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

Philip Reames via llvm-dev llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
Fri Jun 19 13:45:51 PDT 2020


+1 on the incrementalism.  We should start with the easy stuff (like 
code comments mentioning blacklists), and stage the operational stuff in 
a prompt, but not rushed manner.

Philip

On 6/19/20 12:37 PM, Eric Christopher via llvm-dev wrote:
> 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 
> <mailto: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 <mailto: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
>         <mailto: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
>         <mailto:echristo at gmail.com>>; llvm-dev
>         <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org <mailto: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
>         <mailto: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
>         <mailto: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
>         <mailto:echristo at gmail.com>>
>         *Sent:* Friday, June 19, 2020 11:44 AM
>         *To:* Keane, Erich <erich.keane at intel.com
>         <mailto:erich.keane at intel.com>>
>         *Cc:* Petr Penzin <penzin.dev at gmail.com
>         <mailto:penzin.dev at gmail.com>>; Mehdi AMINI
>         <joker.eph at gmail.com <mailto:joker.eph at gmail.com>>; llvm-dev
>         <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org <mailto: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 <mailto: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
>             <mailto:echristo at gmail.com>>
>             *Sent:* Friday, June 19, 2020 11:32 AM
>             *To:* Keane, Erich <erich.keane at intel.com
>             <mailto:erich.keane at intel.com>>
>             *Cc:* Petr Penzin <penzin.dev at gmail.com
>             <mailto:penzin.dev at gmail.com>>; Mehdi AMINI
>             <joker.eph at gmail.com <mailto:joker.eph at gmail.com>>;
>             llvm-dev <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
>             <mailto: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 <mailto: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
>                 <mailto:echristo at gmail.com>>
>                 *Sent:* Friday, June 19, 2020 11:23 AM
>                 *To:* Petr Penzin <penzin.dev at gmail.com
>                 <mailto:penzin.dev at gmail.com>>; Mehdi AMINI
>                 <joker.eph at gmail.com <mailto:joker.eph at gmail.com>>
>                 *Cc:* Keane, Erich <erich.keane at intel.com
>                 <mailto:erich.keane at intel.com>>; llvm-dev
>                 <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org <mailto: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
>                 <mailto: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>
>                         <mailto: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>
>                         <mailto:joker.eph at gmail.com>; llvm-dev
>                         <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>
>                         <mailto: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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