Re: 'next'ed --allow-unrelated-histories could cause lots of grief

From: Joey Hess <id@joeyh.name>
Date: Apr 21, 2016, 22:57 UTC
Message-ID: <20160421225739.GA7508@kitenet.net>
In-Reply-To: <20160421185528.GJ23764@onerussian.com>

Yaroslav Halchenko wrote:

> - for git-annex (Joey was CCed from the beginning, not sure if annex
>   would be affected though), it would be merging of git-annex
>   branches while joining multiple annexes for the sync (e.g. by git
>   annex assistant).

Not entirely accurate (git-annex merges its git-annex branches using a custom merge method and not involving git-merge). The actual use case is two users (or one user with two devices) each with a git-annex repository who decide to share their files by combining the two repositories. This is pretty far from the kernel world, so it's not like bisection is something they care about.

However, I also see --allow-unrelated-histories as very useful to prevent many foot-shooting maneuvers. Especially when a repository has special-purpose branches, like git-annex's git-annex branch, or other branches that are never intended to be merged into master. It's a not entirely uncommon mistake for users to merge in such a branch, and the users who make such a mistake often don't know enough git to easily recover from it.

Junio C Hamano wrote:

>   merge: GIT_MERGE_ALLOW_UNRELATED_HISTORIES environment

I hope this patch lands, it will save me a lot of bother.

-- 
see shy jo