Microsoft’s Github to move away from terms like ‘master’, ‘slave’ to back Black Lives Matter movement

Microsoft's GitHub, that provides hosting for software development is working towards removing coding terms like 'master' and 'slave' in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.On Thursday, GitHub CEO Nat Friedman replied to a tweet from Una Kravets, director of product design at Bustle Digital Group, stating that the tech community is taking steps to rename certain terms like 'master' to 'main'.[caption id="attachment_8489671" align="alignnone" width="1280"]

GitHub[/caption]

"If it prevents even a single black person from feeling more isolated in the tech community, feels like a no brainer to me!" Kravets further tweeted. According to a report in BBC, recent years have seen a number of major projects trying to move away from such language.Google's Chromium web browser project and Android operating system too have urged developers to move away from terms like 'blacklist' and 'whitelist', the report stated, adding that Chromium's documentation currently calls for 'racially neutral' language instead.A CNET report states that in programming, 'master' can refer to a main version of a software project.The report mentions that amid global protests in response to the deaths of black civilians like George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade and others, well-known tech companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft have spoken up about the need of having racial justice.According to a report in ZDNet, a number of projects that include OpenSSL encryption software library, Ansible, Microsoft's PowerShell scripting language, the P5.js JavaScript library, among others are looking towards changing the name of their default source code to stamp terms that have racial and slavery-related connotations.