
GitHub is working on renaming default branch from “master” - dacohenii
https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1271253144442253312
======
zucker42
I'm a strong supporter of social justice. I don't really object to people
putting in work to change language like that if they think it's important.
Especially when the work required is minimal.

That said, this is slightly ridiculous. Have customers seriously complained
about the term "master"? And my impression was that the usage was more similar
to "master copy" than "master of the plantation".

Honestly, it's frustrating to me that companies are willing to take token
actions like this that are almost completely irrelevant in the scheme of
things but unwilling to lose profit by, for example, not contracting with ICE.
Actions like this feels like veiled advertising, even when, as I'm sure is
true in this case, there are genuine motives behind them. It seems like the
structure of corporations allows only the genuine intentions that require
little sacrifice to be acted upon.

It's a stupid subject to have a flame war over, but I don't understand the
logic at all.

~~~
snlacks
I don't think it's because people are offended at the use of the word master,
in this case. I think, that it's symbolic. By making a point of getting rid of
the word master, you're showing that black lives matter.

~~~
techntoke
What about all other races that are discriminated against or people that are
bullied? Do those matter?

~~~
dang
Please don't bring up tired tropes like that one here. It's never going to
change, so we're only going to get a tedious flamewar out of it, which indeed
you've been perpetuating downthread—which, please don't.

It's not as if we lack for new things to discuss and argue about.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
takinola
As a black person, speaking just for myself, I really do not get the issue
around semantics like this. The word "Master" is not synonymous with any race
and so does not make me (or anyone I know) uncomfortable. The concept of
masters (and slaves) exist and are useful metaphors for naming similar
phenomenon. I would much rather focus on issues that make people truly less
comfortable in technology, like hiring or sponsoring practices in
organizations. If there truly are (black) people offended by this
nomenclature, I would not oppose changing it but I honestly don't know any.

~~~
umvi
It just seems like an ultimately meaningless gesture. Is erasing the word
"master" from the English language going to actually help anyone? What's next
- is the lock company Master Lock going to have to change their company name?

~~~
sourdoughness
After watching a lot of Lock Picking Lawyer episodes, I’d propose the word
they need to change is “Lock”.

~~~
paulnechifor
Same, but also Bosnian Bill. Here's him opening a master lock with a plastic
sheet as a pick:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayQIm3Lo6ZM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayQIm3Lo6ZM)
or a zip tie [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIq9khF-
axs&list=PLTSWkYxuSl...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIq9khF-
axs&list=PLTSWkYxuSlkVyTvKncLO54dKuoLCaQXsD&index=1) (he has an entire list of
these ridiculously easy picks).

------
silveraxe93
This is just so damn pointless. It will cause some "great" controversy, people
will be called white supremacists for refusing to stop saying master.

Now even if this catches on, then yeah OK I'll start naming my branches as
main unless I want to make a political statement, which would just add to
confusion when developing.

Meanwhile these people will pat each other on the back, yell "yeah! We sure
made a difference." while black people keep getting fucked by the system and
their lives don't get improved one iota.

just... why?

~~~
mx60s
I love how this is making everyone mad at progressives. Not one progressive
asked for this and not one progressive is going to call people white
supremacists for using the word "master".

Let's call a spade a spade and recognize that this was a big company trying to
sound "woke" without doing anything.

~~~
luckylion
> Not one progressive asked for this

Is the SJW crowd not progressive? Are they not "real progressives"?

~~~
crocodiletears
A lot of oughties progressives fail to realize that they won the lions share
of the first phase of the culture war going into the early teens. At that
point, they stopped being progressive, and instead became the status quo (not
necessarily conservative, but relativistically more adjacent to conservatism
now).

Because they can't see this, they're loath to let go of the label in spite of
the fact that they're now 'just' liberals.

Left-aligned culture warriors (sjws) are far more deserving of the label
'progressive', and generally the target of teeth gnashing about progressives.
This is often taken as a personal, and non-sequiturial affront by those
previous recipients of the label.

