Subject: Re: [bug#76407] [GCD] A better name for the default branch

From: Greg Hogan <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2025 10:46:05 -0500

On Tue, Feb 18, 2025 at 5:24 PM Liliana Marie Prikler
<[email-masked]> wrote:
>
> Hi Guix,
>
> this patch introduces GCD 003 “A better name for the default branch”.
> I've taken the comments on guix-devel into account (most of them anyway)
> and updated the document accordingly.  Note that references to GCD 002
> are made.  That GCD was drafted earlier, but may or may not already be
> submitted by the time you read this.  Do be patient :)

Thank you for this submission.

I have yet to meet someone taking passive offense at the "master"
branch but I do purposely mispronounce Guix from the project's
pejorative. Perhaps I can offer that as a future GCD.

And if we are to be offended, why whitewash history? We live
privileged lives in the most privileged nations during the most
privileged time in history. This is not the default state of the
world, to die of old-age peacefully in one's sleep. All of our peoples
were slaves, and all were slavers. More Europeans were trafficked to
Africa in the Barbary slave trade than Africans to America in the
North Atlantic slave trade. Only one of those two peoples survives.

Can we find greater but narrower consensus around the practical
motivation that 1) most users leave unchanged the git default "main",
therefore "master" will become increasingly uncommon and unexpected,
2) the choice of "main" is masterfully similar when tab-completing or
looking through a sorted list of refs, and 3) the move to Codeberg
presents a hopefully rare opportunity combine disruptive changes? We
do not need a comprehensive motivation if we can find consensus on the
outcome.

Greg