.

And those that would side with the master/apprentice side would do it for all the wrong reasons tainting it even more.

some product developers used the oppurtunity to rename master to trunk, which reminds me of the time when svn was still a thing

Geez. People are still going to be going on about this in a century's time at this rate.

@Voxera Git is also considering a change btw, and I think the config option for default branch name has already been merged.

@Voxera That's the thing, there are questions where one answer is publicly infeasible in America because nazis are known to lean that side and society is so busy deplatforming them that we forget to disregard their opinion.

Yea... I had the same a while ago with something...

Had to run some commands to add people to the whitelist of a gameserver...

Command failed...

"Eh?"

*checks spelling*

"Everything seems fine?"

*checked documentation*

Mofos changed it to "allowlist" a patch earlier >.>

@dontbeevil my Microsoft bashing enthusiasm exceeds even Steve Ballmer’s enthusiasm for cocaine. I will continue bashing Microsoft even more gleefully than Microsoft joined PRISM, bought Skype, and ruined video throughout so it could switch to a centralized model and feed all the data to the N$A. My love of bashing Microsoft is stronger than Microsoft’s love of embracing, extending, and extinguishing open source software. I will bash them with more reckless abandon than the Microsoft dev that thought naming a string “__NSA_KEY” and pushing it to production was a sane idea. If I somehow outlive Microsoft itself I will still be bashing them til the day I die

While everything has been said about that topic - it hasn't been said by everybody yet...

@dontbeevil ms0867 :)

This is a new one for me. Wars about hating on MS.

Are you for or against!? Make your stand!

It's nice to realize how progressive Europe really was (/s), as we had slaves of all colors dating back to middle ages, incl. ownership of white people by other PoC.

Guess it might be one of the reasons why master/slave terms are not so tighty coupled with racism as it's in the US.

My work changed our default branch, broke all CI for an afternoon. Literally fucking pointless.

I now have to go update all my scripts that use master to use main instead.

Also, main is the stupidest fucking name for it, trunk is way better

@YADU I said exactly the same name when I heard about main. Trunk makes much more sense as a name for the branch from which all other branches split.

Let me end this discussion , it all comes down to the logic that "Those who care , don't matter and those who matter don't care" .

The liberal art graduates and the rest of the nincompoops are the only ones pushing the whole cancellation of master/slave reference and in software development they don't matter they don't even use the fucking tools and we the developers who use the fucking tools on a daily bases don't give flipping flying fuck .

Call the branches parent/child, main/sub, stable/unstable , pimp/hoe , catholic-priest/unwilling-child i don't care as long as the tools work , fuck cancel culture and fuck them all for letting us take the burden of their useless fucking degree, go do a ted talk or sth you ungrateful fucks

@EpicofGilgamesh lol

@EpicofGilgamesh

"let me end this discussion"

*expresses own opinion on an otherwise dead thread*

@whiskey0 @homo-lorens you done seen and read my opinion you turds