Hi,
Quoting "Nicolas Barbier" <nicolas.barbier@gmail.com>:
> ISTM that back-patching
I take this to mean "back-patching by cherry picking".
> a change to a file that wasn't modified on the
> back-branch leads exactly to merging a change to a (file-wise)
> ancestor?
Regarding the file's contents - and therefore the immediately visible
result - that's correct. However, for a merge, the two ancestor
revisions are stored, where as with cherry-pinging this information is
lost (at least for git).
So, trying to merge on top of a cherry-pick, git must merge these
changes again (which might or might not work). Merging on top of
merging works just fine.
Regards
Markus Wanner