Removing 'slave' from the vocabulary makes more sense than removing 'master', master is a term that predates its usage in slavery contexts.
Asking (and explaining the logic of main vs master) would be better UX than forcing a new paradigm into contexts where it's not welcome - all of my corpo repos use master; sneaking main into new repos is not helpful.
Words falling out of use and words being taken out of use are two altogether different beasts. I suspect you might be commenting disingenuously, though.
give it a year or two before professional offended people think it's outrageous that there's still projects using master branch, then give it a week before github start giving notice to those projects.
> Did you see that some artist is close to be canceled for saying the most boring stuff?
I see the NY Post is once again running a "here are some random tweets" article of the sort they've been running for years now to fill clickbait space.
> There's a "scandal" like that every other day now...
Yes. That's what tabloids have done for hundreds of years. The NY Post has convinced you Adele is being canceled over a couple of mean @mentions on Twitter from random people with minimal following. You've fallen for it, and might consider what else in the culture war you've gotten stirred up about that isn't as big of a deal as a breathless tabloid article would imply.
This isn't about people having the option just happening to have an option to pick whatever name they want - this is in the context of a massive backlash against the specific use of a specific word, then people being given the option to make that choice under scrutiny or at least with extreme care and taking into account the risk of backlash should they "choose wrong."
> You're free to name a Github branch "master" if you want.
The time me and many other spent finding a solution is not "free", and is not the first time that has happened or will happen.
> Others are free to pick "main". Github's free to pick a default. People are free to infer what they like from your choice.
Until Microsoft and other Big Tech companies decide that they will promote projects and developers who do.Of course they are "free" to do so, but that goes against your argument that people are "free to choose".
> Over time, we figure out which one we, as a society, prefer.
Where did "society" or the git user communities were asked and heard if that was a good idea? The decision came from the bottom up and the discussions that were had were restricted to a few posts (because "we already had that discussion before, flagged/deleted) or were incredibly censored and one-sided with accusations of racism directed at people who were using their real names and work addresses.
I don't like being reminded about racism, murders, looting and shooting in some irrelevant american town every time my build fails because of this inflammatory change by github.
Language evolves via gradual changes in common usage, not by decree from a fringe minority that captured some institution. Anyone who says that this nonsense is an example of normal process of language evolution is a gaslighting liar.
Have you considered the possibility that being all worked up over the default name Github assigns to the first branch in a new repository puts you in "fringe minority" status?
Again, have you actually taken a look at that article?
> “Please, no, ADELE can’t be a TERF,” a “staunch feminist” performer named Jacob told his thousands of Twitter followers.
> “Who’d have thought Adele was a transphobe and would use her platform to call for the destruction of the trans community. Especially the confused teenagers,” another long-time Twitter user posted.
(They had to go with "long-time" for that second one because they've only got 375 followers.)
"We searched up a handful of mean tweets" isn't journalism or indicative of anything except the fact you can always find some mean tweets about someone, and it's a little hard to say Adele is canceled in an article about her winning Artist of the Year...
just watch CNN, CNBC, etc, and tell me that canceling people is not a subject VERY frequently. Whoopi Goldberg is one of the last matter (not master), it's not about some source you don't like, don't be retarded (oops banned word)
Socrates got executed for his speech. "Cancel culture" has been with us since we invented social groups. Monkeys ostracise members of the group on a regular basis. Why do you think "so and so got in trouble for saying something offensive" is a new phenomenon?
I'm very sorry if you can't see how this is getting out of proportion and more and more irrational, it just means you're lacking basic sense of observation and I recommend you to work on that.
And regarding the word "master", do you think a black guy will get offended to get called a masterchief ? a chess master ? no way... It doesn't make any sense. There were hundreds of millions of white slave in history, and still white people don't seem to get concerned by that, because it's not used for "political" matter.
I'm always surprise on HN to see the smartest people falling for the dumbest propaganda.
> it just means you're lacking basic sense of observation and I recommend you to work on that
I will absolutely be willing to take that criticism from someone who hasn't fallen for the NY Post's "Adele is canceled because we found a tweet from someone with 375 followers".
> And regarding the word "master", do you think a black guy will get offended to get called a masterchief ?
