Rename "master" branch to "main"?

[Carlos O'Donell]

On 1/20/21 7:23 PM, Mike Frysinger wrote:
> On 20 Jan 2021 08:49, Carlos O'Donell via Libc-alpha wrote:
>> Having said that, I don't know how to do
>> a redirect to keep old branches working (though I've seen it done in
>> Fedora when we wholesale moved from /foo to /rpms/foo).
> 
> what branches are you thinking of ?  the old release branches ?  tbh, i
> think we should just look forward.  lets focus on refs/heads/master ->
> refs/heads/main.  changing that branch requires updating hooks and such,
> but no other branches should break.

I am only thinking of master->main. Consensus was not to change any release
branches.

I would like the master->main transition be possible to do with a redirection
so we don't break existing checkouts and scripts.

I think that transition can be done with redirection because I saw something
like this done in Fedora, but I haven't reviewed the solution.

The problem of redirecting one branch, or all branches is effectively the
same problem just solved once (and then solved later again if we want).
 
> then for release branches, new ones will use main instead of master from
> the very start.  nothing will break as they're all new refs.  people might
> have to update their scripts to work with the new releases, but they have
> to do that anyways to pull the upgrade.  existing stuff won't break.

My intent would be that with redirection nothing breaks.
 
> so much like we aren't going to go through the git history and rewrite
> all references to "master", leave the old branches alone as well.  if
> anything, it stands out as "there was a mistake and we rectified it".
> as we generate new branches, they'll slowly age out of the default list
> of active branches.

Agreed.
 
> if you really really want to rename those old branches, it can be done
> after we clean up ToT and stop generating new bad branches ... let's
> not hold back all progress because the long legacy tail is hard :).

Agreed.

-- 
Cheers,
Carlos.