~~~
waheoo
Im so confused by these labels. I did the political compass thing and fell
hard in the bottom left quadrant of left leaning libertarian.

Doesnt that mean i should align with these sjw types? Personally i find them
detestful.

------
Traster
Using the term master doesn't bother me - in my opinion the idea of the
master/slave dynamic is much less problematic when you're talking in the
context of bits and bytes flicking up and down on some silicon. Having said
that, if it bothers people, change it. I do suspect to a certain extent though
that people are more interested in changing it because they're worried it
might be offensive to other people than actually finding it offensive
themselves.

The follow up tweet from the original reqeustor is:

> 1\. “Main” is shorter! Yay brevity!

> 2\. It’s even easier to remember, tbh

> 3\. If it makes any of my teammates feel an ounce more comfortable, let’s do
> it!

> 4\. If it prevents even a single black person from feeling more isolated in
> the tech community, feels like a no brainer to me!

1 - Not sure that's an important reason, why not change it to just "M"?

2 - Not for people who are already using git and have lived their entire lives
on master (or for those more considerate developers, have lived their entire
lives PRing into master)

3 & 4 - This is what I'm talking about, is there _anyone_ who is actually
feeling isolated and uncomfortable, or are there just a load of white people
who have focused on literally the most unimportant aspect of being a black
person in the tech community?

~~~
catacombs
> This is what I'm talking about, is there anyone who is actually feeling
> isolated and uncomfortable, or are there just a load of white people who
> have focused on literally the most unimportant aspect of being a black
> person in the tech community?

I'm a POC in the tech community and couldn't care less about "master" being
problematic. The tweets you quoted likely came from a white person who thinks
a little to highly of themselves and want to go after low-hanging fruit.

Want to make a difference for POCs and Black people? Vote the racists and
profit-driven politicians out of office this November and replace them with
people who are more qualified to lead and actually care about the public.

~~~
humanrebar
> ...people who are more qualified to lead and actually care about the public.

They're still politicians, right?

~~~
catacombs
Anyone running for office is a politician. How they use their power is what
sets them apart.

------
protomyth
What bugs me about crap like this is that it ignores world history, makes
these people feel good about doing nothing of consequence, and takes attention
away from things that will actually help.

If you are going to help, actually do something that improves the lives of
people. Maybe, you should really put some effort into beefing up the Computer
Science programs in black high schools and colleges? You are Microsoft, and
had a damn policy of only hiring people from certain schools for certain job
areas. In 90, one of your damn reps told a classroom of students that they
were only good for "help desk" positions because of the school they went to.
I'm betting some all black colleges were not on the hire list for actual
developer jobs.

Actually doing something useful is hard, this is just signalling how cool you
are.

~~~
floatingatoll
A small symbolic thing is still worth doing, even if it doesn't directly
improve the lives of people.

~~~
protomyth
No, no it isn't. If it doesn't actually help improve lives, its just an
indulgence.

~~~
_never_k
Props to you for committing to your austerity, but we're not all monks in
cells.

~~~
protomyth
Austerity? Monks in cells? Really, none of that makes any sense?

Hell, switching your Amazon account to one of those smile accounts will do
more good than signalling.

~~~
_never_k
>Austerity? Monks in cells?

You're complaining about indulgence! You're saying that this change won't help
people as much as something else. This is a fair criticism. Changing some
technical term is probably not a optimally utilitarian use of resources.

However, while you may be trying to live an optimally utilitarian life, the
rest of us aren't. I can only speak for myself of course, but evaluating all
my life's actions on only that axis is too strict for me.

