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

Written by Michael Larabel in Mesa on 8 August 2020 at 09:04 AM EDT. 81 Comments
MESA
This week Mesa developers began drafting plans for transitioning their primary Git branch to "main", following the naming plans of other open-source projects using Git.

With Git now allowing a configurable default branch and GitHub working to transition from "master" to "main" as their default Git branch name, various other open-source projects have also been working to change their default Git branch name. Most open-source projects have been settling for "main" as the best and most descriptive default branch name rather than alternatives like trunk, default, etc. Mesa developers are similarly aiming for a "main" transition.

This week there's been an active discussion on transitioning their default Git branch name to main.

The main concerns are over ensuring that their CI/testing scripts do not break and handling of Gitlab merge requests currently targeting master to instead target the main branch. Ensuring the continuous integration (CI) and testing scripts don't run into issues is obviously of importance but something that can be easily overcome via coordination with those maintaining the test farms / build boxes around Mesa.

The other current blocker is with Gitlab merge requests that currently target "master" to transition them to "main", but there appears to be a path forward on that front either via manually changing merge requests or via scripting. Gitlab is also working upstream on allowing the handling of branch renaming and batch re-targeting of MRs to new branch, but it's not clear how long that will take until completed and shipping.

There is also talk of potentially moving all FreeDesktop.org Git repositories to using the "main" terminology, but at this point no concrete plans and likely much more of a burden if waiting to transition them all at once.

So for now the Mesa developers remain discussing how to best overcome these few obstacles in making "main" the place where all future Mesa development will happen in their Git repository.
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