git sending messages to stderr on MacOS 10.8

From: Thomas Robitaille <thomas.robitaille@gmail.com>
Date: Mar 16, 2014, 09:15 UTC
Message-ID: <CAGMHX_2pdQPbHEkpbtSxnFS+GRn1Uiy8CCK6CPWqhidbE4aSmw@mail.gmail.com>

I am using git version 1.8.4.2 installed on Mac using MacPorts. When e.g. cloning a repository, the cloning message is being sent to stderr, but I think it should be sent to stdout:

    In [8]: p = subprocess.Popen('git clone
git://github.com/embray/astropy'.split(), stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
stderr=subprocess.PIPE)

    In [9]: p.stdout.read()
    Out[9]: ''

    In [10]: p.stderr.read()
    Out[10]: "Cloning into 'astropy'...\n"

Is this expected behavior, or a bug?

Thanks, Tom