Mesa To Join Other Open-Source Projects With "Main" For Primary Code Branch

[tomas]

s_j_newbury You know there is also another possibility why one would like to change the name "master", right? Because one may not think it is a good name? That it does not describe the purpose of the branch in a meaningful way? Do you know any other VCS that uses "master" as the name for the pre-defined branch? I know that Subversion uses "trunk" and ClearCase uses "main" at least. Finally, unless one is a Mesa developer I don't see why anyone should care what they as a project choose as a name. It's their business and does not affect other projects. You can still create git repos and continue using "master" as name or "slave" or "slave owner" or "sjw" or "rainbow unicorn" or "woke" or "trunk" or "trump" or "maga" or whatever. No one cares since it's your own repo where you can name your branches anything you like.

[kerbastrar]

In a world we are all equal or we should be

Equal opportunity, not equal outcome

words like master and slave should not even exist or be used except for describing the history.

Words like cracker and mayo have been used to disparage white people for decades. They should be banned, too

In any case I like "main" since it's shorter kinda makes more sense to me

Not willing to throw away tradition over one less letter

I like to see that people want to be better, even with these little things.

Better in the eyes of who? Your group of friends (which I probably couldn't tolerate for more than 15 minutes)? The globalist oligarchy pushing this crap for more profits? Not interested

[krOoze]

s_j_newbury You know there is also another possibility why one would like to change the name "master", right?

TBH, there is not. The discussions whether there are more fitting words or not are only distractions. If this was about conventions, nobody would care to change it. The electrical current flows the wrong direction in convention, and nobody cares. Even if it was initially named "flurble" in git, nobody would suddenly start to care changing it after X years of using it. People claiming this is about finding a better fitting word are disingenuous.

Frankly, I privately think this is some kind of false flag op trying to take sympathy away from movements that actually do important stuff and matter.
Ok, Orwell predicted the changing of "master". Somewhat good intention, and somewhat bad idea, and it would be sneaky change nobody would care and even praise it. Good people rather silently change than to have even the slightest chance of accidentally offending someone. But requesting to change "blacklist\whitelist" looks like such borderline trollery I think it cannot be real.

[tildearrow]

OK, instead of wasting time on this, what about you fix the VA-API AMD encode hang?

What about you fix the rest of the bugs?

This is why open-source is dying out. Software is buggy, yet let's waste time "fixing" our community first (in the wrong way).

[yoshi314]

i just wonder if people cross-check whether those words are ok in other languages. just a thought.

[s_j_newbury]

Frankly, I privately think this is some kind of false flag op trying to take sympathy away from movements that actually do important stuff and matter.
Ok, Orwell predicted the changing of "master". Somewhat good intention, and somewhat bad idea, and it would be sneaky change nobody would care and even praise it. Good people rather silently change than to have even the slightest chance of accidentally offending someone. But requesting to change "blacklist\whitelist" is such borderline trollery I think it cannot be real.

I'm inclined to agree. There is a lot of trolling out there designed to obfuscate real issues and discredit people who might otherwise "do something". It's not a new thing, and despite the inevitable howls of people who will claim they aren't doing any such thing, most people engaging in such behaviour are simply duped. It becomes Partisan, or part of a group-think dynamic which makes it the "appropriate" social activity.

[unis_torvalds]

I am 100% in favour of inclusive, non-offensive language and master/slave terminology should damn well be brought up to date wherever present, for example, in IDE channels.

However...

In the context of a Git branch, this is a categorically different usage of the word. "Master" has various definitions (think: skill mastery, Jedi master, masterclass, masterpiece, master tape/recording, etc.).
A Git master branch is not "master" as in master-slave, it is "master" as in master-copy. According to the hardcover Collins Gem dictionary on my bookshelf, master can mean: "original document from which copies are made."
Of course there are other definitions as well, which can have hurtful historical connotations. But in this context, master should be considered safe.

[Aryma]

i prefer cotton picker and cotton picker owner for more accurate

there no salve in 2020 we save with this actions and people who suffer from this are all dead there no reason to do that

[arQon]

Ignoring the virtue-signalling aspects of this, what on earth made them opt for "main" over, well, almost ANYTHING else? Like, "trunk", for example: a name that already HAS that meaning and defined role. I know the article says they "considered" it, but choosing one bad (in the real sense of "confusing / misleading / imprecise / whatever") word over another "bad" word is just bizarre. The trunk is almost NEVER the "main" branch of a project in anything other than the exact sense of trunk, i.e. the central line that all others diverge from. To go with "main", which has so many other more common meanings, many of which describe roles that this branch ISN'T, just doesn't make sense to me.

THIS is what I object to in all this bullshit: not the dishonesty and pettiness, but the way it muddies the water. Now we've got half a dozen random words for it, changing on a per-project basis, and if you're working on any nontrivial project with dependencies you have to keep track of them all and change your mental and muscle memory dozens of times a day. ffs....

[ms178]

OK, instead of wasting time on this, what about you fix the VA-API AMD encode hang?

What about you fix the rest of the bugs?

This is why open-source is dying out. Software is buggy, yet let's waste time "fixing" our community first (in the wrong way).

I agree, the politization of open source software engineering is doing more harm than good. At least I haven't heard from a single soul that has been saved by these measures. Every second of thought put into these non-issues are seconds wasted which could have been spent fixing bugs or creating features instead. Instead of causing additional friction in the community these people should keep their politics at home or in their political party circles of choice, really.