series.

 * "git branch" (and "git checkout -b") to branch from a local branch can
   optionally set "branch.<name>.merge" to mark the new branch to build on
   the other local branch, when "branch.autosetupmerge" is set to
   "always", or when passing the command line option "--track" (this option
   was ignored when branching from local branches).  By default, this does
   not happen when branching from a local branch.

 * "git checkout" to switch to a branch that has "branch.<name>.merge" set
   (i.e. marked to build on another branch) reports how much the branch
   and the other branch diverged.

 * When "git checkout" has to update a lot of paths, it used to be silent
   for 4 seconds before it showed any progress report.  It is now a bit
   more impatient and starts showing progress report early.

 * "git commit" learned a new hook "prepare-commit-msg" that can
   inspect what is going to be committed and prepare the commit
   log message template to be edited.

 * "git cvsimport" can now take more than one -M options.

 * "git describe" learned to limit the tags to be used for
   naming with --match option.

 * "git describe --contains" now barfs when the named commit
   cannot be described.

 * "git describe --exact-match" describes only commits that are tagged.

 * "git describe --long" describes a tagged commit as $tag-0-$sha1,
   instead of just showing the exact tagname.

 * "git describe" warns when using a tag whose name and path contradict
   with each other.

 * "git diff" learned "--relative" option to limit and output paths
   relative to the current directory when working in a subdirectory.

 * "git diff" learned "--dirstat" option to show birds-eye-summary of
   changes more concisely than "--diffstat".

 * "git format-patch" learned --cover-letter option to generate a cover
   letter template.

 * "git gc" learned --quiet option.

 * "git gc" now automatically prunes unreachable objects that are two
   weeks old or older.

 * "git gc --auto" can be disabled more easily by just setting gc.auto
   to zero.  It also tolerates more packfiles by default.

 * "git grep" now knows "--name-only" is a synonym for the "-l" option.

 * "git help <alias>" now reports "'git <alias>' is alias to <what>",
   instead of saying "No manual entry for git-<alias>".

 * "git help" can use different backends to show manual pages and this can
   be configured