You should invert your framing.

It's only *not valid* if you intend to use a fixed version forever. Otherwise you might as well include versioning for any other case.

> Otherwise you might as well include versioning for any other case.

It’s easier to version a port and the patches than to try keeping a series and patches on top of a dev branch. Not saying that your use cases are invalid, but the point of the thread was using git for building software. If you’re not developing the software, there’s no need to go from something that is working well to an unstable build every week.

Of course it's valid for release versions too: just fetch and checkout the release tag you want. I do this all the time.

Juggling multiple directories and tarballs is a pastime from a bygone era. It's even more commands if you want to reuse the existing directory!