[Aptitude-devel] Rebasing published software and avoid git revert/merge

[Florian Schlichting]

Hi Daniel,

>   C'--E stable-0.6 (0.6.8.1, unstable/testing)
>  /
> A---B---C---D master (0.6.9.1, experimental)
> 
> I wish to make stable-0.6 the new master while avoiding a merge or
> revert+merge on master (the difference between them is quite large).
 
[...]

> I realise that deleting master and republishing will disrupt
> developers the next time they git pull.

and I think that's a Bad Thing, generally.

Have you considered keeping branch names as they are, and setting
git-debian-branch (and git-upstream-branch) in debian/gbp.conf /
.gbp.conf?

Alternatively, you could revert the entirety of A..master and then
cherry-pick (or rebase, or merge) A..stable-0.6 onto that and call it
master. That way, you preserve linear history and still have a master
branch identical to stable-0.6.

Or is that exactly what you were trying to avoid, and I haven't
understood why? You can squash all reverts into a single commit, and a
merge would be a second commit, and that's the same regardless of the
amount of changed lines...

Florian