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New GitHub repos to have default branches named “main” instead of “master”

zdnet.com

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Re: New GitHub repos to have default branches named “main” instead of “master”

#111

Post by emerged »

amazingman wrote: post #106
emerged wrote: post #24

You can continue to pretend otherwise, but this is an ideological infiltration into a supposedly rational field. Downvotes or not I'm not going to pretend otherwise.

You may be superficially correct, I’m not sure, but honestly the name of the canonical git branch is not a hill worth dying on. IMO the right move to battle the more draconian, Orwellian language policing of the cancel culture / “antiracism” dogma is to conserve your energy for the fights worth fighting. This just isn’t one of them.

I mean the extent of my fighting is to type a comment in response to the post. I won't be organizing a group with signs and marching or anything.

Re: New GitHub repos to have default branches named “main” instead of “master”

#112

Post by spikeseltzer »

627467 wrote: post #105
spikeseltzer wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s an example of a real issue, if changing terminology to make underrepresented engineers feel less uncomfortable isn’t one?

Are you implying that only non-underrepresented engineers are capable of uncomfortable speech? I'm sure any terminology can make some engineer (underrepresented or not) uncomfortable. Therapy may help if it becomes recurrent and hard to manage. I'm pretty sure most engineers, underrepresented or not, would appreciate a healthy, dignifying and diverse management structure and workplace so that uncomfortable language n…

Not implying that at all — although I do think we should prioritize the concerns of those who are currently underrepresented, especially when they regularly observe racism in our industry on that basis.

> I'm pretty sure that underrepresented groups would prioritize stopped being randomly killed, be evicted, be massively encarcerated, be without healthcare and be in a constant dog-eat-dog environment.

Regarding this I’m not sure what mechanism you had in mind for github to solve these issues, but it sounds like the sort of thing I’d support as well. I’ve campaigned for them to drop their contract with ICE for some time now, maybe you have too.

Re: New GitHub repos to have default branches named “main” instead of “master”

#113

Post by [deleted] »

ballenf wrote: post #100
jakelazaroff wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s fair, but the OP’s conclusion had no supporting premises at all. Ultimately this is a digression; this change is being made not because of the intentions of the authors of git, but to be considerate of users of GitHub.

> to be considerate of users of GitHub Which users?

[deleted]

Re: New GitHub repos to have default branches named “main” instead of “master”

#114

Post by valand »

andy_ppp wrote: post #17
susam wrote: post #11

Political correctness aside, "main" does sound like a more natural name for the main branch. The term "master" for a branch name always felt a little strange to me. One might ask, "What is master?" The answer usually is, "It is the main branch." The same thing held true for "trunk" in the SVN world, although it made more sense. One might ask, "What is trunk?" It requires a lengthy explanation, "It is the main develop…

Master also means principal. Controlling speech due to political correctness is extremely post modern but I’m not sure that language creates reality in the way these people seem to think. Words are not inherently racist it’s how people use them, therefore I’m against changes like these where clearly there’s no racism at all in having a master branch.

Agreed. Master being a bad connotation to some people are not the problem of the word itself.

Some time if `main` turns out non-inclusive, changing it to other term is counter-productive.

They must change to the source of bad connotation itself if they want to really contribute to those they claim they are helping. If the bad connotation `master` comes from slavery, then fight slavery or slavery-like acts to get rid the bad connotation from the term `master`.

I don't understand why this is not a common sense. Smh

Re: New GitHub repos to have default branches named “main” instead of “master”

#115

Post by eesmith »

tehlike wrote: post #110
eesmith wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you wrote "it's all very us centric too" - and I struggle to find out how that's a relevant comment given that "GitHub, Inc. is an American multinational", so obviously embedded in the US context, and American interpretation of the words.

But github caters to a global market. That's why replacing master->main is just doing busy work that doesn't do anything to address the problem?

That global market includes the US, which is a substantial part of GitHub's revenue.

This thread started as madsmith's valid comment that "that language is dynamic and the meaning of words is the meanings we currently associate to them" - how do we determine what meanings are associated with a given term? All indications are that it has a US origin, which provides the appropriate interpretation.

What is "the problem" and what should GitHub do to address the problem?

If the problem US-centric, and you think the US-only issues can be ignored because GitHub caters to a global market, then isn't your logic that GitHub should do nothing?

Re: New GitHub repos to have default branches named “main” instead of “master”

#116

Post by SamReidHughes »

amazingman wrote: post #106
emerged wrote: post #24

You can continue to pretend otherwise, but this is an ideological infiltration into a supposedly rational field. Downvotes or not I'm not going to pretend otherwise.

You may be superficially correct, I’m not sure, but honestly the name of the canonical git branch is not a hill worth dying on. IMO the right move to battle the more draconian, Orwellian language policing of the cancel culture / “antiracism” dogma is to conserve your energy for the fights worth fighting. This just isn’t one of them.

That kind of thinking is why we have had riots destroying our cities, arsonists starting wildfires and burning churches, and spikes in the homicide rate this decade.

Re: New GitHub repos to have default branches named “main” instead of “master”

#119

Post by roenxi »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #97
roenxi wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

White & black skin are, practically, inherent qualities that a person can't really do much about. The argument that associating linking the properties to 'good' and 'bad' could make people feel uncomfortable makes sense to me. People (as evidenced by today's headline) do struggle to keep things separate in their head.

> " The argument that associating linking the properties to 'good' and 'bad' could make people feel uncomfortable makes sense to me. " Then advocates of this should also be campaigning to stop using yellow as the color to indicate warnings, since it's insensitive to Asian-Americans. But we all know they aren't going to.

Asians aren't yellow though.

Re: New GitHub repos to have default branches named “main” instead of “master”

#120

Post by ibobev »

I suspect that it is not far away the day when the academic degree "master of science" will also be renamed. :) It is complete insanity. We are starting to live in Orwellian world. If you remember in 1984 the abonamation of the language in a way to not allow wrong thinking was one of the characteristics of the totalitarian government. :(
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