I just encountered “GitHub to replace master with main starting in October: What developers need to do now.”
It should be clear this use of the term Master has nothing to do with there being Git branches named “slave.” The usage of “master” is akin to the recording industry and audio-visual use of the term with regard to an original/authoritative form of some kind.
We are up against a problem with words having more than one meaning in language. Here we are leaping from the use of master-slave terminology in technology to other standalone usages of master, however those came into being.
I don’t doubt that “master” has become a trigger and that it is an useful removal from Git[Hub] as a replacement “with terms of inclusion that cannot be misconstrued.” I am not clear how “main” becomes a term of inclusion though. I cannot argue that the usage is not divisive; I do wonder about the technological use of “male” and “female” as terms of art applicable to household and industrial products and how one speaks of them to hardware-store clerks.
As a practical matter of direct concern for me is mastering (see what I did there) propagation (dare I say it) of replacement terms in existing Git repositories and deep links into their on-line forms at GitHub. I have created an issue on the matter in the repository that is of greatest concern to me.
It is helpful that GitHub will somehow “indirect” the use of Git “master” to Git “main”, at least for GitHub repositories. I am a bit concerned about how this will be reflected in an update to the GitHub client for Windows, and how that will impact using it with non-GitHub repositories.
This situation reminds me of the problem created by browsers designed to force https protocol prefixes and then claim that web sites served only via http are insecure. I find Blacklight more nuanced and helpful. (Try it on https://orcmid.blogspot.com for starters.)
I hazard that such geek paternalism is rampant and may be a cure that is worse than the disease: absence of systems thinking and failure to consider end-to-end discontinuities.
I will comply; I claim the right to grumble.
