May I just add to this part of the conversation by pointing out that if people are concerned that the use of the word "master" for the main branch name is offensive, there will also need to be subsequent consideration for the name of the project itself: "git" is, for some, nothing more than derogatory slang with no particularly positive connotations. It becomes arguable that if people wish to avoid (for example) the upcoming generation from acclimatising/normalising usage of the word "master", that same principle could also encroach upon the name of the tool itself. Share and enjoy. K On Wed, 10 Jun 2020 at 11:51, Robert P. J. Day <rpjday@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > On Tue, 9 Jun 2020, Simon Pieters wrote: > > > Hi Junio, > > > > On Tue, Jun 9, 2020 at 6:02 PM Junio C Hamano <gitster@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > > > > Simon Pieters <simon@xxxxxxxxxx> writes: > > > > > > > If someone is interested in helping with this, please follow up with > > > > Don. But I would like to ask again for git mainline to seriously > > > > consider adopting this change, given the information presented above > > > > and the ongoing movement against systemic racism. > > > > > > I am OK in principle if a future version of Git, when used by a new > > > user of Git who does not have any custom configuration, wrote a > > > string other than 'master' in .git/HEAD when "git init" is run. > > > > > > Picking a good replacement word to mean the primary branch is > > > tricky, though. Just having a notion that one is special among > > > many (i.e. the primary-ness of the thing being named with a word > > > that will replace 'master') may already be offending to some folks. > > > > I find this response not satisfactory: > > ... snip ... > > "I can't breathe ... I can't breathe ..." > > "Well, tell you what, what if we rename the initial default branch in > a distributed version control system for you?" > > *Now* do you understand how asinine all this sounds? > > rday