Hi all,
I don't want to destroy the thread so I just going to give a couple of
notes on this in order to share what I think is important, and often
misheard and leave.
On 2025-02-12 12:46, 45mg wrote:
> It looks like you're aware of the widespread effort to move away from
> 'master-slave' terminology, and you're even in support of said effort,
> so I guess that doesn't need to be discussed here directly.
Yes I am!
I think the words have been subject to an extreme scrutiny that I don't
agree with. That's all.
The case of Git I consider a poor understanding, and it had led me to
stupid situations in the past.
Now we need to know which is the root branch of the repositories, and
sometimes it's not obvious.
> Here's my perspective: it will cost us basically nothing to rename the
> master branch, especially if we do it in the context of the Codeberg
> migration since we'd already by upending peoples' workflows.
I don't agree with this point 100%. It has been done before, yes. It's
as simple as renaming a branch, yes. But it would affect other things.
We should go through a GCD for it, imho.
> it should suffice to investigate why the term 'DEI' has been in
> the news lately.
In the news where, exactly?
(this doesn't mean I'm not sensible about the problem or anything like
that, I'm just trying to point out this all comes from a movement from a
political situation that is not universal)
On 2025-02-12 13:14, Liliana Marie Prikler wrote:
Even assuming that those meanings of "execute" map to the same words in
all languages (they don't) and that there are no alternatives to
"executing" programs (there are, e.g. "running" them), this point is
not as good as you're trying to make it. To my knowledge, all uses of
"master", even the "master's degree" cited below, do come with a bit of
an elitist connotation ;)
There are alternatives, you can "run" programs, you can "launch"
programs, you can "operate"... or IDK, I'm not a linguist myself. The
same goes to "main" vs "master" or anything else. It's just a matter of
taste and decisions.
Not all uses of master have an elitist background (some are also
misogynistic :) ), but that's not the reason why we are discussing this.
Funny that you mention git, given that it comes with the following
hint:
I know, I know, what I was criticizing was the reason.
It is not. Hartmut simply recalled the most relevant bit of
information within the current cultural Zeitgeist. "No gods, no
masters" has been a slogan even before git was a thing :)
A slogan I like, btw. But I don't feel like I should remove the word. I
feel like I should remove the people that are masters.
And yes, I know Hartmut just made this simple and I wasn't targeting him
(<3), but ideas behind.
Within the predominant discussion, it is typically the fate of African
American people, who first suffered from slavery, then overtly racist
laws and now still racist enforcement of "the law", which may be less
overtly racist but still serves to oppress minorities wherever they may
be oppressed. These people have been forced to learn English as their
first language, same as we have been forced to learn it as our second
or third language. So yeah, I would hazard a guess that some
sensitivity exists for a not that small group of people.
It's not a small group what you describe, but I'm not sure about the
amount of people we are doing this for. I think this is just a matter of
image, and I'm not sure about who are we trying to please with the change.
We are proposing it because other people did something similar, and
because some claim people is hurt by a word, this word, in this context.
What I'm trying is to think rationally about it and try to avoid some
possible harm (I have had misunderstanding with other project's
branching scheme, specially with some that have many branches, in guile
it has happened to me... I think the master branch is still there but
very old).
What I think in this specific case is all started with good intentions
but somebody got a little bit too far and git developers wanted to be a
little friendly. I don't like this, maybe because my personal
experience, where I've seen people being banned from places for using
the word "negro" in spanish which just means "black" (the color), and
surprisingly for many people from the US is the word "black people" in
spain prefer to be called.
What I mean here is we should choose our way to do things, and not
necessarily copy whatever political/social/anything situation that
happens in one specific country, because that's a little bit
condescending with the rest of the world. If we are talking about
inclusion, that also matters.
If a move to Codeberg does not find consensus for whatever reason, a
rename can still be sought after as a standalone change. But IMHO it
would be weirdly conservative to switch platforms while keeping the old
branch name.
Practically speaking, the move to Codeberg would make the rename EASIER
and also avoid some of the possible harm as it would be more obvious to
see the default branch in the web interface of the repository.
So if we do the change, I'd prefer if we have made the move to Codeberg
already.
Again, this change affects at least an interface, the developer-codebase
interface, forks and so on. So I believe it should be proposed in a
separate GCD.
I appreciate the answers and the constructive mood.
This is what I like from Guix and the community: intentions.
We all share good intentions here.
Cheers,
Ekaitz
