Subject: Re: [PATCH 6/6] breaking-changes: switch default branch to main

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 03 Sep 2025 11:40:05 -0700

Phillip Wood <[email-masked]> writes:

> When the variable was introduced in 704fed9ea22 (tests: start moving
> to a different default main branch name, 2020-10-23) it was described
> as "This `GIT_TEST_*` variable is meant purely for the transitional
> period while the entire test suite is converted to use `main` as the
> initial branch name by default." The way it has been used is to allow
> tests to continue to hard code a fixed name for the default initial
> branch.

Yes, but ripping it out would mean that you make it much harder to
transition out of 'main' and move to the next correct name when the
need comes, wouldn't it?

> ... like to keep the patches that switch the tests from using
> "master" to "main".

I have no problem with that.  I am still unsure about that "reftable
cares about the name being 'master'" thing.  If that can live with
any 6 byte name, we may want to fix it to something different from
'master', for the sake of removing 'master'.  Perhaps 'banana' or
something?