Following GitHub and Bitbucket, the GitLab collaborative development platform announced to discontinue the default use of the word “master” for main branches in favor of the word “main”. The term “master” has recently been considered politically incorrect, reminiscent of slavery and is perceived by some community members as an insult.
The change will be made both in the GitLab.com service and after updating the GitLab platform for local use. The new name will be used when creating new projects. GitLab 13.11, slated for April 22nd, will have a flag to optionally replace the master branch name, but by default new projects will continue to use the master name.
In GitLab 14.0, expected on May 22nd, the name main will be used by default for all projects that are created.
In case of updating existing systems to GitLab 14.0, in new projects created through the web interface, the name main will also be used by default. In the case of using continuous integration systems, it may be necessary to change the scripts and settings of hard-coded links to master. Users can optionally return the master name via the default branch name setting.