#1482 Git and branch naming

There is no need for any special tool to make such a change – and the linked news only refers to options for specifying the default branch name when creating a new repository, which is not applicable to us.

All we need is

git branch -m master newcoolname

So we should simply find a more broadly acceptable branch name and go for it. My preference would be live because it is short and reminds people to be careful with the branch; alternatively, if live is objectionable, production would also remind people to be careful, but that would be a bit lengthy for my taste.

GitHub is standardizing on main and probably the rest of the world will follow, something to do with the network effect. So from a convention standpoint that will be my preference.

@repentinus I do however very much like your suggestion of live because it tells what it is about. It is easy enough to configure a different branch as default in the git tooling like Gitea, so that shouldn't be an obstacle.

I am fine with main, but any name would do. However, my biggest worry is not the technical obstacle but the social. We need to inform everyone who's working on the Git repo, also the nontechnical people. They need to adapt their own docu, perhaps change aliases etc.

Actually they do not. Your default local branch does not have to be named the same as the remote default branch. They just need to update their remotes to point to the renamed branch.

That's what I mean. Please search for the word master in our official docu ;)

@max.mehl if we decide to change the name. An sed command on the wiki server will do just fine. :)

Only if you get everyone else to git branch -M main locally.

Since this is a potentially disruptive change requiring documentation rewrites, I suggest doing it at the same time with other such changes (like #1707).