On Mar 6, 2014, at 3:49 PM, Eric S. Raymond <esr@thyrsus.com> wrote:

> David Reitter <david.reitter@gmail.com>:
>> What is the procedure for those of us that keep a separate branch
>> around, which has multiple (50+) merges from the mainline or Emacs
>> 23, and many private changes?
> 
> The first question you need to settle is whether you need to keep the
> change comments for your branch.  

I started Aquamacs 9 years ago, and I have about 5 years worth of history in the branch.  I have been careful to be a good citizen in committing reasonably logical and documented changes that can be merged into the main branch.
No, I don’t want to lose my history.

> If not, the procedure is very simple:

If it weren’t for your dedicated and hard work while communicating with everyone here, I would find it somewhat insulting to be given this trivial “trash the history” solution.

> If you need to keep the change comments, Andreas has a more complicated 
> procedure in mind which I will help him set up.

I’m very much looking forward to this.  
Can I provide you with a reasonably complex test case?