Comment by onetimeusename | Hacker News Reader

Comment by onetimeusename | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I disagree for three reasons.

1) The burden falls disproportionately on Git maintainers and on people with large amounts of dependencies to the old word which is not a good way to distribute work (across tech workers) when making changes especially since some people will not even notice the change.

2) Not everyone uses Git each day and I am certain that people who continue to use the word "master" without knowing a thing about what Git is will be viewed as racist and morally inferior. E.g. (Master of Ceremonies, Master of Arts, etc.). Explain how a tech worker can agree that "master branch" is offensive but putting that they have a "Master of Science" on their CV is fine.

3) Somewhat arbitrarily changing words with a tenuous relation to racism seems like an extremely passive aggressive, murky, and dangerous path to go down. Not only does it lay a trap for people to be accused of being racist but if this is acceptable it is inconsistent with not removing all words associated with slavery. Even words with a distant relation to slavery.

"Not everyone uses Git each day and I am certain that people who continue to use the word "master" without knowing a thing about what Git is will be viewed as racist and morally inferior. E.g. (Master of Ceremonies, Master of Arts, etc.). Explain how a tech worker can agree that "master branch" is offensive but putting that they have a "Master of Science" on their CV is fine."

Honestly I find it terrifying that high ranking tech people can't see the cognitive dissonance they're showing.

Either they're lying in a pitiful attempt to fit in with the silicon valley leftist elites or they're actually intellectually inept. Either way it's not good.

I actually thought you meant people like the comment you're responding to, but then I realized you also appear to be arguing in bad faith.

"Master of <subject_matter>" is pretty clear in that a person has mastered a trade or an area of study! No one confuses that with the idea of "Master/Slave" or "Master Branch" which implies a hierarchy that reminds some people of slavery, particularly the slavery that was practiced in the US.

There's an obvious contextual difference, and it's not some political conspiracy from an imagined "leftist elites" that I assume you think are coming for you. Conspiracy theories are unhealthy and I personally think you should let this one go.

You know what actually sounds like a conspiracy theory? Believing that a word with no link to racism at all is racist because a company told you it was in a disgusting attempt to garner social justice points without actually doing anything helpful.

The only thing unhealthy here is inventing problems where there aren't any and then trying to force the majority population to go along with your insane ideology while trying to paint them as bigoted if they don't like it. Sounds like a recipe for creating a dystopian society.

Please tell me what good will come out of this? Because I can think of a lot of negatives.

>a word with no link to racism

Slave owning in the US was heavily linked to racist ideology, that's simply history.

> without actually doing anything helpful.

"main" is both shorter and more ergonomic to type

> then trying to force

None of my old repos have broke over the new suggested default

> insane ideology

Maybe they took not being racist a little too far, but changing a single word is hardly "insane" or "ideology".

> while trying to paint them as bigoted if they don't like it

I think the only people getting painted as bigots are the ones painting themselves with their over-reactions.

> dystopian society

With the way some of these complaints were worded, you'd think they changed the default new repo branch name to "stalin" or "karlmarx" or "漳州市" and started disabling non-compliant accounts, so I had to read the article, no it's actually a really boring and unintrusive default branch name of "main" for new repos.

So you have no explanation as to how the word master is linked to black slavery in the United States? What's the point of your comment again?

You realize that word existed before the US was even a country right? You also realize that the word is used in many contexts with no relation to anything dealing with skin color or slavery right?

"Maybe they took not being racist a little too far, but changing a single word is hardly "insane" or "ideology"."

You've got your head in the sand and are oblivious to what's going on at a national level if you think this just involves a tiny one word change happening at GitHub. There's a broader cult like indoctrination happening with the current administration and it's cascading all the way down to schools and the workplace.

I'm really tired of hearing this spiel about how we shouldn't get upset because this is just one silly word. Well since it's filling children's minds with critical race theory in schools and training them they're subconsciously evil if they're a certain color I find it quite upsetting.

Btw here's the etymology of the word to prove your point even more incorrect https://www.etymonline.com/word/master

> So you have no explanation as to how the word master is linked to black slavery in the United States?

Black slaves had something called "masters".

> if you think this just involves a tiny one word change

I literally unironically believe this, and the only skin I have in this game is that "main" is shorter and more ergnomic to type.

> There's a broader cult like indoctrination happening

Yeah, it's called "qanon" and "postmodern conservatism".

> it's filling children's minds with critical race theory in schools

I'm not an alt right extremist who believes in nonsensical white supremacist conspiracy theories, so the fact that children are getting a real education is not a problem for me.

"Master Branch" does not imply a hierarchy any more than a master key does. It's simply an original from which copies can be made.

