gitolite branch -- nonexistent ref?

[Derek Atkins]

John Ralls <jralls at ceridwen.us> writes:

> On May 21, 2013, at 5:58 AM, Geert Janssens <janssens-geert at telenet.be> wrote:
>
>     On Monday 20 May 2013 19:53:02 John Ralls wrote:
>     > On May 20, 2013, at 6:15 PM, Derek Atkins <warlord at MIT.EDU> wrote:
>     > > I was working on setting up a git checkout to build the docs and
>     noticed
>     > > that the 'default branch' is broken in gitolite. I just tried to run:
>     > >
>     > > git clone ssh://git@code.gnucash.org/gnucash.git and it downloaded
>     > > everything until it got to the end, where it gave me:
>     > >
>     > > warning: remote HEAD refers to nonexistent ref, unable to checkout.
>     > >
>     > > Is this something I need to fix on the server? If I clone with "-b
>     > > trunk" then it works.
>     > >
>     > > -derek
>     > >
>     > > PS: gnucash-docs has the same issue..
>     >
>     > Probably your local git is looking for refs:origin:master, which doesn't
>     > exist. If it bugs you you can make it with git branch master
>     > git push origin master
>     > in each repo, which should fix it for future use, though it's a bit of a
>     > trap because master won't get updated.
>     Couldn't this be solved by adapting the svn-git sync script ?
>
>     Instead of just pulling in the new changes from svn, also run a
>     git rebase trunk master ?
>
> Could, but probably shouldn't. It's an invitation to work in -- and to try to
> commit from -- the wrong branch.

I don't understand why this is the case.  In gitolite can't we just say
that "trunk" == "master"?  Or does git not have the concept of aliases?
I didn't think "master" was anything special.

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
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