Subject: Re: Deliberation period for GCD 003 "Rename the default branch" has technically started

From: Christopher Baines <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2025 22:51:11 +0100

Liliana Marie Prikler <[email-masked]> writes:

> as the date for the GCD 003 was set to February 18th, the discussion
> period actually ended on Saturday already.  I have incorporated some
> changes on Sunday to realign the proposal with GCD 002 (the Codeberg
> one), but barring any emergency changes there, GCD 003 is now to be
> considered final.
>
> As outlined in GCD 001, please respond to this mail with one of the
> following:
>
> - “I support”, meaning that you support the proposal;
> - “I accept”, meaning that you consent to the implementation of the
>   proposal;
> - “I disapprove”, meaning that you oppose the implementation of the
>   proposal.

I disapprove.

I do actually still support the idea of moving away from master as a
branch name, but I think the implementation of GCD 003 as it currently
stands is lacking.

I've been using trunk as the master branch for the last couple of months
for some of the Guix Git repositories that I'm more involved in on
Savannah. There's still a need to delete the branch master, but I'm
unclear whether if this GCD goes through, it would be necessary to
change from trunk to main. Personally I dislike main as a branch name
and prefer trunk.

Going back to my concerns earlier in the discussion, there's nothing in
GCD 003 about keeping the data service or bordeaux build farm working
with a change to the master branch name. Maybe it's not necessary to
include anything in the GCD about branch name replacements in
configuration, but both the build farm and data service have data
connected to the Git branch, and it's less clear what to do with this
data and how to handle historic references to the master branch.

Maybe these are just minor issues and not worth disapproving the GCD
over, but it feels like it's these kind of issues that the process in
general should address, even if that is to just note that it was raised,
discussed and the conclusion was to not include it in the scope.

I do still hope that an agreement to change the master branch name can
be reached, but I think it's important to handle it well, both in terms
of this GCD process which is in it's infancy still, and also the actual
technical/user impactful changes.