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While the first that comes in mind is the "master copy" terminology of the recording industry, git's "master" terminology in fact comes from BitKeeper. In BitKe

While the first that comes in mind is the "master copy" terminology of the recording industry, git's "master" terminology in fact comes from BitKeeper. In BitKeeper, there are apparently master and slave branches, where master refers to the source of truth where all the slaves pull their info from. https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/474419/does-the-term-master-in-git-the-vc-system-refer-to-slavery https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/474419/does-the-... I personally like "main" as the replacement. Clear, concise and as you say, feels natural too.

leaflets2 5y ago
Interesting, couldn't have guessed Hmm there's also something about he who picked the name (which wasn't Linus apparently) meant "master" as in e.g. "master recording", see the Twitter tweets in the comments to that answer. And that he doesn't remember if maybe he was influenced by BitKeeper, was 15 years ago
- npteljes 5y ago
  Since there's no "slave" in git (the master is not special, simply the default branch when creating a repo), and there's the already established terminology of "master copy" or "master recording", it makes sense to not associate git's terminology usage with slavery. I originally posted the BitKeeper story because I had no idea either.
  - leaflets2 5y ago
    Ok then I understand better what you were saying :-)