Sylhare
Reputation: 7109
What is the origin of the name 'master' as default branch name?
I am seeing that the new name for the git default branch will be changed from master to main And that made me wonder:
- Where did that master name come from?
I did not find anything about it on the git documentation, and was wondering if somebody had some answers or some archives/anecdotes on this naming decision.
I'd like to trace the origin of the name.
Upvotes: 0
Views: 738
Answers (1)
VonC
Reputation: 1328122
As mentioned in the mailing list
- The first appearance of "
master" in Git is in a CVS helper script by Linus, May 2005 (actually commit 3c4347c by Petr Baudis, Apr. 2005):- Why is that branch called
master? Probably because BitKeeper uses "master" for its main branch (with a master-slave terminology)
And from "Git Origin Story", Linus Torwalds used BitKeeper before switching and developing Git.
The result was "Allow overriding the default name of the default branch".
Upvotes: 4
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