Following in the wake of the growing Black Lives Matter movement in the US, GitHub has said it is working to replace the word “master” on its services with neutral terms like “main” to avoid unnecessary associations with slavery.




“Master” and “slave” will be replaced with “main/default/primary” and “secondary”. Whitelist and blacklist will be replaced with Allow List and deny/exclude list.



As it happened, Una Kravets went viral on Twitter on June 12, suggesting that Github would replace the word “master” on its service with a neutral term like “main.” She also explained why:

  • Main is shorter and to the point!

  • Easier to remember;

  • If it makes any of my teammates feel comfortable, let’s do it!

  • It doesn’t even make black people feel more isolated in tech;



GitHub’s CEO responded: “Great idea, we’re already working on it!”



Gabriel Csapo, a software engineer at LinkedIn, said on Twitter that he, too, was making a request to update Microsoft’s internal library and remove any racist phrases.


Several open source projects are currently changing the name of their default Git repository from “master” to alternative names such as main, Default, Primary, root, or other names.



The developers of the React Refresh Webpack Plugin have changed Master to ‘Main’, but another programmer has been merciless: my projects have crashed since you changed it to Main.


In git context, he says, the word “master” is used differently than “master/slave.” I never knew there was a “slave” in it. In an existing project, was it worth the time and effort to change all the programs, including books, tutorials and blogs, to keep up?


Do you think the word “master” needs to be changed?