If you call your mother "mother", will she be mad? How about "motherfucker"? Compound words change meaning.
Why? CNN and CNBC are viewed by around 1-2 million people during prime time. There are literally Youtubers who do nothing but eat junk food who get more views than CNN [1]. Just because something is a big deal on CNN or Fox News doesn't mean it's actually a big deal.
The fact you give any credence, one way or the other, to what Whoopi Goldberg (???) says is more a reflection of your own values than a reflection of any kind of social collapse or the emergence of some kind of fascist regime. Oh no! An actress on day time television said something her advertisers didn't want her to say and now she's suspended for two weeks! This clearly is in indication of the power Antifa has on the media and our thoughts!
> not by decree from a fringe minority that captured some institution.
They are not a cringe minority. I mean, they are cringe, but not part of any minority, except the self-created ones. Sorry for the wordplay. They a dozen people with no technical skill who tried (and succeeded) into getting some petty power, status, and time on the spotlights by crying "These <insert some extreme word here> FLOSS devs are oppressing me!!", just because FLOSS projects were an easy target (i.e. usually managed by people who are compromising, supportive and that don't like wasting time with non-technical conflict and focus on having a job done).
And we gave up to them, hoping they just go away hunting another easy target (masterworks, MSc degrees, master/apprentices, that master chef TV show, and so), while we pay lip-service to dodge the mob before they come to destroy our projects/jobs/companies/etc.
And, of course, no minority was positively affected by any of this. They are working just like everybody else, because behind a keyboard don't matter which $PERSONAL_CHARACTERISTIC people have, but what they deliver.
We've been openly trying it since at least the 1960s.
The conspiracy nuts claim it's intentionally being used to make targeted natural disasters (and typically throw in chemtrail stuff), which is a very different claim than "we can probably increase rainfall a little bit'.
> its not stealing if people are giving that information out for free
If I leave a pie to cool on my windowsill and you take it it's still stealing even if there was no formal agreement or security measures in place to protect the pie.
Adtech is kind of like that. If I give a calendar app access to my contacts I certainly don't expect it to take that information and use it for tracking, targeting, and marketing purposes as well. For me to "give" you that information for free, you'd have to ask for it honestly. And yet Facebook - an ad tech company - has been fighting this kind of consent in the next iOS patch tooth-and-nail.
> If I leave a pie to cool on my windowsill and you take it it's still stealing even if there was no formal agreement or security measures in place to protect the pie.
At some point, you are going to have to use some sort of force to confine or constrain to prevent the child from engaging in unwanted behavior.
No matter what flowery language or loopy logic you use to avoid the subject, you are applying force.
Is it better to have well-thought out uses of force instead of just hitting the kid when they make you angry? Of course. But don't pretend that living in the world requires no discipline at all.
"well-thought out uses of force" was certainly a part of school life in the post-war years, yet it couldn't stop teenagers, rock'n'roll, mini-skirts and hippies.
We are not talking about "no discipline at all", we are talking about violence against your children. Humans you brought into the world and you shouldn't have done that if you hit them.
This one's obvious. I've gotten ads ON OTHER PEOPLE'S DEVICES targeting me (a habitual blocker of ads). They were very industry specific and I was hanging out with people that would have nothing to do with that industry.
Don't forget psych evaluations - with the implication that they should be found unfit for release. This one is a favorite of "cops" that don't actually have authority to arrest people or no probable cause for it.
This is an amazing DFW essay and probably one of the only places that notes American Black English as an actual entity and a tricky issue to deal with, especially as an educator.
The (also legitimate) argument is that freedom of speech should extend to privately-owned de facto commons, and is a concept beyond the enumeration in the American Bill of Rights.
I agree there is a problem with private corporations that control publishing platforms with such a large reach. Twitter and Facebook are really the only ones at the moment with that power (in the "anglosphere" at least).
However, for laws to be created that force them to publish posts that fall under "free speech" their algorithms must be fully open and auditable. Otherwise they still hold the power to sensor, or their algorithms could be covertly gamed by those in the know.
Otherwise your speech might not be the same, or as free as mine, but who would know?
Asking (and explaining the logic of main vs master) would be better UX than forcing a new paradigm into contexts where it's not welcome - all of my corpo repos use master; sneaking main into new repos is not helpful.