It doesn't really matter which makes "more sense." You could call it the canon branch, the root branch, the trunk branch, the main branch, the master branch, whatever.

The point is that the word master, in this context, has a different etymology that the word master in say, a database. Now, that might not matter: if you care about changing the name of the branch you probably care about the way the name makes people feel, not the etymology of the word, and perhaps that's a good argument (personally I don't know and don't really care). Nonetheless, the etymology of the word is a factual statement, so I was correcting a poster who was assuming it was an analogy to a different context.

words do matter.. if they didn't, none of us on the thread would be talking about it. You can't splain away how a person from a different group feels or why. What is nice about other SCM systems like Mercurial, Fossil, CVS, SVN.. or basically anything not Git.. is that the language is clear and not offensive to anyone. It really is that simple

No, because root has already an established, clear meaning in Unix world.

I wanted ‘trunk’, like SVN. That ought to be safe, since there's no one speaking for the trees.

I look forward to the tech sector getting into fights with The Lorax, or more seriously, the Sierra Club.

The Lorax would like a word with you.