But, like I said, if you want to do that: props.

~~~
protomyth
No, I'm saying that it won't help people at all. Its an indulgence to make the
person doing feel like they are doing something. It will not materially
improve lives.

It would be fine if it just made them feel good, but it substitutes for
efforts that would help. Its a personal indulgence taking energy from a system
when more is needed. It also is a distraction from actual issues. Nothing is
often better than something.

> However, while you may be trying to live an optimally utilitarian life, the
> rest of us aren't. I can only speak for myself of course, but evaluating all
> my life's actions on only that axis is too strict for me.

Yeah, this is wordplay that has nothing to do with me.

~~~
_never_k
You keep complaining about indulging! What's wrong with indulging in something
every once in while?

~~~
protomyth
If your indulging hurts others, then it is something worth complaining about.

~~~
_never_k
I don't exactly understand how you're hurt by this, but fair enough.

Utilitarianism is a philosophical framework. It's not for me, but based on
your comments you might be into it:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism)

~~~
protomyth
I am not.

------
pcstl
I really don't care what the default name for a branch is. I don't care if
people want to change it. Hell, if GitHub starts defaulting to "main" instead
of "master" I probably won't even care enough to change it from "main" to
anything else in any new repos.

What I care about is that this will inevitably lead to companies and
individuals that, for any reason (due to having the name "master" hardcoded in
a lot of scripts, for instance), do _not_ make this change in their
repositories being labeled as being pro-racism.

We all know how this goes.

This insanity just grows every single day. The purity policing grows ever more
intense. It's making my world view bleaker by the minute.

------
mike503
“Waiting for protests at universities to change the Masters degree to Main
degree.” Cracked me up.

I’ve never considered “master” branch anything odd, saying “master copy” makes
sense. What about music? “Remastering” something... or the terminology around
mastering a skill?

Things are a bit out of control. As people say if you look at that term and
the first thought is race related that’s on you.

I could see a desire to remove the word “slave” from any replication business.
Since the “s” word is directly loaded. But the “m” word has many other
definitions outside of that.

------
0x3d3d3d
These kind of requests are super US-centric without any regards to the rest of
the world.

I understand these things stem from a place of discomfort with the racial
crisis in the US - and I applaud the intentions.

However, these requests are not inclusive to:

\- The foreigner in your team trying to think and communicate in English,
while tip-toeing around whatever was deemed offensive this week on Twitter.

\- The developer in Botswana trying to keep up with this week's terminology
changes as dictated by Twitter influencers in the US.

I dread the day when someone gets in trouble for saying "Hey guys, I added the
URL in the whitelist and pushed it to master"

~~~
stnmtn
I don't think anyone is going to get in trouble for saying that lol

The only reason someone would, is if they were repeatedly told "hey can you
use this term instead?" but they kept using those intentionally to annoy
others.

------
crucialfelix
I support changing master - slave.

But the use of master here is from 5 b: an original from which copies can be
made especially : a master recording (such as a magnetic tape)

There is no implied slave.

It's derived from masterpiece. Something that a master craftsman has created.

Master has many definitions and usages. Master of a slave is only one minor
usage.

[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/master](https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/master)

~~~
_never_k
Github inherited it from git, which inherited it from bitkeeper, the DVCS that
Linux originally used and the one that inspired git. Bitkeeper used a
master/slave architecture that git dropped.

[https://github.com/bitkeeper-
scm/bitkeeper/blob/master/doc/H...](https://github.com/bitkeeper-
scm/bitkeeper/blob/master/doc/HOWTO.ask#L223)

~~~
waheoo
The dev that set git to using master says otherwise..

[https://twitter.com/xpasky/status/1272280760280637441](https://twitter.com/xpasky/status/1272280760280637441)

------
catsdanxe
Nobody cares about the black slave auctions going on in Libya RIGHT NOW. But
we are going to remove the word master from our software because it offends
people whose ancestors were slaves generations ago.

~~~
EForEndeavour
Correction: because _we think it could_ offend people whose ancestors were
slaves generations ago.

------
kickopotomus
Honest question: are there people out there who are legitimately
uncomfortable/upset about the usage of the terms "master" and "slave" in the
context of technology? Or is this more so people trying to be too socially
"woke" and assuming something to be offensive when it is not?

Master/slave are pretty commonly used terms whenever we talk about things like
distributed systems and communication buses. Essentially everywhere that one
process, controller, computer, etc. is meant to have authority or control over
some other entity or entities, this is often described as a master-slave
relationship.

