I'd prefer it if things didn't change, including master/slave terminology (the 'master' branch doesn't even have a 'slave' in git...)
Have the words themselves become bad to use? It seems that this is a USA centric view anyway with its history (and even then it seems ridiculous--why can't these things be compartmentalised as technical terms?)
Slavery certainly still exists in the world, and has existed in most places at some point.
Should we rename 'slavery' to something else too while we're at it? Or forget it exists and existed?
Certainly certain terms become antiquated over time, like the vocabulary used in Emacs (yank/buffer/etc vs cut/window/tab/...), but master/slave doesn't seem to be there yet.
I wonder if there's some way to counteract this newspeak stuff?
I think it's harmful that these things happen for such frivolous reasons.
Does one just have to be as loud as the minority that drives these things, to counteract it?
I think companies are just looking for ways to help, and this is what Github came up with.
I agree it's an odd reason for the change. The word "master" without "slave" has many meanings, usually but not always when one person or thing controls another.
It's used for dog owners ("a dog and his master"). A person can be the "master of their own fate" or a "master of disguise." Seinfeld joked about people being "masters of their own domain."
All of that said, I don't really mind the result, whatever the reason. I remember that the name struck me as odd when I first started with Git.
I assumed it came from "master copy," which in media is the copy from which other copies are made. But that doesn't really fit, in my view, because the whole point of a master copy is that it doesn't change. In Git the master is always changing.
The other meanings don't fit either. The "master" branch doesn't really control anything, it is controlled by the user.
So calling it "master" never really made sense to me. It seems like "primary," "main," "central" or a similar word fits better.
I am black and I don't think I have ever given a thought to this. While the change might be well meaning, I truly resent the implications.
Go out into the world and train under-privileged folks on what they would need to be github employees in future that you would hire without a second thought independent of special 'diversity' mandates. Do more of that instead of focusing on trivial bs like master/slave.
'master' as used in git doesn't at all imply 'slave', but instead 'definitive'.
The real problem will not be solved by newspeak naming, but by actually giving genuinely equal opportunity to everyone, and perhaps more importantly, the means and environment to take up that opportunity.
more people are offended by the word master than git, I still don’t think it was a good comparison, also the connotation of Master Theses, mastering C++, remastered album is also much different.
I've got to admit that "main" makes a lot more sense. It's the main branch where all commits are collected before getting deployed, it's not a master that bosses all the other branches around.
You're thinking of the wrong definition of master. Git's master refers to the primary copy of something from which derivative copies are made. E.g. In casting, a master is used to form new molds[1]. In audio engineering, a master tape holds the final mix of a recording[2]. (Incidentally, this is where the term remastering comes from, because you are creating a new master version.)
That's where I assumed "master" came from. But it still doesn't fit, because a master copy is normally static. The master branch in Git is anything but static.
I also think 'main' branch makes more sense, but GitHub is breaking away from an entire collective body of tutorials out there that already reference the 'master' branch. All for the sake of PC and a knee jerk reaction to a recent event. What will people think of this change 5 years on?
> it's not a master that bosses all the other branches around
That's not the only sense of the word "master". There are several, but the one used in git's case is that of a copy or instance from which all other copies are made.
I don't really care much about what the branches are named at the end of the day. However, I do find it concerning that we're so bothered by appearances that a term of art in multiple industries is being made to appear unsavory (and considering the general tone of the comments I've seen, it seems that is also manufactured dissent.)
If we had a master/slave situation going on I could understand an uproar. However, it's really the 'Master' copy, which basically means 'Original' or 'Source of truth'
I totally agree with Kingh32 from the reddit thread posted by another commenter below. This whole thing seems like a distraction so we can feel good about changing something without having to actually solve any hard problems or make any substantial changes.
This change means that sufficient nagging on popular social networks can bully entire companies into submission. Where do we draw the line between technology and being offended?
The whole notion of "we are doing it to fix things" is a lie. Changing words that mean something in technology does absolutely nothing to fix the underlying problem - hatred.
The cheapest way to buy yourself conscience is to sit at home and do absolutely nothing of value, but to appear as if you "care". This is precisely what changing terminology does - it buys companies conscience.
Thanks to everyone who contributed to this noble cause, I just can't wait to invest yet more time to fix all the problems caused by naming change. And yes, there's us who deal with software not working when you rename a branch. Telling me it was already broken if naming change breaks it - thanks, it magically makes it go away.
