{"thread":{"id":"53688","subject":"Re: Consensus on a new default branch name","startedAt":"2020-06-16T02:07:09Z","lastAt":"2020-06-16T14:38:20Z","messageCount":4,"participants":["Nomen Nescio","Jonathan Nieder","Taylor Blau","Jeff King"],"isPatch":false,"patchVersion":null,"patchTotal":null},"messages":[{"id":"399842","messageId":"6b6f161981a07070871633fe02c4c3f9@dizum.com","threadId":"53688","inReplyTo":null,"subject":"Re: Consensus on a new default branch name","fromName":"Nomen Nescio","fromEmail":"nobody@dizum.com","sentAt":"2020-06-16T01:58:11Z","receivedAt":"2020-06-16T02:07:09Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"nobody@dizum.com","avatar":null},"body":"> Over the past few days or so, there has been significant discussion\n> [1] and patches [2] about changing the name of the default branch away\n> from 'master' and towards something else.\n\n> A related question is whether or not we plan to change the default\n> value of 'core.defaultBranchName' at all (once Johannes' patches land,\n> of course). That seems to be the intent in [4], but forming consensus\n> around this would be good, too.\n> \n> So, I would like to form some consensus here as to what the new name\n> should be,\n\nSome interesting consensus this is trying to form... Let's look at it.\n\ngit-for-windows [1]: 76 upvotes, 490 downvotes, overwhelming consensus\nin the comments rejecting the proposed change as unwarranted. Result:\ncomments massively moderated, even though they weren't even in majority\nabusive; many dissenters blocked; thread locked, preventing further\ninput.\n\nGitLab [2]: 23 upvotes, 145 downvotes, rejection in the comments.\nResult: thread locked, preventing further input, and an online poll,\nthat doesn't even offer the option to voice support for keeping the\n\"master\" name.\n\nAnd in this mailing list: very few people from the community on behalf\nof which this is done participating to give their actual opinion on\nthe issue, and even fewer of them actually supporting the claim that\n\"master\" offends them and should be changed; unspecified people who\napparently believe that \"master\" offends people, apparently voicing\ntheir opinions in private, which are then apparently not even relayed\nbut merely vaguely mentioned to us; and on the other side, people who\nfeel compelled to hide behind others or post anonymously to disagree,\neven as their opinion is respectful and attempts to be constructive.\n\nSo not just some consensus here, quite some inclusiveness too, this\nis achieving: this is put forward in the name of making things more\ninclusive, but fails to bring to the table first-hand, people actually\noffended by the issue, and makes disagreeing people feel unwelcome - or\nenforces them and their input as unwelcome.\n\nSeveral people are working on the assumption that this change would\nsurely make a positive impact, even if little, and would be some step\nin the right direction. Several people have put forward the argument\nexplaining to skeptics that it can be difficult to relate to the\nstruggle of people from a different community without walking in their\nshoes, and difficult to understand how they can feel about a certain\nissue. Do people putting forward this argument, or the claim that\nthis community is offended by \"master\", are themselves part of this\ncommunity? If not, how can they be so sure to understand properly\nwhether and how much this truly offends that community, that they feel\nin a position to best speak on their behalf?\n\nTaylor, how do you propose to build this consensus you're talking about\non the name change? Guesswork? What sounds like it has a good ring\nto it? Going with the most popular name - i.e., letting the decision\nprocess degenerate into a popularity contest? Whoever yells the loudest,\nwhatever group or project has most clout? Can you propose a consensus\nprocess that reconciles with the loud majority of commenters who\ndownvoted this proposal, or justifies why their arguments are not the\nright decision criteria?\n\nI know you mean well, and my question is sincere. The stated purpose is\nto avoid offending people, based on the premise that some terms offend\npeople, so I would propose that this would be an important aspect to\ncorrectly assess; in order to base the renaming decision on a real\nassessment of what actually offends people, rather than on what some\ngroup says could be offensive, or on some possible drawback with such or\nsuch name that someone did or didn't think to foresee.\n\nSo, and this would follow good software development and release\nmanagement practices, but even just for the sake of appeasement with\npeople who think this is not a real issue, and for the sake of going\nforward with a constructive process on solid grounds, I would love to\nsee some data that backs up, details, clarifies and quantifies the claim\nthat the current \"master\" name offends people.