Instead, it's "master" as in "master/proxy". The forked branches are altered copies of an original. We have remastered movies, music and games, and I've never seen anyone complain about the word in this context. Why should version control systems be any different?

[–] Sibshops@lemmy.myserv.one 2 points 1 hour ago

I feel master as in "master copy" is sort of problematic too. Git has no concept of "master" as a "master copy". All the clones and forks are the same fidelity as the original. It's a hold over from source control which did have an authoritative repo like SVN/CVS.

[–] zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 8 points 14 hours ago (3 children)

People think it's "master" as in "master/slave", but forked branches are not "slaves".

I think they're just uncomfortable with the word "master", and that seems completely reasonable to me, especially when they're people from a group which has been subjected to slavery.

[–] NostraDavid@programming.dev 9 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I think they’re just uncomfortable with the word “master”

1 person over at Microsoft complained, and they moved mountains for this person to replace master with main. It sounds like a joke, but it's not.

and that seems completely reasonable to me

No it doesn't. Why does an entire industry need to flip over, because of a single person? Like the ability of changing the master branch for yourself should have been enough. Changing the default over on Github to strong-arm the rest of the world is disgusting behaviour. Which is why I'm sticking to master wherever I can.

especially when they’re people from a group which has been subjected to slavery.

That is literally every group... Every group has been slaves (and slavers) at some point in time. That's not a good argument.

[–] 1rre@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 7 hours ago

I don't recall any actual person saying they had an issue with it before corporations started changing it though, I always thought it was a precautionary measure more than likely thought up by a committee looking for exactly this sort of thing...

That said, it may be different in the US given the history of overall more systemic discrimination, and divisiveness over what's acceptable, rather than the fairly widely accepted casual slur-slinging and stereotyping you get in Europe.

[–] whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

Yeah I don't think anyone was called a remaster, different words even if they share the same root

Also master/slave was used in tech for awhile not just for forked branches, a couple examples are https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E88353_01/html/E37855/scsi-slave-9f.html in SCSI interfaces and replication systems like those used with databases https://jira.mariadb.org/plugins/servlet/mobile#issue/MDEV-18777

[–] LwL@lemmy.world 2 points 31 minutes ago

The original audio after mastering is also still called a master, but I haven't seen anyone complain about that. And that (as well as the same meaning for other media) is the word that the branch name master came from, so etymology can't really be an argument there (though I also think etymology is terrible reasoning for renaming something in general).