Re: [PATCH/RFC 2/3] git-fetch: Split fetch and merge logic

Santi Béjar [off-list ref] writes:

git-fetch fetches the branches from the remote and saves this
information in .git/FETCH_FETCHED, and at the end it generates
the file .git/FETCH_HEAD.

There are two cases where the behaviour is changed:

1) branch.*.merge no longer must exactly match the remote part
   of the branch fetched. Both are expanded in full (as refs/heads/...)
   and matched afterwards.

How hard would it be to fix this?  I see this as a regression.
If you are setting configuration, wouldn't you rather see the
behaviour consistent even when remote adds new refs?

2) When the remote is specified with $GIT_DIR/branches/... and there is
   a branch.*.merge, the remote branch name must match to get them merged.
   Before the branch in $GIT_DIR/branches/... was always merged.

I do not think the current $GIT_DIR/branches/ support with
respect to choosing which remote branch to choose was done with
any deep thinking, other than to stay backward compatible, so I
would not put too much trust in what is in the documentation.
At the same time, I personally can be pursuaded to go either
way, exactly because I do not think the current behaviour has
strict reasoning behind it.

However, I wonder how this change would affect existing setups
people may have.

Merging this at this moment would be a pain even if there were
no downsides, as there are a few topics that want to touch
parse-remote and fetch (two already in 'pu', and git-bundle
series also wants to hook into git-fetch); these topics would
need to get adjusted if this clean-up goes in first.