[ClusterLabs Developers] Pacemaker 2.1.0: Should we rename the master branch?

Fabio M. Di Nitto fabbione at fabbione.net
Mon Oct 19 05:19:19 UTC 2020


Hi Ken,

On 10/2/2020 8:02 PM, Digimer wrote:
> On 2020-10-02 1:12 p.m., Ken Gaillot wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I sent a message to the users at clusterlabs.org list about releasing
>> Pacemaker 2.1.0 next year.
>>
>> Coincidentally, there is a plan in the git and Github communities to
>> change the default git branch from "master" to "main":
>>
>>   https://github.com/github/renaming
>>
>> The rationale for the change is not the specific meaning as used in
>> branching, but rather to avoid any possibility of fostering an
>> exclusionary environment, and to replace generic metaphors with
>> something more obvious (especially to non-native English speakers).

No objections to the change, but please let´s coordinate the change 
across all HA projects at once, or CI is going to break badly as the 
concept of master branch is embedded everywhere and not per-project.

Since we are admin of all repositories, we can do it in one shot without 
too much pain and suffering in CI. It will require probably a day or two 
of CI downtime to rebuild the world as well.

Fabio

>>
>> The change would not affect existing repositories/projects. However I
>> am wondering if we should take the opportunity of the minor-version
>> bump to do the same for Pacemaker. The impact on developers would be a
>> one-time process for each checkout/fork:
>>
>>   https://wiki.clusterlabs.org/wiki/Pacemaker_2.1_Changes#Development_changes
>>
>> In my opinion, this is a minor usage that many existing projects will
>> not bother changing, but I do think that since all new projects will
>> default to "main", sometime in the future any project still using
>> "master" will appear outdated to young developers.
>>
>> We could use "main" or something else. Some projects are switching to
>> names like "release", "stable", or "next" depending on how they're
>> actually using the branch ("next" would be appropriate in Pacemaker's
>> case).
>>
>> This will probably go on for years, so I am fine with either changing
>> it with 2.1.0 (since it has bigger changes than usual, and we can get
>> ahead of the curve) or waiting until the dust settles and future
>> conventions are clearer.
>>
>> Opinions?
> 
> I support this change whole heatedly. I'll leave it to others to decide
> what new word is best (though 'main' makes sense to me), but the goal of
> moving away from 'master/slave' is well worthwhile and appreciated.
> 



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