> silicon valley leftist elites

Outliers like Peter Thiel aside do we actually know the personal politics and beliefs of people like Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, or Marc Benioff? They all seem perfectly fine on the PR-positive side of any issue and likely skew fiscally conservatives privately on matters that concern their personal fortunes.

Sure their companies skew "progressive" with LGBTQ inclusion, some diversity hiring (YMMV and some of it appears to be purely projection), and the banning of hate speech, fake news, and calls for violence, on Twitter and the de-platforming of Parler - but is that leftist or just doing the right thing?

What their personal beliefs are is irrelevant to the discussion. Their rhetoric and actions are what define them. Right now it's aligning with far left ideology. If you believe what you wrote then you should be even more upset with what they're doing because that means when the pendulum swings back right they're gonna be smacking you in the face with tea party politics in order to garner favor of whatever right wing politician is in office.

" banning of hate speech, fake news, and calls for violence, on Twitter and the de-platforming of Parler - but is that leftist or just doing the right thing"

Hard to argue it's doing the "right thing" when Twitter lets actual dictators post to their platform and Facebook was found to be the main gathering platform for the capitol insurrection.

I find it troubling that people can find themselves so wrapped up and agitated by culture war wedge issues that they would characterize the rhetoric and actions of Jeff Bezos as aligned with "far left ideology", when Amazon is currently working to prevent workplace solidarity/unionization (a very core component of moderate leftist ideology in the context of a capitalist state).

Don't forget "Scrum Master", which seems to be a term everyone is fine with.

Well, as a scrum master, some days I feel like a scum master, which may not be that far from the truth.

Funnily enough, "scrum master" has been renamed to "scrum facilitator" at my workplace...

> some days I feel like a scum master

I'd only add for me it is every time.

That sounds appropriate, scrum and slavery go well together

>(Master of Ceremonies, Master of Arts, etc.)

Its the master/slave dynamic that is considered the issue...if there were Slaves of Ceremonies and Slaves of Arts as official titles, we might eventually take a second look at the naming too.

Good point, I gotta stop calling my feature branches `slave` it's a bad habit!

Real talk though, when this first blew up, I took the opportunity to change all my master branches to trunk, the oldest and best term for "that from which branches grow".

"main" is lame, it reeks of compromise and giving the least amount of thought possible to the replacement. Worse, it shares the same first two letters with "master", and that means more time spent typing out the wrong branch name, muscle memory being what it is.

I think it doesn't really matter what the name is as long as it's a common word that's easy to memorize. Trunk, master, main, default, current, etc. are all the same to me. But "main" saves me two characters in my shell prompt so it's marginally better IMO. The entire thing is mostly just a bikeshed.

“Master of Science” is simply a use of a different meaning of the word. If anyone is suggesting to not use “master” across the board, even in the sense of “being really good at something,” they can shove off.

While the “master” branch is clearly using master in the sense that it asserts control of the other branches in some way.

So IMO, explaining could be done by pointing at the dictionary.

> the “master” branch is clearly using master in the sense that it asserts control of the other branches in some way

Master as in expert, meritorious of command, arbiter of truth.

They all mean the same and you can't have a master's degree without a master copy of information.

Control is exerted only by virtue of being correct.

Git's usage is clearly more like "golden master" in the recording sense -- the original from which other copies are made.

Compare to other uses in technology that are far more directly related to control, and far less likely to change, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Peripheral_Interface

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILIkmLiT6d0

wherein a black musician explores the idea of master/slave ownership in the recording industry.

EDIT: So confusing to me why this was voted down. Please help.

EDIT: So confusing to me why this was voted down. Please help.

I'm just speculating here -- HN doesn't even allow downvotes to direct responses, so it's not me -- a little more tie-in to the thread might help understand the context and relevance of a music video (HN tends to prefer text over video, and prose/exposition over music). Or maybe there's a bot that downvotes anything with certain words. Or maybe there are one or two people who happened to accidentally downvote because the button was lined up with their thumb when they were scrolling on their phones.

alright, that's reasonable.

I was going to stay out of this, but I'll add that I agree entirely with this.

Master/Slave flip-flops, on the other hand, are named for behavior closer to the connotation github is trying to avoid.

And, I'll also add, as a young White child who built and played with master/slave flip-flops, it never occurred to me to associate it with people, slavery, or racism. Maybe if I had been Black it would have been different.

> Git's usage is clearly more like "golden master" in the recording sense -- the original from which other copies are made.

Maybe it's easy to spin this way, but that's not where git's terminology comes from. It originated in a system meant to migrate away from BitKeeper, which did use the master/slave terminology. Citation: https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2019-May/...

