Re: Proposal: Replace all references to master/slave in GNOME modules

[Florian Müllner <fmuellner gnome org>]

On Thu, Apr 25, 2019 at 11:58 AM Daniel Playfair Cal
<daniel playfair cal gmail com> wrote:
> most tutorials do assume that the default branch is called master.

For good reasons: It's used almost universally, so adding an
additional vague "figure out how the main branch is called" step just
adds needless complications.


> That said, if you think about this in terms of a smaller step in a wider change outside of GNOME away from 
> "master", it has the potential to somewhat improve the learning curve.

I somewhat agree, but the "wider change outside of GNOME away from
master" appears rather hypothetical? I'm not aware any broader
initiative to change that convention. If there is, then great, we
should go with the flow. But if the idea is that we change the name
and everyone else will just follow suite, well ... standards
(https://xkcd.com/927/) :-)

But yes, my concerns about the "master" term are not least about
clarity. Besides "master tape" (which is fairly obscure itself), I
mostly associate "master" with skill ("masterpiece", "masters degree",
"Australian Masters" etc.), and that doesn't help with grasping the
meaning of the "master branch" one bit.

If only https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=171940 was fixed,
we could lobby Linus for a better default ...

Cheers,
Florian