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0 pointspims6y ago0 comments

Again, in the context of Git, "master" is not used as in master/slave. Words can have different meanings in different contexts. Should chess players stop using "master" for their titles? Should the music industry stop calling "master" the initial recording of an album that will get replicated?

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ggerritsen6y ago· 2 in thread

I don't think chess grandmasters should be necessarily named differently, though having a gender-neutral term would be better. Not sure about the master used in the music industry.

Do you know where 'master' originates from in the context of Git?

maushu6y ago

Yes, Petr Baudis decided on that name (and also "upstream"). [1]

He regrets it now because of his lack of English language knowledge at the time and that "main" makes more sense but he originally based it on the "master copy" concept.

I personally don't understand why people decided on this hill to die on. There are much better targets like database master-slave replication.

[1] https://twitter.com/xpasky/status/1272280760280637441

ggerritsen6y ago

Ah interesting, thanks!

It seems then that master doesn't seem like a very loaded word in the context of git. Even so, changing it would then not be very impactful as well (not counting any CI/CD or other config that relies on the master branch name).

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