Main vs master source code

What is the difference between the main and master head that has appeared?

squat

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Interesting, in one mail tread the world will go under if we have “bad names” in the branches.
And in another mail tread in April/May 2003 our politically correct branch names are an active part of the war effort and defense industry.

I assume that you are referring to this post.

Yea, but someone has removed his post above my answer…

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Unless I missed it thru navigating all the mailing list URLs - the reasoning was just implied by everyone in the conversation as if it's common knowledge and understood.

Are these changes taking place because the term "master" supposedly has "politically incorrect" connotations?

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Yes.
See discussion in

And discussion actually originated in 2021:

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Since I still didn't read the correct answer...

They have the same exact commit. Main is the new default branch, master is there to handle breakage in downstream project and permit an easy migration. Master is scheduled to be dropped after a transition period still to be defined.

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If I remember right this question originate from the black-life-matters movement where colonial and slavery words got kind of politically forbidden. And that moved then somehow to source code and computer-systems should stop having master-slave setup.

So now we have two parallel main/master source code branches that no one knows which one to use and we still doesn’t have a plan how to actually drop the master branch?

Interesting.

So the software engineering term "master" was agreed by the developers (albeit by a close vote) to change - because it invokes/sustains notions of human slavery and misogyny in the project. OK, gotcha. TBH, I didn't even consider the misogyny part until reading the 2021 post.

True. While I don't mind the sunglasses, if I were being critical (I'm not) - I'd say the historically/textually inaccurate avatar could promote exclusivity. That's what I thought when I first saw it.

So..."squat" was incorrect?

I saw that response here: https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt/issues/12717#issuecomment-1562051680

And here: https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt/issues/12717#issuecomment-1562609177

(Please be inclusive of everyone who responded - I think this is the bigger issue. @anomeome's answer was definitely valid.)

@hnyman - Thanks for your response - it was enlightening.

@Ansuel - So can you expound from your point of view?

(now I see the avatar - I thought there was a discussion years ago about asking that to be changed, interesting, but no biggie to me)

Really!?!?

Well I won't get into that - as there's more than meets the eye there (from actually asking/inquiring/being approached by 2 Regional Coordinators from random meetings unrelated to that issue/cause, i.e. Information Technology).*

*- I will say one consulted me when they were listed nationally as a "missing child" - when they were very much an adult.

I know one people still use terms under their breath, especially here in the Southern US (i.e. if they spoke it, it's still in their brain - that's the worry, and that's hard to change).

First I heard - although I'm now reading it as I search the web. Now I need to add history of terms to some of the upper-level classes I teach...OK.

Well I sit here and thinking about how this will end up when they find the hardwired communication systems in the world that have master-slave setup and how they are supposed to be included in the new inclusive communication systems.

And where does it end once it started? Are we supposed to erase all code including Z or V soon also?

And ‘if’ must go because that implies “either of something” and not all being included.

And binary is way off the politically correct way because that is only two.

And encryption isn’t including either, how are the government supposed to see anything if encryption is used.

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You should tread carefully. You can’t be sure it’s actually Jesus — he’s wearing sunglasses after all… :sunglasses:

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We debate master/main on GitHub whilst @Ansuel's avatar, which is something that will certainly offend some, is ignored. This is a developer and not a regular user. That goes to show for me how ridiculous the entire thing is.

When I was a child the saying 'political correctness gone mad' used to funny. But sadly things have gotten so out of hand now that this movement is no longer funny.

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If you have a problem with someone's avatar I think that you should take that issue outside of this topic, since you're insisting to bring offtopic into it.
If you have anything else to say regarding the subject of this topic please do so.
But, consider that the topic is already marked as solved and the "issue" explained.
If I were you, I'd refrain from dragging this topic into something else with offtopic crap.

Just a note:
Source revision traditionally uses sort of a tree analogy, and there speaking of a master branch makes little sense, trunk or main branch seem better fitting descriptions...

The software engineering (and other) communities are moving towards more descriptive terms that are also more inclusive. OpenWrt is, likewise, adopting the word main in place of master. In fact, it's not just software -- real estate is also shifting such that there is a main or primary bedroom/bathroom.

Like any transition, it will take time to completely shift the language and references (need another example: OpenWrt has been transitioning to DSA vs swconfig -- different syntax for addressing the same devices -- for the past 2 releases).

Unlike some changes that are purely technical in nature, this is one (of many) that aims to remove potentially offensive and/or antiquated terms from everyday use and adopt new language that is much more neutral and/or is more descriptive (another such example: whitelist and blacklist is now often referred to as allow-list and deny-list which very specifically describes the purpose of a list). Obviously not everyone will agree about what is offensive, but this particular forum is not the place for debating political and social topics.

The OpenWrt forum is an inclusive community with a simple goal and limited scope - provide support for the users and developers of OpenWrt firmware (and closely related networking related topics).

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