~~~
zucker42
Yes, there are legitimately people who believe the master-slave terminology
trivializes American slavery. They are mostly in the U.S. and probably a
minority of programmers but they exist.

But in this case, there's not even a slave branch.

~~~
kickopotomus
> Yes, there are legitimately people who believe the master-slave terminology
> trivializes American slavery.

I suppose this is something I don't understand. How do terms become trivial
when used in separate contexts? They are simply descriptive terms.
Furthermore, from an etymological standpoint, the term "master" has been used
to signify preeminence since the 13th century. E.g. master's degree, master-
key, master copy, etc. This is the meaning that seems more applicable to a
version control system.

~~~
zucker42
I agree with you in this case, since master is used by itself, similarly to
master key.

But I'll try to provide some insight into the argument specifically regarding
master and slave used together.

> How do terms become trivial when used in separate contexts? They are simply
> descriptive terms.

This is where I think you are incorrect. Master and slave are not simply
descriptive terms. Pretty obviously, they are an analogy, just like, for
example, male and female plugs. The point of analogies is that they use
existing relationships to describe new relationships, so that understanding
the new relationships is easier.

So I think the issue for some people is that in master/slave architectures,
the master node neither brutally beats the slave nodes nor justifies its power
through a theory of racial superiority. Maybe a more accurate analogy would be
that one node is the leader and the others are the followers. Maybe we should
only use the master/slave in situations which are actually comparable to the
historic instances of chattel slavery. Plus, an updated analogy can better
serve the purpose of describing relationships. In the context of databases,
for example, primary/replica or master/replica are IMO both much better
analogies than master/slave.

Sure you can argue they are simply descriptive terms. But if that's the case,
why did engineers choose existing terms in the first place?

------
programmarchy
"main" does seem like an objectively better word to use. The definition fits
better in almost every use case.

May seem like a silly gesture to some, but imagine feeling an emotional
trigger every time you had to use a basic tool for your job. That'd piss me
off.

~~~
tracker1
trunk is probably a better name still.. since everything else is a branch.

~~~
bberrry
master is just another branch in git, so trunk is an incorrect description.

------
abc-xyz
> 4\. If it prevents even a single black person from feeling more isolated in
> the tech community, feels like a no brainer to me!

Does/did slavery only affect black people?

It’s really tiresome to see companies and celebrities voice support for
equality, freedom, human rights in America while staying quiet (and even
telling people to keep politics away from their platform) when it comes to the
Hong Kong protests.

------
hprotagonist
put more time into rebuilding the communities in which you physically reside
than into bikeshedding quick symbolic actions to numb your conscience.

donate the cash equivalent to the engineering hours required to make and test
this name change to BLM instead, and get something of actual consequence done.

 _Dear friends, do you think you’ll get anywhere in this if you learn all the
right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate
that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed
in rags and half-starved and say, “Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ!
Be filled with the Holy Spirit!” and walk off without providing so much as a
coat or a cup of soup—where does that get you? Isn’t it obvious that God-talk
without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?_

------
sniperliu
It's a self censoring in western. It's anti-intellect. It happened and is
happening in China. The result is a small group shuts up everyone. They could
tag everything they don't like and stop using it, e.g. winnie. Please don't
let it happen.

~~~
azinman2
It's being sensitive to how words can undermine entire classes of people.
Growing up kids used to say "that's so gay" all the time in school. Did they
literally mean a shoe was homosexual? No, but they're using a sexuality in a
bad or derogatory sense. And that sucks and is wrong, and being gay, it was
offensive and destructive to hear. Luckily people eventually shifted away from
it with some awareness.

This isn't the same thing as a government censoring opposition or 'insults' to
the dear leader.

