Patches 1 and 2 are just preparing things for patch 3.
Patch 4 is a (hopefully) temporary measure, to be able to implement a
real-life until notes workflow without having to wait for
refs/remotes/ to get its due restructuring,
Patch 5 addresses the anomaly reported earlier this week.
Patch 6 is a proposal to make "notes merge" more similar to "merge"