I did a deep dive on the origin of "master" in git a while ago when it came up on HN. In that thread, it was often argued that "master" is taken from the record

I did a deep dive on the origin of "master" in git a while ago when it came up on HN. In that thread, it was often argued that "master" is taken from the recording industry (i.e. a master recording), where there are no connections to slavery. Unfortunately, the use of the word "master" recording in the recording industry is usually paired with a "slave" recording, so there does in fact does seem to have a direct origin referencing the history of chattel slavery in the United States if the origin of the term is from the recording industry. Here's that thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26497027 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26497027 While it's still a mystery to me exactly the origin of master in git, what I do know is that the term carries enough weight that my students appreciated me renaming our course repositories from master to main, so I will keep doing it no matter what the origin, as it's really not much of an ask at all, and the result is it makes people feel better.