~~~
sniperliu
self censoring is even worse. What is happing in west now seems to me that
some people don't allow others to talk with tags like racism etc, they punish
others with losing job, internet bulling etc.

That's really scary!! In long run, you lost the freedom!

~~~
sniperliu
Rephrase it a bit.

Don't use moral or ethics to replace law. Otherwise you are using thought
police to replace police.

------
ilovetux
I kind of get it, there's no real reason the default branch should be named
master, but where do we stop? Will everyone with a master's degree have to
update their resumes?

~~~
catacombs
It stops when almost every word is offensive to someone in one way, shape, or
form, and we are all forced to communicate in binary... excuse me, ones and
zeros.

------
globular-toast
I think what really bugs me about shit like this is it's just make-work. It's
easy, mindless, and completely pointless work that is going to make some
people feel like they've actually accomplished something. There are real
problems in the world right now. This is not one of them.

------
dgellow
It's an old one, but relevant to the topic: Antirez from Redis wrote a blog
article on this topic (demands to change master-slave terminology in Redis
sources) roughly 2 years ago,
[http://antirez.com/news/122](http://antirez.com/news/122).

~~~
m0xte
The first comment is on the mark:
[http://antirez.com/news/122#comment-4084872912](http://antirez.com/news/122#comment-4084872912)

------
m0xte
Newspeak, book burnings next Thursday. Can't have those idioms any more.

edit: not to mention 30 years of:

if branch in ['master', 'main'] ...

------
altmind
But "master" in git is not about master/slave relationship, its about a
"master copy"?

------
eqvinox
Making these words disappear is a disservice to fighting racism (and other
culturally ingrained inequality.)

To address systemic racism, we need to change people's preconceptions and
prejudices. These are things that are picked up and learned from other people
in one's environment. Removing these words makes them even more intangible
than they already are.

Creating prejudice is easy to communicate. Removing it, on the other hand, is
an "absence" of something, which is much harder to get across linguistically,
semantically and emotionally.

------
luckylion
What about people who lost somebody to a python attack?

~~~
silveraxe93
If my dad died of Tetanus, should I be against memory safety?

~~~
luckylion
The argument was "if somebody is emotionally triggered by using some term, we
should replace that term with something else".

I'm not suggesting it's a good point, I'm just pointing out that there's going
to be a lot of renaming to do.

~~~
silveraxe93
You seemed to be making a programming related joke, which I responded with
another one.

I wasn't really trying to make a point there, just wanted to be (arguably)
funny.

------
ojhughes
Personally I think this is a mistake. As we all know, English words have
context, the meaning is adaptive depending on the situation. "master" branch
has precedent, we have trained our brains to think about "rebasing onto
master". This small change will be disruptive, forcing us to unlearn existing,
common phrases. Whitelist & blacklist I support discontinuing, however master
is a homonym so doesn't have the same obvious connotations.

------
akb960
Just wondering.

Unless git changes its default branch name to something else, isn't Github's
approach futile?

When you "git init", git creates the master branch locally.

And then when you push, I sincerely hope GitHub wouldn't somehow rename that
branch to something else...

------
rgomez
Wait for them to discover the "removeChild" DOM method...

~~~
altmind
`Out of memory: Kill process 4447 (python) score 519 or sacrifice child`

------
mercury_craze
If it helps normalise the removal of problematic terminology in tech then this
feels like a positive thing. Software development has a troubling history of
being an overwhelmingly straight, white, male space, ridding ourselves of
terminology that causes friction to new developers who don't fit the standard
model has got to be a good thing.

I'm certain that most people would see renaming master to main as fairly
benign. However. if a company like Github can be open to making a change like
this, even if it is purely symbolic, it sends a message that changes to the
status quo are possible.

I've also seen some comments complain about the technical difficulty of this
change. If this forces developers to put some effort into updating tools that
are hardcoded to refer to the primary branch as master then it's good from a
purely technical perspective. Especially to help those of us following trunk-
based development who already refer it as the trunk.

