Re: git-fetch will leave a ref pointing to a tag

Why not do 'git branch temp v2.6.22-rc7' to begin with? Or even better: 
git checkout -b temp v2.6.22-rc7.

In my case, it was the "master" branch; I couldn't remember if I'd done
any hacking on it.  But I used the branch name "temp" while demonstrating
how to recreate the problem.

But in any case, you should know that there is no floating tag in git, and 
therefore, by storing it in the "branch" temp, you doom that branch to 
not be able to be committed to.

I just wanted to fast-forward my master to -rc7, like the git-merge-ff
utility that's been floating around.

What you should have done, of course, is

$ git checkout temp
$ git merge v2.6.22-rc7

But if I'd have changes to my master, I would have examined them and
either rebased them or assigned a branch name.  It was just a way to
either do what I wanted or get an error message, all in one step.

quoted

$ git checkout temp
$ (make minor change)
$ git commit -a
fatal: 087ea061253277de2b27e82d8572a386835a1b7e is not a valid 'commit' object

git-fetch does odd things when handed a tag rather than a commit.

No. It is perfectly sane to fetch a tag, and to store it.

I suppose, but should the result be put in the "refs/heads" directory?

And until git-merge-ff is available, what's the recommended way to
"advance master to tag <foo>, but only if that wouldn't lose anything?"