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

[Amin Bandali]

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

[Amin Bandali]

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]

Hi again folks,

This is [mostly] done now: except for the repos listed below that were
either empty or had a default branch other than 'debian/master', the
'debian/master' branch for all other gnome-team repos has been renamed
to 'debian/latest', the new branch name set as the default branch, and
the old branch effectively archived (using branch protection rules to
disallow pushes). Similarly for 'ubuntu/master' to 'ubuntu/latest'.

Further, the target branch for all open merge requests that targeted
'debian/master' has been updated to 'debian/latest'.

The scripts (and corresponding outputs) used for making these changes
are available under: https://people.ubuntu.com/~bandali/gnome-team/

Finally, here are the repos that were skipped by the script - I plan
to have a closer look at these through this week and potentially make
similar changes for them where appropriate:

foliate
folks
gir-rust-code-generator
gnome-font-downloader
gnome-kiosk
gnome-shell-extension-alphabetical-grid
gnome-shell-extension-arc-menu
gnome-shell-extension-dash-to-panel
gnome-shell-extension-disconnect-wifi
gnome-shell-extension-freon
gnome-shell-extension-gamemode
gnome-shell-extension-harddisk-led
gnome-shell-extension-hide-activities
gnome-shell-extension-hide-veth
gnome-shell-extension-impatience
gnome-shell-extension-move-clock
gnome-shell-extension-multi-monitors
gnome-shell-extension-no-annoyance
gnome-shell-extension-pixelsaver
gnome-shell-extension-refreshwifi
gnome-shell-extension-remove-dropdown-arrows
gnome-shell-extension-system-monitor
gnome-shell-extension-tiling-assistant
gnome-shell-extension-tilix-dropdown
gnome-shell-extension-tilix-shortcut
gnome-shell-extension-trash
gnome-shell-extension-volume-mixer
gnome-themes
gtuber
libhandy
libmediaart
mozjs
passes-gtk
utils