gitmodule(5) mentioned 'master' as the default remote branch, but
folks using checkout-style updates are unlikely to care which upstream
branch their commit comes from (they only care that the clone fetches
that commit).  If they haven't set submodule.<name>.branch, it makes
more sense to mirror 'git clone' and use the subproject's HEAD than to
default to 'master' (which may not even exist).

After the initial clone, subsequent updates may be local or remote.
Local updates (integrating gitlink changes) have no need to fetch a
specific remote branch, and get along just fine without
submodule.<name>.branch.  Remote updates do need a remote branch, but
HEAD works as well here as it did for the initial clone.

Reported-by: Johan Herland <jo...@herland.net>
Signed-off-by: W. Trevor King <wk...@tremily.us>
---
This still needs tests, but it gets through the following fine:

  rm -rf superproject subproject &&
  mkdir subproject &&
  (cd subproject &&
   git init &&
   echo 'Subproject' > README &&
   git add README &&
   git commit -m 'Subproject commit' &&
   git branch -m master next
  ) &&
  mkdir superproject &&
  (cd superproject &&
   git init &&
   git submodule add ../subproject submod &&
   git commit -am 'Add submod'
  )
  (cd subproject &&
   echo 'work work work' >> README &&
   git commit -am 'Subproject commit 2'
  ) &&
  (cd superproject &&
   git submodule update --remote &&
   git commit -am 'Add submod'
  )

The main drawback to this approach is that we're changing a default,
but I agree with John's:

On Fri, Mar 28, 2014 at 12:21:23AM +0100, Johan Herland wrote:
> I expect in most cases where "origin/master" happens to be the Right
> Answer, using the submodule's upstream's HEAD will yield the same
> result.

so the default-change may not be particularly intrusive.

Cheers,
Trevor

 Documentation/git-submodule.txt |  2 +-
 Documentation/gitmodules.txt    |  5 +++--
 git-submodule.sh                | 11 ++++++++---
 3 files changed, 12 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/git-submodule.txt b/Documentation/git-submodule.txt
index 46c1eeb..c485a17 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-submodule.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-submodule.txt
@@ -284,7 +284,7 @@ OPTIONS
        the superproject's recorded SHA-1 to update the submodule, use the
        status of the submodule's remote-tracking branch.  The remote used
        is branch's remote (`branch.<name>.remote`), defaulting to `origin`.
-       The remote branch used defaults to `master`, but the branch name may
+       The remote branch used defaults to `HEAD`, but the branch name may
        be overridden by setting the `submodule.<name>.branch` option in
        either `.gitmodules` or `.git/config` (with `.git/config` taking
        precedence).
diff --git a/Documentation/gitmodules.txt b/Documentation/gitmodules.txt
index f539e3f..1aecce9 100644
--- a/Documentation/gitmodules.txt
+++ b/Documentation/gitmodules.txt
@@ -53,8 +53,9 @@ submodule.<name>.update::
 
 submodule.<name>.branch::
        A remote branch name for tracking updates in the upstream submodule.
-       If the option is not specified, it defaults to 'master'.  See the
-       `--remote` documentation in linkgit:git-submodule[1] for details.
+       If the option is not specified, it defaults to the subproject's
+       HEAD.  See the `--remote` documentation in linkgit:git-submodule[1]
+       for details.
 +
 This branch name is also used for the local branch created by
 non-checkout cloning updates.  See the `update` documentation in
diff --git a/git-submodule.sh b/git-submodule.sh
index 6135cfa..5f08e6c 100755
--- a/git-submodule.sh
+++ b/git-submodule.sh
@@ -819,8 +819,8 @@ cmd_update()
                name=$(module_name "$sm_path") || exit
                url=$(git config submodule."$name".url)
                config_branch=$(get_submodule_config "$name" branch)
-               branch="${config_branch:-master}"
-               local_branch="$branch"
+               branch="${config_branch:-HEAD}"
+               local_branch="$config_branch"
                if ! test -z "$update"
                then
                        update_module=$update
@@ -860,7 +860,12 @@ Maybe you want to use 'update --init'?")"
 
                if ! test -d "$sm_path"/.git -o -f "$sm_path"/.git
                then
-                       start_point="origin/${branch}"
+                       if test -n "$config_branch"
+                       then
+                               start_point="origin/$branch"
+                       else
+                               start_point=""
+                       fi
                        module_clone "$sm_path" "$name" "$url" "$reference" 
"$depth" "$start_point" "$local_branch" || exit
                        cloned_modules="$cloned_modules;$name"
                        subsha1=
-- 
1.9.1.352.gd393d14.dirty

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