10 Jun
2025
10 Jun
'25
7:50 a.m.
Hello,
one question: If agreed, who would volunteer to do the work (without breaking anything)?
Cheers,
Eddie
Jun 10, 2025 12:43:46 PM Badri Sunderarajan <badrihippo(a)disroot.org>rg>:
I agree with Guus and was about to comment on similar
lines.
I would second this. Apart from the non-technical
motivation: the XSF's repos are one of the only ones that I still use that use
'master' rather than 'main'. Where my muscle memory previously disliked
'main', it now dislikes 'master'.
My muscle memory, too, has come to expect 'main', and when I see 'master'
my first (unfounded) impression is that this is an old repo or some king of legacy
project.
We would be far from the first to apply such a
change. Tooling has matured well over the years to make the change pretty easy. I hope
that this helps to take away most concerns that are of a technical nature.
Adding
to this: there are many web pages explaining specifically how to change the
"master" to "main", including this one that I found from a quick web
search. It seems simple enough:
https://www.hanselman.com/blog/easily-rename-your-git-default-branch-from-m…
You are probably all aware that the use of this term has raised
controversy in
recent years, as it can be perceived as a reference to slavery
(see https://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master%E2%80%93slave_(technology)#Controversy
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master%E2%80%93slave_(technology)#Controversy>
for
instance).
I wasn't aware of that controversy. But if those connotations are indeed
there I'd be happy to see the name changed, even on non-technical grounds :)
Best,
Badri