I used to share your perspective that this isn't worth getting up-in-arms about until recently (ahem, GitHub) when this kind of political correctness has been enforced to ridiculous levels.

I might sound over cynical in the following but, in as much good faith as I can muster, let me explain why I find this annoying:

> What's the downside? Is it really so hard to type "main" instead of "master"?

This might be a bit specific to GitHub but consider that it's not so much about _typing_ "main" vs master but more about all the automation scripts that will break just so some company can signal their virtue.

Maybe invoking a bogey man here but I would really HATE it if that recovery script that's been known to work for ages suddenly fails to work in one of those 2AM emergencies that always happen just because `NODE_ASSIGN_SLAVE` has been renamed to `NODE_ASSIGN_SECONDARY` without backwards compatibility.

> why not just say ok and be done with it?

This is put succinctly by another (sarcastic) comment here: "I guess we'll call this a win and continue to ignore the root of the problem". I would argue that people who legitimately care about the social issues changes like these claim to address should also be wary about this over-political correctness, else they risk failing to achieve the actual changes they clamor for inn exchange for all the low-hanging fruit.

The problem with shallow CSR lip-service like this is that it is distracting and cheapens the conversation on the issue. And by embracing cheap talk we are letting entities (not necessarily pointing at anyone) get away from taking actual and meaningful action to address the problem. These virtue-signalling changes allow these companies to have something to show for in terms of social responsibility without actually doing the difficult bits that would actually matter.

Because I realize GitHub is now part of Microsoft, let me point out that it costs them next to nothing to change the terminology used in their products but meanwhile, they make money off "innocuous" product offerings like bleeding-edge facial recognition without second thought. Who cares that it is invasive to privacy or can be used to exacerbate discrimination against at-risk social groups, so long as it does not use the term "master" right? (Correct me if I'm wrong and being over-cynical and that Microsoft has dropped these contracts. One of the few times I would really love to be proven wrong.)

Acknowledging that this thread is about Linux, specifically, which is non-profit. The points above might not apply to them.

> ultimately it's a big bikeshed that people want to paint. Why not let them?

In conclusion, as you've invoked the bike shed imagery anyway, the problem with this is the same as any other bikeshedding argument: we can paint the bike sheds but meanwhile the police who are supposed to protect the village are held to no accountability which is actually the reason why we called this homeowner's meeting in the first place isn't it?

How about we paint the bike sheds once we've held the police accountable? Those bike sheds aren't killing anyone, aren't discriminating, and I'm just wary that the conversation will stop because we've appeased the reward centers of our brains because we've already "achieved something" through the bike sheds. It would be absurd that in the minutes of the meeting on police brutality the resolution would be "We painted bike sheds!".

Besides all that time we leisurely spend painting those damn bike sheds can actually be used for more productive things, not necessarily on the social activism front.