Has Linus or another early Git developer commented on this? If not, what matters is how people actually use Git today, to the extent that it should matter at all relative to other more significant things.

yes[1], but it doesn't really matter because even if the intention is not to be a "master/slave" reference, people will still say it is offensive. So therefore it makes sense that banning other terms like "master of science" or "master record" would also be consistent here.

[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20200706203737/https://twitter.c...

This is addressed in the comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26499512

In short; no there is no master/slave terminology in Git. The person commenting on the Gnome mailing list was mistaken.

Ok, let's look at the dictionary: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/master?s=t

If we scroll to the adjective section, we see three notable definitions:

> 28 directing or controlling: a master switch.

I assume this is the definition you are thinking of?

But I don't agree that this is the definition git is thinking of. I think it's either:

> 27 chief or principal: a master list.

or

> 29 of or relating to a master from which copies are made: master film; master matrix; master record; master tape.

I would agree that the definition you are referring to has racist connotations, but I don't think #27 or #29 does.

Git's terminology descends from BitKeeper, which was explicitly using master/slave: https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2019-May/...

Additionally, I don't think sense 29 actually makes sense here. A "master copy" is immutable. Once somebody burns a master record, that's it — you're done. You make copies from that one because it is deemed "correct" in some sense.

But git branches are not immutable; they are able to be added to at any point. The master branch can be interpreted as collating the work done by all of the other branches: non-master branches do some work, then it gets merged back to `master`. Which means... the master branch is coordinating work done in other branches. And, in many git workflows, work on the master branch itself is discouraged, meaning almost all work is done in separate branches and then the master branch is used to accumulate that work, and is the main reference point to see "the current state of things". I don't think it's a stretch to see why the master/slave relationship seems a more fitting sense of "master" than "master copy".

> Git's terminology descends from BitKeeper, which was explicitly using master/slave

That GNOME mailing list post was retracted the next year[0].

I wrote a summary of the history[1] for Git Rev News, the git developers newsletter. In short, the usage didn't come from BitKeeper, and was intended to mean 'master copy'.

After the article was published, Aaron Kushner from BitKeeper reached out and gave me some more history on the usage of 'slave repository' in that one particular spot in BitKeeper[2]: it was a presentation for a client that was already using master/slave terminology and so the same terms were used in the presentation.

0: https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2020-June...

1: https://git.github.io/rev_news/2020/07/29/edition-65/

2: https://twitter.com/AndrewArdill/status/1350537333292949505

No that's not how it works. You're making up definitions and applying your own meaning. This sort of thinking breaks language entirely. It's along the same lines of saying there are multiple genders and you can make up any on the spot and apply them whenever you feel like. Language doesn't work anymore if you do this.

Expecting others to know what's happening in your own head and getting offended when they don't is absolute insanity. This is why we have language standards.

Language is an entirely human creation with "standards" and definitions that have been changing constantly since humans began creating it. With the internet the english dictionary has been growing at an almost exponential rate.

Not knowing how language works and being mad that it changes LIKE IT'S ALWAYS DONE is absolute insanity. Not being able to handle change is a common problem for a lot of humans, but it doesn't mean the change is at fault, it's your ability to cope with differences as they emerge.

"Language is an entirely human creation with "standards" and definitions that have been changing constantly since humans began creating it."

Your point? Those changes happen as people in the ENTIRE society agree on them. They don't happen because a small minority or some ridiculous elitist in San Francisco pulled it out of his/her/xer ass one day and decided to dictate to everyone what a word means. If we do not agree then you're essentially creating your own language and communication becomes ineffectual.

Equally, one individual doesn't get to dictate what a word means in their own head and expect others to follow along, while accusing them of being bigoted for not doing it. The minority of offended individuals don't get the power to make these decisions.

You do realize languages change (constantly), right? This gives me the sense of someone echoing talking points picked up from spending time listening to reactionary Youtube agitators (especially the gender-focused dogwhistle)

You're making unproven assumptions about which meaning applies to what.

Quick search of definitions of master include (paraphrased slightly for brevity): -(n) person with people working for them -(n) person in charge -(adj) showing great skill -(adj) main/principal -(v) to acquire complete knowledge/skill in something -(v) to overcome (as in one's emotions)

Depending on whether it had a more literal or more abstract genesis, I could see almost all of those variants apply to Master of Science.

Similarly, for master branch -- it could easily be 4 of the 6.

Now add in the fact that these meanings change over time, that they can be coined organically vs. explicitly, and that different early adopters can themselves have different connotations of the meaning in mind.

TLDR: There's nothing simple or clear about the case for removal.

Same meaning, but different context of use is what I think you meant. The context is key in all these discussions. No one thinks 'master' means 'owner of human (black) slaves' in 'Master of Science' any more than they do for Github, yet here we are.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com