[Mesa-dev] Rename "master" branch to "main"?

[Jason Ekstrand]

All,

I'm sure by now you've all seen the articles, LKML mails, and other
chatter around inclusive language in software.  While mesa doesn't
provide a whole lot of documentation (hah!), we do have a website, a
code-base, and a git repo and this is something that we, as a project
should consider.

What I'm proposing today is simply re-naming the primary Git branch
from "master" to "main".  Why "main"?  Because that's what GitHub has
chosen "main" as their new default branch name and so it sounds to me
like the most likely new default.

As far as impact on the project goes, if and when we rename the
primary branch, the old "master" branch will be locked (no
pushing/merging allowed) and all MRs will have to be re-targeted
against the new branch.  Fortunately, that's very easy to do.  You
just edit the MR and there's a little drop-down box at the top for
which branch it targets.  I just tested this with one of mine and it
seems to work ok.

As far as other bits of language in the code-base, I'm happy to see
those cleaned up as people have opportunity.  I'm not aware of any
particularly egregious offenders.  However, changing the name of the
primary branch is something which will cause a brief hiccup in
people's development process and so warrants broader discussion.

Thoughts?