Just so I understand this right, you have separate, customized installations of your application per customer? So, that you have individual release-* branches for each customer (or at least for those you've customized things for). It sounds like you're just adapting to your own particular needs, which are for a single release version of the product in the OP's case. Different strokes for different folks. It goes to show the incredible flexibility of Git. It's too awesome :)