Why aren't tag refs namespaced?

[Nathan Gray <n8gray@n8gray.org>]

Hey guys,

Namespacing works really well for branch refs.  I know that
remotes/origin/master is origin's master branch.  I may or may not
have a master branch, and it may or may not have anything in common
with origin's.  Our repositories are independent, after all, so it
makes sense that our refs would live in different namespaces.

So why is it that tag refs don't follow this model?  Why is my
"best-commit-ever" tag assumed to be the same as origin's?  Given a
ref in refs/tags it's unclear if the ref is public, private, on origin
or not on origin.  Will pushing my tags create anything new or not?
Who knows?  Compare this to branches, where the same questions are
easy to answer thanks to namespacing.

OTOH, am I just not "getting it?"  I've been using git for about 4
years now and I feel like I know it pretty well but it's possible I'm
just misunderstanding things.

BTW, I just read the "On Automatic following" section of the git tag
man page and I found it very confusing.  It seems to be justifying a
behavior without first describing what the behavior is.

Thanks,
-Nathan

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