Subject: [bug#76407] [GCD] Rename the default branch

From: Liliana Marie Prikler <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2025 09:57:54 +0100

(Moved discussion to bug number)

Am Donnerstag, dem 20.02.2025 um 23:57 +0100 schrieb Ekaitz Zarraga:
> I don't find this dismissive. At all. I only see a person sharing his
> opinion, which, sadly, I think is pretty hard in this kind of
> subject.
Please educate yourself on right-wing dogwhistles then.  I will quote
one for context:

Am Dienstag, dem 18.02.2025 um 06:50 -0900 schrieb Christopher Howard:
> DEI proponents have a compulsive desire to eradicate from society and
> language anything that has some vague connection to what they find
> displeasing.

Am Donnerstag, dem 20.02.2025 um 23:57 +0100 schrieb Ekaitz Zarraga:
> I made questions, and no one has give me an answer that is anything
> more than a feeling of something they don't suffer themselves.
> Nobody, specially not even a single black person, who were supposed
> to be the reason for all this, has ever told me this is something
> they feel represented with this change.
First, this is not just about black people, but any group of people
that feels uncomfortable with the term "master" being used in this
context.
Second, people can care about matters they are not personally affected
by.  It's called having empathy.
Third, people who feel represented by this change have no obligation to
tell you that in this level of detail.  In fact, given the attitudes of
some people replying to this GCD, it would be wiser for them not to.

> If a change is going to negatively affect the users of the software I
> make I need to justify it properly.
> 
> Until this very moment, nobody did. Even if I am actually very
> concerned about human rights, I find the arguments exposed not only
> in this thread but also in the original Git branch naming discussion
> very poor.
I think you are — intentionally or otherwise — overestimating the
negative effects of the proposed change in order to construct a world
where it is infeasible.

> [T]hose who oppose them have to justify them to death, 
> while being respectful, but also carefully not to sound like Nazis to
> them.
Well, they could at least be courteous about it and not scream "DEI"
and "woke" at a proposed change they do not like or something.
‾\_(ツ)_/‾

> More specifically in Guix, I'm still yet to find a good thing coming 
> from this change, and there are many cons already. It's a net
> negative change from a technical perspective.
There is little technical debate to be had about this change being
feasible.  Git supports named branches — it always has — and
sufficiently recent versions also support an initial branch that isn't
"master".

There can be a discussion of what steps would need to be made in Guix
particularly to accommodate this change.  This concerns locations in
the code and documentation that assume "master" to be the default name
of a Guix channel, particularly the default Guix channel (i.e. "guix").

The issue of what to name the default branch is entirely a
political/organizational one, one in which we cannot avoid showing the
colour of our hearts as we debate.

Am Donnerstag, dem 20.02.2025 um 14:44 -0900 schrieb Christopher
Howard:
> Also, I think that the word "main" is just as bigoted and non-
> inclusive as "master". I mean, what can be more demeaning than saying
> that one branch is the "main" one and in some sense more important
> than the others?
Perhaps one branch being the "master record", the only trusted,
authentic source, whereas all others — particularly those that had
changes applied to them — are untrusted and/or inauthentic by
distinction.

In practice, the main branch requires certain guarantees that other
branches do not: team branches can (and arguably should) routinely be
rebased on the main branch.  If the main branch were to be rebased,
however, all users would receive an error upon pull.

Cheers