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

Eric Christopher via llvm-dev llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
Fri Jun 19 11:23:24 PDT 2020


While I appreciate this sentiment we should not block our changes on a
project over which we have no control. Changing the name and the
documentation is easy and we should do this today.

Thanks.

-eric

On Fri, Jun 19, 2020 at 10:49 AM Petr Penzin via llvm-dev <
llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:

> +1
>
> Git uses `master` branch in quite a few places in its docs and `git init`
> produces a `master` branch. ideally, a change to git should drive all of
> this - that way there would be no confusion.
> -Petr
>
> On 6/19/20 10:45 AM, Keane, Erich via llvm-dev wrote:
>
> I agree with this.  As much as I dislike the name that I believe github
> will choose, we should just do whatever everyone else is doing.
>
>
>
> Note that in addition to the github discussion, there is some extensive
> discussion on the .git mailing list (IIRC) about choosing a new name as
> well.  I hope github waits until that choses a name as well.
>
>
>
> *From:* llvm-dev <llvm-dev-bounces at lists.llvm.org>
> <llvm-dev-bounces at lists.llvm.org> *On Behalf Of *Philip Reames via
> llvm-dev
> *Sent:* Friday, June 19, 2020 10:39 AM
> *To:* Mehdi AMINI <joker.eph at gmail.com> <joker.eph at gmail.com>; llvm-dev
> <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [llvm-dev] Inclusive language in LLVM: can we rename
> `master` branch?
>
>
>
> +1 to the notion of changing the branch name in general.
>
> However, I think there's a practical aspect which needs considered.
> Currently, "master" is the defacto convention used across many, many
> projects.  There's currently a lot of conversation going on across many
> projects about naming.  I think it's really important that rather than just
> picking something that we wait and see what the new convention is, and
> adopt that.  I've seen reporting that GitHub is considering changing the
> default name for new projects.  If that does end up happening - I hope it
> does - I think we should use whatever name they pick.  Convention is
> critical for ease of use of new contributors.
>
> Philip
>
> p.s. There's a bunch of other terminology in use which is potentially
> problematic, but I'm intentionally restricting my response to this one.  I
> think each deserves discussion on it's own merits.
>
> On 6/19/20 2:48 AM, Mehdi AMINI via llvm-dev wrote:
>
> 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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