Re: master 11abc4a: Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/scratch/lexical-gnus' into trunk

[Tassilo Horn]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
> Would someone please tell me what "remote tracking" means, concretely?
> What does that branch do?

You most probably have at least the branches origin/master and master in
your local git checkout.  The origin/master branch is a remote-tracking
branch because it tracks the state of the corresponding master branch on
the origin (savannah) side.  That means, it'll be updated whenever you
run "git fetch" and represents the exact state of the master branch on
savannah of the last "git fetch".

Your master branch is basically a copy of origin/master which is not
automatically updated unless you tell it using "git pull" (or by merging
or rebasing onto origin/master).  That is, it may be less current than
origin/master and may also diverge from in in which case you need to
merge or rebase in order to be allowed push.

Bye,
Tassilo