Subject: Re: Why the default action for pull is merge, but not rebase?

From: Jonathan Nieder <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2010 11:57:24 -0500

Eugene Sajine wrote:

>               So, why not to rebase?

An interesting question.

Rebasing results in untested commits.  If this is a patch series
for submission, that's fine, because you will be extensively
testing each patch anyway or indicating to reviewers that that
needs to be done (right?).  But if it's a long-lived branch then
such repeated testing work can be a serious hassle.
https://git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/GitFaq#What_is_the_difference_between_a_merge_and_a_rebase.3F

A public branch that is regularly rebased is hard to follow
("git log foo@{1}..foo") and build on.
http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-rebase.html#_recovering_from_upstream_rebase

Code consumers often want clean history, but that really means
(a) clean and (b) history.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.video.dri.devel/34739/focus=34744

Hope that helps.