Alternative master/main branch proposal (Re: ANN: renaming of master branch to "main" for core repository and submodules (dictionaries, help, translations))

[Katarina Behrens]

C'mon folks, this is not a controversial or complicated issue in any way

Technical effort to make the change is minimal. Social or indeed human impact 
of the change is net positive. That few folks who happen to have the largest 
bullhorn believe otherwise doesn't change the fact

'Where is my freedom to use whatever terminology I please regardless of how it 
affects others' is a bad take

'Let's wait for some random gits to come to their senses and only then follow 
the suit' is a bad take

Just go ahead and rename, for f sake

K.
>  in order to make the discussion somewhat more constructive, I have an
> alternative proposal on how to resolve the problem.
> 
> Some pre-requisities:
> 
> - There are currently no technical gains to be made from the change. There
> are some costs to doing the change, but they are not blocking.
> 
> - We appear to be poorly equiped to evaluate the problem properly. Most of
> us are not even native English speakers, and most of us aren't directly
> affected by the problem (or presumably even know somebody who is). I can
> count only one direct input from somebody directly affected, while the rest
> of us have at best second-hand information (unless I'm missing something).
> 
> - The problem appears to be complicated and, as of now, without general
> consensus. The proposal to rename our master mentions [1] that actually only
> discusses 'master/slave' and not 'master' alone, and [2] that says GitHub
> makes the default configurable and changes it to 'main'. The GitHub page
> further links a 9-months-old statement from the git project that said they
> had made the default configurable and were discussing further changes. As
> of now, the git project still uses master as the default and also for their
> own use. There are some projects that have meanwhile switched, and some
> that have not.
> 
> - It appears that no matter what we do, we cannot avoid somebody getting
> offended. If we don't do the change, we risk offending people, if we do the
> change, we also risk offending people (see e.g. [3]).
> 
> - [3] also casts doubt on whether the change actually really achieves
> anything or how big the demand for the change actually is, especially from
> people that it actually concerns.
> 
> - We are not in any special position here, we are just one of the many
> projects using git. Therefore there does not appear to be any need to act on
> our own. Presumably the issue gets discussed also elsewhere, and discussing
> it here adds little to no value to it.
> 
> - The git project is the source of the git tool, and appears to be a
> suitable place to discuss and set the trend here.
> 
> 
> 
> Therefore, I propose that the decision to rename the master branch is
> postponed for as long as the git project does not take a definitive stance
> on it. That stance may take the form of e.g. the git project making a
> statement on it or changing their default and using it. Our decision can be
> then based on this input and may e.g. take the form of simply taking the
> technical decision to do what git does.
> 
> 
> [1] https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-knodel-terminology-02
> [2] https://github.com/github/renaming
> [3] https://mooseyanon.medium.com/github-f-ck-your-name-change-de599033bbbe