There's a huge number of us who work in maintenance field and we can't construct or design systems to satisfy every possible great practice out there - namely, we inherit old, crappy systems that no one wants to deal with and work on and we make them run.
Changing something that worked under false pretense of doing it for greater good - while jeopardizing entire jobs because of failing software - has anyone given it any thought?
Sure, someone you never saw is not offended any more by a naming convention in a field they never interacted with. But I'll be there, with many of my coworkers fixing older systems on the fly, praying nothing goes down at the wrong moment, enabling the ones who depend on that software to do their work.
While I understand the motivation behind this.. let's call it movement - I can't understand that very little thought has been given to consequences and to who will suffer because of the changes.
BTW I think now, I know why Tom Bombadil didn't appear in the movie!
Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow,
Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow.
None has ever caught him yet, for Tom, he is the MASTER:
His songs are stronger songs, and his feet are faster.
Where is GitHub's announcement about this? (Does it exist?) I can't find anything on this and I'd like to know more about what exactly is going to go down.
Because if you go after "words that may be considered offensive in some context" you'll end up with a very limited vocabulary.
Where I'm from, the word "collaborator" is universally associated with collaborating with either the communist regime or the nazi occupant. Does it make the word bad? Should github change it to something else? Look beyond your own culture and you'll soon find that no word is safe to use.
Also, isn't Github still helping ICE build concentration camps for kids? And yet the hypothetically offensive meaning of "master" is where they draw the line?
It's not broken. It just works under assumptions applicable to the most common use cases. I know that a software engineer will sneer about dependencies of this kind, but such assumptions really simplify reality/software/whatever.
And yes, they are a pain in the ass when it comes to changes and that's why one should be careful with unnecessary changes.
Maybe it's an unpopular opinion but I really don't think it is. It's a descriptive term. You'd need to also change the name of the Masters tournament and masters degree while we're at it, along with anything else that uses the term master.
Master/slave client terminology on the other hand is definitely racist. Something like primary/ auxiliary would probably be better.
Slavery isn't always racist, by the way. Sometimes it's religious or nationalist. Since we're talking about context, it's good to understand the enormous range of people who could be offended by seeing slavery references at work.
> it's good to understand the enormous range of people who could be offended
Again, possibly another unpopular opinion, but there really is a huge range of things people are offended by and there will always be people being offended by something. If you keep removing things that people are offended by then there's not much left.
Granted there's a line, but I don't think this meets that threshold.
I think we need to get to the point where the term “racist” is not used as a generic catch-all for anything race-related.
In this case, the argument is not that the term “master” is inherently racist. This term has a vast number of legitimate and completely non-racial usages throughout the English language.
Rather, the argument is that in this case the term tends to remind folks of slavery, and that is an uncomfortable thing to be reminded of. That doesn’t mean the term is now “racist”.
Now, why folks feel reminded of slavery due to this usage but not the countless other usages of the term is not something I personally understand. I don’t think of slavery when I hear the term “master’s degree”, and I don’t think of slavery when I hear the term “master branch.” But it’s not really my place to take issue with what terms in which contexts call to mind slavery for other people.
I do think it would be useful to do some surveys and figure out if this is something that is actually common before making such a widespread breaking change.
> But it’s not really my place to take issue with what terms in which contexts call to mind slavery for other people.
That's all you had to know.
> I think we need to get to the point where the term “racist” is not used as a generic catch-all for anything race-related.
You should understand that this supports racist ideas and policy when you say it. Edit: unless you mean "in another 400 years after we've made radical policy changes"
Edit again: I can't reply bc posting speed limits and the balance of racism/antiracism in HN threads, so please go read e.g. "How to be an Antiracist" and you'll see where I'm coming from.
I don’t really understand what point you’re trying to make. I don’t find it helpful to apply “racist” unthinkingly as a blanket term that encompasses anything and everything race-related, and I cannot agree with you that my post in any way supports racist policies.
For those saying that "master" as used in git has nothing to do with master/slave: Git was made to replace bitkeeper which had (has?) the concepts of master/slave repositories:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23500093 (138 points/224 comments)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23518123 (127 points/206 comments)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23519813 (44 points/84 comments)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23522859 (15 points/5 comments)