Re: Renaming main git branches from debian/master to debian/latest

Hi all,

Just a quick reminder/heads-up that tomorrow I plan to proceed with
renaming of the default branch of all of the gnome-team repos from
debian/master to debian/latest (and ubuntu/master to ubuntu/latest
where applicable), and archive the old ones afterwards (by adding
branch protection rules so they can no longer be pushed to).

Best,
-a

Amin Bandali writes:

> Hi folks,
>
> Jeremy (Cc'd) and I propose to rename the main git development branch
> for Debian GNOME team from 'debian/master' to 'debian/latest', and
> similarly from 'ubuntu/master' to 'ubuntu/latest' where they exist.
>
> Rationale
> ---------
>
> - This aligns with the 2020 update to DEP-14.
>
> - debian/latest would also parallel upstream/latest, which we use for
>   our git-buildpackage workflow.
>
> - This follows the industry-wide efforts towards deprecation of the
>   term 'master' where possible.
>
> Implementation details
> ----------------------
>
> We believe it would be best if we make this change across all of our
> repositories under the gnome-team group on Salsa, on a single day.
>
> We propose to do this on Monday, 4 September 2023.
>
> Once the change is carried out, you'd need to manually checkout the
> debian/latest branch or just do a new 'gbp clone' to continue working
> on gnome-team packages.
>
> GitHub added a feature to simplify renaming branches, but GitLab
> doesn't have this yet.  So, to automate this, we can use sed, git
> itself, and the glab CLI tool by GitLab to make the following changes:
>
> 1. Change debian-branch in debian/gbp.conf from 'debian/master' to
>    'debian/latest'.  This will cause many gbp commands to fail until
>    the user switches to the debian/latest branch, so it's a helpful
>    hint.
>
> 2. Push that change to both debian/master and debian/latest.
>
> 3. Update each repo's settings on Salsa to use debian/latest as the
>    default branch.
>
> 4. Update each repo's settings on Salsa to "protect" debian/master to
>    prevent any future pushes to the branch, effectively archiving it.
>
> 5. If ubuntu/master exists, follow similar steps as 1, 2, and 4.
>
> 6. Update the gnome-team group settings on Salsa to use debian/latest
>    as the default branch for new projects (repos) going forward.
>
> I have written a small script, git-debian-latest.sh, to carry out
> steps 1 through 5.  You can find it attached to this message.
>
> I welcome and appreciate your feedback/suggestions, and I would be
> happy to try and address any questions or concerns you may have.
>
> Thanks,
> -a
>
>
> References
> ----------
>
> https://dep-team.pages.debian.net/deps/dep14/
> https://github.com/github/renaming
> https://inclusivenaming.org
> https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/cli