~~~
humanrebar
> Software development has a troubling history of being an overwhelmingly
> straight, white, male space...

Software engineering is incredibly diverse. There are many East Asians, South
Asians, Middle Easterners, and people from underprivileged backgrounds from
former Soviet block countries. It also has a relatively high percentage of
just unique folks.

Software engineering also has a diversity problem with respect to female,
Latino, and black engineers in particular.

I'm just pointing out that "overwhelmingly white" is quite inaccurate.

~~~
Rapzid
I here Brazil's tech scene was able to attract a lot of latinos. Maybe a
template we could apply elsewhere.

------
nycmattw
Is Mastercard going to be renamed Maincard now?

~~~
doubleunplussed
MainChef. Main of Science. Headmain. Main Wayne. Main of Puppets.

------
penguin_booze
The terms "master" and "slave" are part of standard vocabulary for those who
work around hardware. I wonder what would become of them.

------
ekns
One of the other submissions relating to this became flagged for some reason:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23526311](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23526311)

I don't often comment on things, but this seems like a slippery slope and a
process that I'd like to counteract in some way, so input/comments are
welcome. Original comment copied below:

I'd prefer it if things didn't change, including the master/slave terminology
(the 'master' branch doesn't even have a 'slave' in git...)

Have the words themselves become bad to use? It seems that this is a USA
centric view anyway with its history (and even then it seems ridiculous--why
can't these things be compartmentalised as technical terms?)

Slavery certainly still exists in the world, and has existed in most places at
some point. Should we rename 'slavery' to something else too while we're at
it? Or forget it exists and existed?

Certainly certain terms become antiquated over time, like the vocabulary used
in Emacs (yank/buffer/etc vs cut/window/tab/...), but master/slave doesn't
seem to be there yet.

I wonder if there's some way to counteract this newspeak stuff? I think it's
harmful that these things happen for such frivolous reasons. Does one just
have to be as loud as the minority that drives these things, to counteract it?

------
arvigeus
Why no one is addressing the biggest problem about programming: separating
bits to 0s and 1s. Not only that, but also 0s have no value unless they are
led by 1.

This is outrageous!

------
TheChaplain
So next up is academia renaming "Masters Degree" to something else?

~~~
qazpot
I guess it can be renamed as PlusGradute degree. I think it would
Doubleplusgood for everyone.

------
partyboat1586
Meanwhile slavery still exists in Libya.

I don't mind renaming it but it feels like a token action without any real
weight.

~~~
thejynxed
Chattel slavery and slave markets have existed in Mauritania since before the
first Europeans even set foot in Africa, and to this day they refuse to end
the practice and have told the UN directly that they refuse to end the
practice every time another UN member raises a fuss about it.

So yes, this is a token action meant to appease those that are never truly
appeased due to their rapid movement of goalposts.

------
welder
Meh, just PLEASE don't call it "main". That's too generic. I like "trunk".

~~~
sbc100
Agreed

------
j-pb
Who broke the build scripts?

~~~
zucker42
I assume this only applies to new repositories.

~~~
NobodyNada
So... 5 years from now will we have to constantly guess whether old repos are
using “master” or “main”?

~~~
m0xte
This. It is hard coded all over the place in thousands of things.

In fact is it even git any more if the master branch isn't called master? Nope
it's an incompatible fork by Microsoft purely by a chance encounter of irony.

~~~
zucker42
Are you being sarcastic?

Where exactly do you depend on knowing the name of the default branch of an
unnamed repository, and how do you handle cases where people delete the master
branch.

~~~
qazpot
> how do you handle cases where people delete the master branch.

I don't think anybody would want people who delete the master branch.

------
taylodl
If we want we _could_ remove "master" from everyday usage:

master branch/copy - that's your _main_ or _primary_

master degree - is now an _expert_ degree

martial arts master - congratulations, you're a _guru_!

master bedroom - is now your _main_ , _great_ or _grand_ bedroom (in fact it
used to be called the main bedroom not that long ago)

skill mastery - you _quashed_ it!

