[llvm-dev] Inclusive language in LLVM: can we rename `master` branch?

[Mehdi AMINI via llvm-dev]

Hi,

When we moved to GitHub a few months ago, we used without more
consideration the "master" convention to name our development branch. On
SVN it used to be just "trunk".
This naming is unfortunate
<https://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-knodel-terminology-00.html#rfc.section.1.1> as
it can hurt some contributors
<https://dev.to/afrodevgirl/replacing-master-with-main-in-github-2fjf>, and
there is really no technical advantage that I know of to favor this
convention over another.

I am perfectly aware that `master` has other significations than the
master/slave meaning, and I personally never made this association in the
past. However I'm also able to recognize that I'm privileged here, and that
not everyone is in the same position.

As we intend to be an inclusive community, I propose that we change the
name of our development branch and that we adopt instead a more neutral
terminology for the LLVM monorepo. Possible names are "dev", "trunk",
"main", "default", ...

We need to plan a transition as all the bots will need to be updated to
track this new branch instead, but these are minor technical details,
nothing compared to the SVN->Git migration we went through.

Since I'm on this topic, we should also likely look into the pervasive use
of whitelist/blacklist in the project.

Thoughts?

-- 
Mehdi
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