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I always thought about it as the "vinyl master" analogy as well but it looks like it has a master/slave origin from the Bitkeeper days.

https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2019-May/...

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Honestly, why does it matter where the word comes from? Virtually no one ever used a git master branch thinking about slavery and not the "vinyl master" analogy. Shouldn't that be the actual meaning that is worth evaluating? Language evolves over time, the "master" in the git context doesn't have any reference anymore (in meaning) to the master/slave (which is a stupid wording to be honest) from bitkeeper. A soft proof to that is that every time that discussion occurs, you have lot of comments expressing their confusion given that the word in git context is actually used as a "master record".

Interesting, thanks for finding that. I wasn't aware of that.

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