 _Should_ we make these changes? I don't know, I'm a white guy. What I _do_
know is it's time to put an end to systemic racism. If making these seemingly
small changes are enough to change people's worldview in a meaningful way then
I think we should explore it. There's potentially a lot to gain for such
seemingly trivial and small changes in word usage.

~~~
doubleunplussed
Guru would be cultural appropriation

------
anton000
Why not this first?

Microsoft's shareholders, during last Dec's meeting, rejected Arjuna Capital's
proposal that a report be compiled on the gender pay gap across Microsoft,
specifically to include "the percentage global median pay gap between male and
female employees across race and ethnicity, including base, bonus and equity
compensation."

[https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-12-04-microsoft-...](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-12-04-microsoft-
shareholders-reject-call-for-gender-pay-gap-report)

------
user_agent
This makes me sad. The only thing I can do in a case like that is to ABANDON
every tool (having a replacement) whenever the company / group behind it
starts to drift from the core idea toward strange waters having nothing to do
with the objectives of that group... I urge you to do the same. Consider that
personal integrity (calling a scam a scam is a matter of honor) is a crucial
factor in being in a good relationship with oneself. Let's not accept
immaturity as a new norm. Let's slowly and methodically make unfit ideas die,
like evolution does. Peace. PS: I never thought that I 'll live thru that kind
of crap from tech industry on a large scale. PS2: Think what would happen if
evolution would be so easy on its creatures, leaving partially-sound ideas as
blueprints for the humanity to deal with. You eat an apple, and you crash your
teeth on an unexpected brick of gold inside of it. What? Although gold is
precious, a bar of gold found that way is a misery. And it makes the existence
of that kind of apple just... Inelegant. Wise nature doesn't do that, and you
shouldn't too. Some things are the way they are because it's the most optimal
way for them to be. The passage of time is an excellent tutor of what might be
considered as a proven solution. The master branch concept has been working
for a long time. I have it in my muscle memory by now. And NOW some kind of
enlightened, progressive geniuses are going to tinker with how the feedback
loops between my mind and the universe have been set up? No way bozos. Get
back to school. Take some lessons on philosophy, and maybe even oh history, so
you can understand that a wise man isn't going to speak until it's needed. Not
even to mention that he isn't going to progressively cry on anyone's shoulder
that he doesn't like a this or that definition. I'm a master of my own self,
therefore I'm a racist. Said no one to anyone ;) One thing is sure - I'm not
going to be a slave to the puppets of the neo-marxist war on language.

------
valand
It's sad to hear this instead of people taking action against actual slavery.

This is onomatophobia, fear of hearing names. Github is catering to people
trying to ignore the problem (slavery) that still exists because of inaction
instead of clearing the name "master" from the bad connotation. Logically,
it's difficult to battle problems (like slavery) by forgetting it or ignoring
that it exists in the first place.

The change is counter-productive for both social and technical contributions.

------
noxer
Can I call that Githubs silly master plan?

Anyway, Fossils main branch is called "trunk" which actually makes more sense
than "master" especially because Fossil also has leafs.

------
hypewatch
All the time and money that will go into this would be much better spent
donating to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund or another organization fighting to
solve the real problems.

------
chmaynard
A StackOverflow thread describes some ways to do this when creating a new git
repo. Here's an alias that seems to work:

    
    
        # https://stackoverflow.com/q/42871542/2040410
        new = !git init && git checkout -b main && git commit --allow-empty -m \"new\"
    

It's possible this alias will leave "master" defined but in a detached state
(not pointing to a commit). I haven't checked this.

------
qwtel
First they came for the bikeshed...

------
lowmemcpu
Ok, I have to ask - will one of them be a synonym? I imagine there are
millions of hardcoded words out there that will break unless they both map to
the same thing.

