Rename "master" branch to "main"?

DJ Delorie dj@redhat.com
Wed Jul 1 17:45:07 GMT 2020


"Carlos O'Donell" <carlos@redhat.com> writes:
> A group of people have identified problematic language.

Was this a group of people who felt unwelcome in the glibc community?
Or are we acting without direct information again?  I recall the abort
joke discussion that included only two women (eventually) among the
dozens of men, is this a similar case where only the welcome people are
choosing what "welcome" means?

So far I've seen zero input from someone *actually* affected by this,
and anecdotally *one* who felt harmed by it:

https://lore.kernel.org/git/e198b1a5-e104-d0e5-8904-37ce3937316d@gmail.com/

This is not enough information to make a long-lasting decision with.  Or
do we have some hidden data that actually originated from the relevent
demographics?  If so, let's get it out in the open so we can make an
informed decision instead of just another case of the majority ruling
for the minority.

> Problematic language will *never end* and it will always be our
> responsibility to listen to people who are impacted by such
> language ...

Then let's hear from *those* people.  We, the old white male majority,
have done a terrible job in the past; we should not be allowed to make
these decisions on behalf of others any more.

(note: I don't feel strongly about the actual words, they're just words,
you can rename the master branch "platypus" for all I care.  I feel
strongly about engineers making choices based on uninformed emotional
beliefs instead of hard data.)



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