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

Fri Jun 19 12:37:05 PDT 2020

Hi Adrian,

I can understand this perspective, but I disagree. There's no fundamental
reason why we need to change everything at once. Incremental progress can
and should happen as soon as we're able to make the changes.

Thanks.

-eric

On Fri, Jun 19, 2020 at 12:26 PM Adrian McCarthy <amccarth at google.com>
wrote:

> As I mentioned on another thread, we also use the term "slave" for the
> BuildBot builders.  In the past, I was told this was due to being stuck on
> an old version of BuildBot.  Fortunately, there is already work in progress
> to update BuildBot to a newer version.  Since that's also going affect all
> the build machines, perhaps changing the name of the main branch should
> happen simultaneously, when the BuildBots are already being impacted.
>
> On Fri, Jun 19, 2020 at 12:22 PM Chris Tetreault via llvm-dev <
> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
>
>> +1 to waiting until git and/or github decide on a new name for the
>> default branch. I think there is a compelling reason to change the name of
>> the default branch to match community expectations, if for no other reason.
>> If we leave it  as “master” after git changes it, then we have to explain
>> that we left it as “master” because we could not agree on whether or not
>> “master” is non-inclusive. If we pick a new name that is not “master”, but
>> does not match the default branch that git or github eventually converge
>> on, we still have to explain why we are different. If we change it twice,
>> then we have to incur the non-zero cost associated with making the change
>> twice, which I feel would be a waste of community resources.
>>
>>
>>
>> I do not believe that we need to change it as soon as physically
>> possible. I think we can clearly document (say, in the readme on github),
>> that we intend to change it once the community converges on a new name. We
>> can provide a deadline (say, 6 months) for the community to decide on a new
>> default branch name before we make any change. If this deadline passes,
>> then we can decide on a new name for the default branch and stick with it
>> moving forward.
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>>    Christopher Tetreault
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* llvm-dev <llvm-dev-bounces at lists.llvm.org> *On Behalf Of *Keane,
>> Erich via llvm-dev
>> *Sent:* Friday, June 19, 2020 11:56 AM
>> *To:* Eric Christopher <echristo at gmail.com>; llvm-dev <
>> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>
>> *Subject:* [EXT] Re: [llvm-dev] Inclusive language in LLVM: can we
>> rename `master` branch?
>>
>>
>>
>> To be clear: I’m concerned about the amount of our infrastructure (as
>> well as downstream infrastructure, this would be actually pretty painful
>> for both of my downstreams) that the community would have break/need fixing
>> as a part of that.  So I want this to happen ONCE.
>>
>>
>>
>> I think it is well motivated now, but switching from ‘default’ to ‘main’
>> when that becomes the ‘standard’ one seems way less motivated.  So I just
>> forsee it being a wart on the project for a very long time.
>>
>>
>>
>> That said, I’ve done a bit of research and the git mailing list thread (
>> https://lore.kernel.org/git/CAOAHyQwyXC1Z3v7BZAC+Bq6JBaM7FvBenA-1fcqeDV==apdWDg@mail.gmail.com/#t)
>> as well as just news reports about github, and they all seem to be
>> converging on ‘main’, though I don’t have good insight into it.
>>
>>
>>
>> If ‘we’ as a community (and I think we do?) have a contact at github
>> could ping someone and get a reasonably quick confirmation that they are
>> switching to ‘main’, it would be appreciated/should guide our decision.
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* llvm-dev <llvm-dev-bounces at lists.llvm.org> *On Behalf Of *Keane,
>> Erich via llvm-dev
>> *Sent:* Friday, June 19, 2020 11:48 AM
>> *To:* llvm-dev <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>
>> *Subject:* Re: [llvm-dev] Inclusive language in LLVM: can we rename
>> `master` branch?
>>
>>
>>
>> My understanding is the biggest concern about the name change is the
>> ‘cost’ associated with needing to update each of the individual buildbots
>> (and my understanding is that this would be a somewhat non-centralized
>> action) configurations.  So I think we’re talking about more than just 1
>> person running the script in 10 minutes.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Eric Christopher <echristo at gmail.com>
>> *Sent:* Friday, June 19, 2020 11:44 AM
>> *To:* Keane, Erich <erich.keane at intel.com>
>> *Cc:* Petr Penzin <penzin.dev at gmail.com>; Mehdi AMINI <
>> joker.eph at gmail.com>; llvm-dev <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>
>> *Subject:* Re: [llvm-dev] Inclusive language in LLVM: can we rename
>> `master` branch?
>>
>>
>>
>> I mean, we could change it twice? There are about a hundred scripts out
>> there for doing it.
>>
>>
>>
>> -eric
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Jun 19, 2020 at 11:40 AM Keane, Erich <erich.keane at intel.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Do we have any ability to reach out to github (at least?) to see what
>> they are going to do?  I’d very much like to avoid being the
>> odd-project-out here.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Eric Christopher <echristo at gmail.com>
>> *Sent:* Friday, June 19, 2020 11:32 AM
>> *To:* Keane, Erich <erich.keane at intel.com>
>> *Cc:* Petr Penzin <penzin.dev at gmail.com>; Mehdi AMINI <
>> joker.eph at gmail.com>; llvm-dev <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>
>> *Subject:* Re: [llvm-dev] Inclusive language in LLVM: can we rename
>> `master` branch?
>>
>>
>>
>> There's really no guarantee that things will shake out the same in near
>> term between the projects.
>>
>>
>>
>> -eric
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Jun 19, 2020 at 11:31 AM Keane, Erich <erich.keane at intel.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> I’m a bit mixed on this.  While yes, we should change this as soon as is
>> practical, it would be a shame to pick something sufficiently different
>> from the rest of the world, as that would be anti-inclusive (though in a
>> technical way).  It would be REALLY good if we knew what github/git were
>> GOING to name theirs and just do that as soon as possible.
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Eric Christopher <echristo at gmail.com>
>> *Sent:* Friday, June 19, 2020 11:23 AM
>> *To:* Petr Penzin <penzin.dev at gmail.com>; Mehdi AMINI <
>> joker.eph at gmail.com>
>> *Cc:* Keane, Erich <erich.keane at intel.com>; llvm-dev <
>> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>
>> *Subject:* Re: [llvm-dev] Inclusive language in LLVM: can we rename
>> `master` branch?
>>
>>
>>
>> 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
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>>
>> LLVM Developers mailing list
>>
>> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
>>
>> https://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>>
>> LLVM Developers mailing list
>>
>> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
>>
>> https://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> LLVM Developers mailing list
>> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
>> https://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> LLVM Developers mailing list
>> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
>> https://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev
>>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/attachments/20200619/3e335376/attachment-0001.html>