History? In the days before books were common stories were not told from written pages but memory. This allowed stories to change and adapt on the storytellers whims (or forgetfulness). Eventually they were ossified in books, of which many people think they are the 'canon'.

Perhaps "canon" means something other than "you can't change a story."

I made it up. It's an opinion

The latest commit where the master branch finds itself in isn't any more "true" or genuine than the first commit in history, nor the commits on a fork, nor the commit on branch-1, nor the commit on branch-2

If it's all fiction anyway there is no truth out there for the map to be compared against. All permutations are real, all maps are the territory

I do find it amusing, however, that depending on context people consider the first commit in history to be canon, while on other cases they prefer the newest commit approved by the Authority™