Protecting files in git repository

Question

I have a central repository with a subset of files that I want to protect from being changed (by pushing) from other users. If I add these files to .gitignore,

Answer 1

You can have the files in the repository, commit them, then add them to the .gitignore and then remove them from the next commit.

You can still fetch the files directly prior commit (perhaps tag it with something so it can be fetched by name a bit easier) and this will preserve the state of the file, while not making it easily edited in the repository by accident.

To access those files after pulling the clone, just write a rake task that fetches them for the user of your repository.