RE: Files different for me

That sounds ideal. However, I don't understand the specific steps you mention. Looking in the help for git-config,

	branch.<name>.rebase

		When true, rebase the branch <name> on top of the
fetched branch, 
		instead of merging the default branch from the default
remote when 
		"git pull" is run. NOTE: this is a possibly dangerous
operation; 
		do not use it unless you understand the implications 
		(see git-rebase(1) for details).

So, assuming you are working on the "master" branch, this will rebase the pulled content on top of the existing "master" rather than merging. If my local changes are committed to "master" first, then this will take all the commits from other developers that I don't already have in my local copy and apply them on top of my existing (including Local Changes). But since those will now be different commits, what happens next time? Ah, "...which introduce the same textual changes..." so that's covered in how rebase works.

But this will have Local Changes present, and different commits (with the same textual changes) in my branch. So what happens when I "push"?

	Oldstuff--A--B--C  remote
	       \
	        LC--X--Y  mine

LC is "Local Changes", X and Y are changes I made, and A, B, C are changes from other developers.

After a fetch, I have:

	Oldstuff--LC--X--Y--A'--B'--C'  mine

So what happens when I "push"?

In any case, the whole point is that I don't want to publish LC.