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Gitlab default branch name changes to main

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Re: Gitlab default branch name changes to main

#71

Post by phtrivier »

Sad that the article fails to mention what proportion of people of color are employed by GitLab, how that number is evolving, and what steps they're taking to avoid actual discrimination ; as well as their policies regarding the role of contemporary forced labor in their hardware supply chain. (It's entirely possible they're doing the best they can on those fronts, too.)

Such a renaming is clearly a "long hanging fruit", and a way to start a conversation.

I can't entirely shake up, though, that though that any minute discussing the naming of git branch repositories is not spent on discussing slavery and racism. Which I'm unfortunately not qualified to do.

Re: Gitlab default branch name changes to main

#72

Post by pezezin »

gear54rus wrote: post #2

Another victim of this hysteria. Will surely make a point to switch it back every time I create a repo.

I did that recently. I had been developing some code for a few months, committing to a local repo, and I finally decided to upload it to GitHub. The local branch was named "master" because that is Git's default, but GitHub decided it should be "main", so the first thing I did after creating the repo was to revert it to "master".

Fuck virtue signalling and Twitter keyboard warriors. My parents grew up under an oppressive ultra-catholic dictatorship where they had to pretend to be "good" Christians, and I for sure don't want society to go the same way again.

Re: Gitlab default branch name changes to main

#73

Post by Smaug123 »

narven wrote: post #63

When I think that people are not that stupid, there's always someone that surprises me. What on earth has the name "master" to do with anything? Why dont we remove the word "master" from all languages in the world and make it a tabu to even speak of it. What does master/slave in relation to "hu-mans" has to do with anything else in the world that has the same name? Just the amount of money and work hours done by ever…

Please don't be hysterical.

In case you're getting angry at the downvotes, I can tell you why you're getting them. There are only two lines of content in your comment other than tribal affiliation signal. One of them is a factually obviously false statement ("Just the amount of money and work hours done… to make this… change… could feed all the starving people on the world"); one of them is a question answered in the first paragraph of the article ("What on earth has the name "master" to do with anything?").

Re: Gitlab default branch name changes to main

#74

Post by vshager »

truculent wrote: post #52
hYKdTfpa wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we really have to examine the origin of every word we use rather than according its modern common usage and use in context?

We're not examining every word. This article is about examining a specific word, with a specific history, within a specific context.

In a specific country, whose industry takes free open source labor from all over the world and then imposes its own cultural values.

Open source people from other regions provide the majority of code and have no say in political decisions. One might be tempted to say that they are slaves.

Re: Gitlab default branch name changes to main

#76

Post by detaro »

kbd wrote: post #29

The most unfortunate part of all this churn is that git didn’t provide a way to ask it what a repository’s main branch is named.

You can resolve to which branch /HEAD points? (as far as I understand, local repos don't have a concept of a "main branch", it's only a thing concern remotes and the default branch checked out when cloning them?)

Re: Gitlab default branch name changes to main

#77

Post by rualca »

kbd wrote: post #29

The most unfortunate part of all this churn is that git didn’t provide a way to ask it what a repository’s main branch is named.

This is not unfortunate at all. This is something that only has an impact when you create a brand new git repo,which is relatively rare.

When that happened, you could just rename the original master branch.

Nevertheless, git added support for this option less than a year ago.

https://github.blog/2020-07-27-highlights-from-git-2-28/#int...

Re: Gitlab default branch name changes to main

#78

Post by mswtk »

oap_bram wrote: post #16

I for one think it's great that people are willing to make things a little more accessible for more people. If people want to be part of our community of developers I think it's great that these organizations listen to people who might have a problem with certain terminology. Even though I don't have a problem with those terms, I think it's still worth evaluating if they're worth keeping if it makes it harder for som…

> I for one think it's great that people are willing to make things a little more accessible for more people. If people want to be part of our community of developers I think it's great that these organizations listen to people who might have a problem with certain terminology. Even though I don't have a problem with those terms, I think it's still worth evaluating if they're worth keeping if it makes it harder for someone to be part of our community.

Is it more accessible? As in, is this change driven by complaints from actual people who feel excluded by the terminology? As far as I'm aware, none of the projects making these changes even claims that, it's all speculation on behalf of hypothetical offended parties.

Not that it really makes it less annoying to have terminology used by people from all over the world be dictated by American cultural sensibilities, but it's easier to stomach if there's some material justification behind the change.

Re: Gitlab default branch name changes to main

#79

Post by furgooswft13 »

this_was_posted wrote: post #50
lima wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good question - the appears to be "no", since it has a clear origin and meaning unrelated to master/slave relationships.

by that logic, would the linux command "kill" also be offensive enough to the relatives of murder victims that it warrants a rename?

Give em a few months.

Re: Gitlab default branch name changes to main

#80

Post by temporama1 »

SquareWheel wrote: post #42
hYKdTfpa wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I for one think it's great that people are willing to make things a little more accessible for more people. How does this make anything more accessible for anyone?

Considering you created an account just to post in this thread, and your comments imply a very clear bias, it's rather obvious you're not asking this question in good faith.

He's probably created an anonymous account because we live in a world where you may well lose your job for even questioning that a _source control branch name_ might offend someone.

An opinion that - in the real world - the vast majority agree with.

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