The three branches in question, with the git-flow names in parens, were the main development branch (develop), release prep branches (?), and the branch with actual releases (master).

Is there a better usual convention for these names? I have a vague memory of someone mentioning "master" for the main development branch, "release" for the branch with the actual releases, and maybe "beta-x.xx.x" for release prep branches.

re: git flow branch names, I'd advocate for their use simply because it matches all of the external training material (videos, docs, flow charts, etc) available regarding the use of git flow (and it reduces the friction for getting initially setup). I agree that they aren't ideal and much prefer the naming convention used by the FreeBSD project (where branch names indicate a stable API, 9-STABLE, 8-STABLE, etc., vs -CURRENT), but I'd stick with the default names for now and then in a release or three consider changing from the defaults to something boost specific. -sc # Initialize default git flow branches git flow init -d # From project/.git/config [gitflow "branch"] master = master develop = develop [gitflow "prefix"] feature = feature/ release = release/ hotfix = hotfix/ support = support/ versiontag = -- Sean Chittenden sean@chittenden.org