Re: non-fastforward push: action required... maybe

[Paolo Bonzini]

>     * first, commit any changes you may have
>
>     * if you're on the "master" branch, save its state on a branch, just in 
> case:
>
>          git checkout -b $(date +%j)-snapshot
>
>     * get back on master:
>
>          git checkout master
>
>     * "unlink" from master all changes prior to the above commit:
>
>          git reset --hard 53398ec2976b5e2813c26146a11e8966e6a8120d^
>
>     * now pull, fetch or whatever you do to get the latest:
>
>          git pull

git pull --rebase may be enough if you were just tracking grep.git and 
have no qualms with rewriting history yourself (e.g. because your branch 
isn't public).  If something goes wrong, you can always "git rebase 
--abort" and follow Jim's safer procedure.

FWIW, an alternative way to fix the conflict could have been this:

   git checkout master
   git merge origin/master      # merge with 53398e
   git checkout address@hidden      # back to NEWS-modifying commit
   ... proceed with release process ...

thus creating a merge commit (also discouraged but not so strictly) but 
not rewriting history.  No big deal though.

Paolo