[draft] Announce renaming master to main

source/blog/2020-06-16-rspec-branching-strategy.md

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+---
+title: RSpec Branching Strategy
+author: Jon Rowe
+---
+
+# The short version.
+
+RSpec repositories will deprecate the use of `master` for the default branch
+name. We will wait for a consensus on the new name for the default branch,
+in particular what new default is chosen by Github.
+
+If no other consensus is arrived at by 1st of August, `master` will be
+renamed `main`. At that point all development effort will be based off
+the new branch name, and use of `master` will illicit a warning on install
+/ usage. All open PRs will be rebased.
+
+# The long version.
+
+RSpec's source code is hosted on Github. By default git, and thus Github has
+historically used `master` as the name of the default, or main branch. This
+term has sat uneasily on the minds of the team and with the recent community
+led moves to eliminate this terminology from our technology stacks, we are going
+to follow suit and rename this branch.
+
+We currently favour `main` as the new name (it has shared muscle memory with
+the old) but we also recognise that having community consensus around a
+default name is important as it reduces the amount of surprise encountered by
+developers. So we will wait for the community to settle on a new default name,
+in particular for Github to change their default, but if none has been
+announced by 1st August we will use `main`.
+
+We already have other branches in use for stable versions (e.g.
+`3-9-maintenance`) and they will be unaffected.
+
+Some people will believe this is an inconvience because `master` is used for
+lots of things, but the term has its origins in the dominance of one person
+over another, in particular in slavery and this change is about being
+inclusive to all people.
+
+## Implications
+
+We have always encouraged the use of our main branch for getting pre-release
+features before we release them as a group of gems, this means there are likely
+people using the `master` branch via their Gemfiles. We will deprecate
+`master` by means of notice in the documentation, and possibly a post install
+/ on usage message from RSpec itself warning of the fact the branch will
+become stale and not be updated further. Additionally we will look at
+using branch protection rules preventing PRs against `master` from that date.
+
+## Steps we intend to take.
+
+1. Push `master` to `main` (or other new branch name).
+2. Rebase all open PRs and update our builds.
+3. Set the default to `main` (etc) for all RSpec repositories.
+4. Push change deprecating `master` to `master`.
+5. In the future (possibly when releasing RSpec 4) remove `master`.