By quick glance at their repository branches, it doesn't seem like they're using any kind of dev/el/op branch what makes me think that their development might have been happening in master branch (mind, this is me guessing without any knowledge about NPM's development process, so I might be totally and utterly wrong) and this could lead to some issues from people, who would expect master to be always-correct-and-working branch with all the newest and possibly breaking changes happening somewhere else.

It's probably to prevent any association with slavery (i.e. "master" owns slaves)

(Personally, I think `latest` conveys the intended meaning with more clarity, but I don't like the way Node/npm deals with language and community conduct)

Now that's just ridiculous.

This kind of thinking has no place in serious software development.

"Spending 30 seconds renaming a branch saves us potential PR issues" is somehow dangerous thinking?

They didn't say dangerous, they said ridiculous and it is a ridiculous guess. I don't really agree with "This kind of thinking has no place in serious software development." part but the assertion that the change is "probably to prevent any association with slavery" is ridiculous.

It's not a crazy assertion.

https://github.com/django/django/pull/2692

I don't see a reason to get all fussed about a terminology change that hurts no one and prevents upset, though.

In addition to the link ceejayoz posted, here are some other instances of this complaint:

https://www.drupal.org/node/2275877

https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-buildbot/issues/2

https://github.com/antirez/redis/issues/3185

I just mentioned it because I notice a greater sensitivity about language in the npm community, e.g. never using gendered language.

I don't share the view that "master" somehow endorses or minimizes slavery.

My speculation: it matches the dist tag.