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

From: Ekaitz Zarraga <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:48:47 +0100

Hi,

On 2025-02-21 09:57, Liliana Marie Prikler wrote:
> (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.

Telling people to educate themselves could also be offensive and all, 
but you don't hesitate to do it. Do you actually care about being 
welcoming? Just food for thought.

Listen, I don't give a shit about the political views of Christopher, or 
whatever you think about them. People has the right to be right-wingers, 
weather we like it or not.

Just that is enough to discard somebody's opinion? Is that diversity?

Doesn't "right-with dog-whistle" sound a little bit like "woke". To me, 
it does. Keep throwing names to the table, while nobody else in the 
world cares about your left vs right debate.

We are making software for people. For all people that wants to use it. 
Bad news: many of them are right wingers. And some of them are between 
us. And I believe they are also welcome here, as long as they don't 
mistreat any other person (the same as the left wingers or the no-wingers).

> 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.

Uncomfortable?
I am uncomfortable writing in english, as it is my third language. 
Should we change the language to spanish, my mother tongue?
There's a lot of people in the basque community that get angry when a 
basque talks in spanish, so those are going to be uncomfortable... We 
should change to Basque! That will make everybody happy.

The term "master" being used in this context does not have anything to 
do with anything that should make anyone uncomfortable. Isn't the word 
"git" itself way worse in that sense?

Guix is a Catalan surname, maybe some of them are uncomfortable by its 
name, we should change it too!

> Second, people can care about matters they are not personally affected
> by.  It's called having empathy.

Well, people can also invent a problem, as I just did. That's not 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.

Saying "I support" is more than enough, but I would really want to know 
if they actually exist, because I'd like to make sure we are doing this 
for something.

What do you think it's going to happen if they speak their truth? Are 
they going to be harassed? By who?
The only thing I see here is people saying they don't like the change 
being mistreated as they were some kind of right wing scum.

>> 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.

No, I don't think it's infeasible. It is actually very feasible, you 
just need to change the branch name and push. Done.

The problem is that some people already shared their concern, while I 
don't see any justification for the change that has the same weight.

>> 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.

I disagree. Very strongly.

It's you, and those who think like you, who is charging this word with 
some political value it doesn't have.

I am NOT in favor of slavery and I am NOT against making everybody's 
live easier. (and interestingly I'm probably in the same side of the 
political spectrum as you are).

What I discuss here is that I don't think there is any kind of relation 
with changing this stupid word and making the world a better place.

That doesn't show the color of my heart, because I'm just trying to be 
rational here.

We serve the world. Our political views (or how you call them: the color 
of our heart) are very narrow. I don't see any kind of internationalist 
approach here, we are just swallowing whatever garbage an US company 
throws to us and tells us is good.

This proposal is very US-centric, and goes according to their values, 
and religion. That's why it became popular there.

Thankfully for many, the world is not the United States of America. In 
my view there's nothing shameful in words, even in the F word or in the 
N word. The wrong in is in the intention.

The intention you have here Liliana is good. But I don't think Linus 
Torvalds called the branch "master" thinking about slavery or as a way 
to shame people, and I don't think removing the word is really going to 
change anything. But will do some (maybe little) damage in Guix, as some 
people already discussed.

If we need to make the life of a couple US-Americans a little bit 
uncomfortable in order to keep our software working as intended, so be 
it. I am uncomfortable every time I need to speak in english here (a 
reminder of how the USA imperialism is forced upon me), and here we are.

---

This debate is draining me, so consider me done here.

In the end, you are trying to make this look like those who oppose the 
change are not welcoming neither empathetic, and that's bullshit.

The funny thing of all this is that the times I have felt unwelcome, and 
I have been gaslighted in this community, and I have seen 
passive-aggressive answers was coming from you, Liliana, and I have been 
trying to avoid interacting with you for long because of it.

I don't like this change, and I don't like to see that you are trying to 
make this whole thing look like we are bad people.

I am not convinced.