Git workflow for maintaining a derivative fork

Question

Overview

I have a project that is a customisation of an existing FOSS product. Its getting to the point where we\'re maintaining a long-term fork rather than applying

Answer 1

Option 3 seems to represent to clearest separation of workflow between the two projects:

• one with occasional contribution back to the original project, with pull requests
• one with entirely new branches and code for the new application

To facilitate the merges, I would recommend using hierarchical branch names in your repo, in order to clearly separate:

• branches for your project development (classic names, no need for a '/' in them)
• branches from the upstream/original repo (all prefixed with a name representing a branch from the original repo, like 'original/dev', for you to cherry-pick from or to)
  Those branches are already in their remotes/upstream namespace, but if you want to push back new commits, you need to create a local branch, and my point is: the name of that local branch should have a '/' in it, in order to clearly differentiate it with other regular branches for your project.