Re: Rename offensive terminology (master)

From: Michal Suchánek <msuchanek@suse.de>
Date: Jun 16, 2020, 08:50 UTC
Message-ID: <20200616085004.GB21462@kitsune.suse.cz>
In-Reply-To: <CAOAHyQx=+fM1FpAv+g3M+j7j4MgLJA03=MGFmXLvZcfJKAEpGg@mail.gmail.com>

Hello,

On Tue, Jun 09, 2020 at 05:16:57PM +0200, Simon Pieters wrote:

Show 9 quoted lines

> Thank you for your encouraging response, Brian, and the research of
> what the change entails for git.
> 
> I've added Don to the cc, who started to work on implementing this change:
> 
> https://twitter.com/DEGoodmanWilson/status/1269931743320182784
> https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/issues/2674
> 
> Although I think it's reasonable to move away from 'master' regardless

I think it's not. The word 'master' on its own without pairing it with 'slave' does not automatically imply slave master.

As has been pointed out it may mean central person to an organization, a skilled person (as in a person who has mastered a skill or teching) and most applicable to VCS something alike master document, master copy, master mix, etc.

Implying the worst possible meaning points to bias and prejudice.

Fighting bias and prejudice (ie racism) with another bias and prejudice might seem to provide relief short time.

However, so long as bias and prejudice remains no progress is made.

If we embark on the misson to eradicate all and any words that can be undurstood as offensive in any context from all general language regardless of context we will soon have no language left.

People keep repeating that words have weight. That's certainly true. However, there is the other side of the argument. We are not completely powerless to the weight the words carry for each of us, personally.

Great minds have came up with the option to reclaim words that we feel are offensive in our personal vocabulary by examining where the offense comes from and if there is positive meaning we can attach to the word in question.

The effort should be spent on both sides. Otherwise this becames childish, immature rampage. Some of the changes suggested as part of this kind of acticism already look that way.

> of its origin, today Tobie Langel pointed me to
> https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2019-May/msg00066.html
> where, one year ago, Bastien Nocera made the case that git's 'master'
> is in fact a reference to master/slave.

As has been pointed out already even in BitKeeper the use of master/slave it the exception rather than the norm.

It is common terminology used in database replication schemes and BitKeepr being a sort of database it has been used to describe similar schemes in the documentation. It has nothing to do with the naming of the master branch in git.

With databases the suggested replacement is primary/repllica. With git the replicas are made with the clone command which lends itself to naming the replicas as well.

That all said there is nothing preventing projects using git today to use different branch names. Many projects exist that don't have a 'master' branch either for reasons of activism or simply beacuse it is not fitting to their development workflow, they use localized branch names, or whatever. Also the master copy meaning is typically not what non-native English speakers would understand.

What is brewing as response to this request is a feature that makes creating and using projects without a 'master' branch work more smoothly for the general user which is a good thing.

Kudos to git maintainers for handling this sanely. In the past not well thought out responses to requests like this caused a lot of grief and negativity towards the software in question and this kind of activism in general.

Thanks

Michal