~~~
dacohenii
I'm not really sure what this would look like in practice. Perhaps this would
only apply to new repositories, or maybe it will only be the default default.
It has never been mandatory for the default branch to be called "master" \--
it's just the default value from git and GitHub.

I suppose we will just need to wait and see what happens.

------
KayL
Everybody knowing that is a replacement for the word "Master". After 50 years,
`Main` === `Master`. Will it?

`root` is better if you really want to make a change. Or rand() is your
friend.

Maybe I'm not a native English speaker. After knowing the history of
Master/Slave. I still not linking them to the bad side.

If they can, rename `Git` also. Acutally I have some complaints from my
clients before.

~~~
andai
Your clients complained about the name git? (As an aside, you know Linus named
both his projects after himself? :)

~~~
KayL
Linus named Master branch is Master also. I know it but they don't. :s

------
based2
[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/jenkinsci-
dev/CLR55w...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/jenkinsci-
dev/CLR55wMZwZ8)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12736061](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12736061)

------
dvtkrlbs
Reminds me of the santa hat stuff in vscode.

------
benmw333
Every time I commit I smile because I've just enslaved more bytes of code. I
am the MASTER!!!!!

------
bigtex
Whats next, Master bedroom?

~~~
andai
I have a Main degree.

------
magnio
Seem unnecessary to me, though I do like less keystrokes to type.

If the word master makes some black people feel uncomfortable, the issue isn't
git. It lies in the society.

------
lildata
This sounds like an April fool or an Onion article... Maybe they could take
this opportunity to do something useful & provide a dark mode...

------
miguelmota
I like the name change. It’s shorter and makes more sense. If the current name
affects many people in a negative way then I support the name change.

~~~
thiht
It doesn't. No one is offended by this.

~~~
miguelmota
Some are offended but not the majority.

------
coronadisaster
If that is the only thing that they can do to be part of the movement that is
fine but it is a bit ridiculous.

------
al_chemist
While we're at it, isn't the `git` word offensive? I mean, based on
[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/git](https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/git) git means foolish or worthless person! It's not
acceptable to call any person worthless! Please change this name.

------
MidnightRaver
Have the owners of the alternatives commented on this yet? What to use now?
Atlassian? Gitlab?

~~~
waheoo
[https://sr.ht](https://sr.ht)

------
jhallenworld
So there is an actual problem that they could work on. Often the branch which
most users should clone and use is not the bleeding edge working branch, which
often is master. It would be nice if you could set the default branch for
cloning for most users somehow.

Edit: so it does! You learn something new...

~~~
gruez
AFAIK you can already set default branches for github. Not sure whether that
applies when you clone it using git.

------
qqj
companies like github should remain apolitical. this is pure nonesense, merely
a show of force by otherwise impotent and misguided liberals. take your
outrage somewhere else.

------
throwaway9482
The thought police are growing everyday

------
fasteddie31003
But what about master-slave DB replication!

~~~
detaro
Typically replaced with primary-replica terminology.

------
ArtDev
Master/Slave labeling IS weird. When I first saw it in reference to drive
configurations, I recall thinking how maybe there was a better way to label
them.

But as others pointed out here, "Master" branch is not using that source for
the term. Changing it in this context is actively harmful to BLM and race
equality.

So, ignore this and don't be a pussy. (Historically pussy == cat by the way.
So I am bringing this phrase back for the same reasons that my Master branch
and Blacklist/Whitelist are historically clean terms.)

------
luckylion
I've said it before, and I predict it now again: a language that is named
after valuable mineral chunks that are often/usually/predominately mined by
slave labor in predominately non-white countries is better thinking about a
rebrand.

Especially when it's basically ground zero for SJW activity in software
development.

~~~
nathanaldensr
We're in a "six degrees of separation" between anything widely used in culture
and something that can be deemed "racist." If you look, you _will_ find
something, no matter how stretched or tenuous the connection.