\n\nI haven't seen any such data so far. All I've seen is a popular trend,\nand mentions of groups or projects who have got on board with that trend\n- which as I said, is hardly relevant to the merits of its premise. I\nhaven't seen first-hand accounts of people being offended, anecdotal\nor not. I haven't seen serious studies being linked. I haven't seen\nrepresentative surveys; opinion polls, especially online, can be\ncompletely skewed and nearly worthless, but I haven't even seen one of\nthose getting brought forward in support of the name change. I haven't\nseen expert or authoritative opinions being brought to the debate as\nsuch.\n\nSo I haven't seen any assessment of people being offended by \"master\",\nwhich could be solved by moving from it; and I haven't seen either\nany assessment of whether the change itself would in turn offend and\nalienate people who think it is unwarranted, ridiculous, outrageous\nand whatnot. I haven't seen any assessment of whether people who find\nthis proposal offensive are a loud reactionary minority, or a silent\nmajority. And given the stated purpose of avoiding offending people,\nthat would seem important to assess too.\n\nSo again, I would love to see data that backs up the claim that this\nchange is necessary to solve a fathomable problem, and will have the\nintended impact. I would preferably love measurable and verifiable data,\nbut any if possible.\n\nI have to assume that people driving this forward would care to make\nsure to effect change that actually helps. If not, then you may want\nto do some soul-searching; if you don't care to determine whether your\neffort actually helps, then you may want to double-check that this isn't\nmore about virtue signalling, or slacktivism only making yourself feel\ngood.\n\nAnd either way, as this is all happening on the public place, putting\nforward that data and even just addressing these concerns and processing\nthis proposal properly would help to reconcile the software community\ndividing over this, and strengthen the trust and credibility that\nimportant tools and platforms hold among it.\n\nSo please show me the data.\n\n[1]: https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/issues/2674\n[2]: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/221164\n\n"},{"id":"399843","messageId":"20200616022239.GD164606@google.com","threadId":"53688","inReplyTo":"6b6f161981a07070871633fe02c4c3f9@dizum.com","subject":"Re: Consensus on a new default branch name","fromName":"Jonathan Nieder","fromEmail":"jrnieder@gmail.com","sentAt":"2020-06-16T02:22:39Z","receivedAt":"2020-06-16T02:22:44Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"jrnieder@gmail.com","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/281595?v=4"},"body":"Hi Nomen,\n\nNomen Nescio wrote:\n\n> Taylor, how do you propose to build this consensus you're talking about\n> on the name change?\n\nI'm glad you're interested in learning more about the Git development\nprocess!\n\nThere are some open source projects that function (mostly) as a\ndemocracy --- they build the features that those voting request.  A\nfamous example of this would be PHP[1].  There is something admirable\nabout that approach, but it is not always easy to get right.  Many\nother projects have their own approaches to governance.\n\nIn Git, we make most decisions by a rough consensus of active\ncontributors, as judged by the maintainer.  There are times that\nconsensus may go in a direction that is unworkable, and the maintainer\nhas the ability to make a different decision during those times.  If\ndecision making ever goes off the rails (perhaps you've judged this to\nbe such a moment!), users of Git have the recourse of forking the\ncode; such moments have happened in some open source projects in the\npast, for the better, such as the EGCS fork of GCC that was widely\nused by distributors and eventually became the standard version of\nGCC.\n\nIf you are looking to have more influence in the Git project, my\nadvice would be to become a respected contributor, by providing\npatches, well thought out reviews, documentation improvements, advice\nto bug reporters, or other contributions.  As others learn to trust\nyour feedback, you will have more influence on consensus.  Even\nbetter, you get the immediate benefit of your own work as soon as you\ndo it.\n\nI believe Taylor was also interested in another kind of consensus,\nbetween hosting providers, but that would be likely to coincide with\nwhat the Git project does so the difference is a bit academic.