GitHub replacing terms to avoid slavery references

GitHub is showing its support for Black Lives Matter protests by changing certain terms. GitHub CEO announced on Twitter that the company is working on the change. The term, “master” is expected to be replaced with “main/default/primary” and the term “slave” will probably be “secondary” from now on. The change also includes terms such as “blacklist” and “whitelist” which will be referred to as the “allow list” and “deny list” in the near future. GitHub didn’t make any official statement about the terms that will be changed.

Unnecessary references to slavery

Google Chrome developer Una Kravets also tweeted that the Chrome project is working on a similar change and asked GitHub to join the change. The duo will probably drive the change across the tech industry. However, GitHub, nor Google is the first company to work on such change. In 2014 The Drupal project decided to replace the master and slave terms with primary and replica. Google Chrome developer Una Kravets also tweeted,

1. “Main” is shorter! Yay brevity!
2. It’s even easier to remember, tbh
3. If it makes any of my teammates feel an ounce more comfortable, let’s do it!
4. If it prevents even a single black person from feeling more isolated in the tech community, feels like a no brainer to me!