fixing an Elpa package

[Eric Abrahamsen]

I've got a package (Gnorb) in Elpa that's stagnating because I can't
update it using Git. I'm pretty close to bailing on this, but wanted to
float a question first in case it's easier to resolve than I thought.

I originally incorporated the package into Elpa as a subtree, squashed
into one commit, from a repository elsewhere on my filesystem that is
linked with Github. Since then there are now four commits to this
subtree in Elpa, two of them squashes from the external repository.

In the meantime, my old computer died and I got a new one. So I
re-cloned both the Elpa repository and the Github-based repository onto
the new machine. If I add my Github-based repository as a remote in the
Elpa repository, then fetch and subtree-merge, Git tells me there are no
common commits, and wants to merge in all (317) commits from the
external repository. I guess that makes sense from Git's point of view,
but I don't want to pollute Elpa with all those commits. I'm not sure it
would even work, either.

Granted, it was probably a bad idea to take the subtree approach to
begin with. But there it is, and I've mostly lost patience with the
whole thing. If there's any means of recovering from this -- even if
it's a bit of a pain in the ass -- I would be very happy to do that, and
I hope someone might be willing to share some recipes.

Thanks,
Eric