\n\n[...]\n> slacktivism\n\nThis is a very weird way to describe the people who are spending their\ntime to maintain Git.\n\nThanks and hope that helps,\nJonathan\n\n[1] https://lwn.net/Articles/821821/\n"},{"id":"399844","messageId":"20200616023118.GA89988@syl.local","threadId":"53688","inReplyTo":"20200616022239.GD164606@google.com","subject":"Re: Consensus on a new default branch name","fromName":"Taylor Blau","fromEmail":"me@ttaylorr.com","sentAt":"2020-06-16T02:31:18Z","receivedAt":"2020-06-16T02:31:25Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"me@ttaylorr.com","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/301000140?v=4"},"body":"Hi Jonathan,\n\nOn Mon, Jun 15, 2020 at 07:22:39PM -0700, Jonathan Nieder wrote:\n> Hi Nomen,\n>\n> Nomen Nescio wrote:\n>\n> > Taylor, how do you propose to build this consensus you're talking about\n> > on the name change?\n>\n> I'm glad you're interested in learning more about the Git development\n> process!\n>\n> There are some open source projects that function (mostly) as a\n> democracy --- they build the features that those voting request.  A\n> famous example of this would be PHP[1].  There is something admirable\n> about that approach, but it is not always easy to get right.  Many\n> other projects have their own approaches to governance.\n>\n> In Git, we make most decisions by a rough consensus of active\n> contributors, as judged by the maintainer.  There are times that\n> consensus may go in a direction that is unworkable, and the maintainer\n> has the ability to make a different decision during those times.  If\n> decision making ever goes off the rails (perhaps you've judged this to\n> be such a moment!), users of Git have the recourse of forking the\n> code; such moments have happened in some open source projects in the\n> past, for the better, such as the EGCS fork of GCC that was widely\n> used by distributors and eventually became the standard version of\n> GCC.\n>\n> If you are looking to have more influence in the Git project, my\n> advice would be to become a respected contributor, by providing\n> patches, well thought out reviews, documentation improvements, advice\n> to bug reporters, or other contributions.  As others learn to trust\n> your feedback, you will have more influence on consensus.  Even\n> better, you get the immediate benefit of your own work as soon as you\n> do it.\n>\n> I believe Taylor was also interested in another kind of consensus,\n> between hosting providers, but that would be likely to coincide with\n> what the Git project does so the difference is a bit academic.\n\nWhat I am broadly interested in is a consensus among the community, so\nthat we don't have a variety of different names for the default branch\nbased on where and how you use Git. Of course, by introducing a\nconfiguration option, some variety is to be expected, but I would like\nto avoid, for example, GitHub/GitLab/Bitbucket choosing a different name\nfrom what the Git project decides on.\n\n> [...]\n> > slacktivism\n>\n> This is a very weird way to describe the people who are spending their\n> time to maintain Git.\n>\n> Thanks and hope that helps,\n> Jonathan\n>\n> [1] https://lwn.net/Articles/821821/\n\nThanks,\nTaylor\n"},{"id":"399889","messageId":"20200616143816.GN666057@coredump.intra.peff.net","threadId":"53688","inReplyTo":"20200616022239.GD164606@google.com","subject":"Re: Consensus on a new default branch name","fromName":"Jeff King","fromEmail":"peff@peff.net","sentAt":"2020-06-16T14:38:16Z","receivedAt":"2020-06-16T14:38:20Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"peff@peff.net","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/45925?v=4"},"body":"On Mon, Jun 15, 2020 at 07:22:39PM -0700, Jonathan Nieder wrote:\n\n> In Git, we make most decisions by a rough consensus of active\n> contributors, as judged by the maintainer.[...]\n\nThanks for writing this out. I agree completely with how you described\nthe decision making process.\n\nWe do bear the responsibility to think carefully about our users, and to\nrespect their time, and their expectations that things don't break. But\nas with any feature, it's a juggling act between stability and progress\nthat developers and the maintainer must deal with. Somebody might not\ncare about this name change, but likewise, others might not care about a\nparticular technical feature. At some point users have to put their\ntrust in Git's developers that the end product will be stable and\nuseful. If we break that trust too much, then forking is an option, as\nyou note. Our track record has been pretty good so far, and I think if\nwe approach this change carefully, it can continue to be.\n\n-Peff\n"}]}