(performance)
+* many uses of lstat(2) in the codepath for "git checkout" have been
+ optimized out.
+
(usability, bells and whistles)
+* rsync:/path/to/repo can be used to run git over rsync for local
+ repositories. It may not be useful in practice; meant primarily for
+ testing.
+
+* (msysgit) progress output that is sent over the sideband protocol can
+ be handled appropriately in Windows console.
+
+* "--pretty=<style>" option to the log family of commands can now be
+ spelled as "--format=<style>". In addition, --format=%formatstring
+ is a short-hand for --pretty=tformat:%formatstring.
+
+* "--oneline" is a synonym for "--pretty=oneline --abbrev=commit".
+
+* If you realize that you botched the patch when you are editing hunks
+ with the 'edit' action in git-add -i/-p, you can abort the editor to
+ tell git not to apply it.
+
+* git-archive learned --output=<file> option.
+
+* git-bisect shows not just the number of remaining commits whose goodness
+ is unknown, but also shows the estimated number of remaining rounds.
+
+* You can give --date=<format> option to git-blame.
+
+* git-branch -r shows HEAD symref that points at a remote branch in
+ interest of each tracked remote repository.
+
+* git-config learned -e option to open an editor to edit the config file
+ directly.
+
+* git-clone runs post-checkout hook when run without --no-checkout.
+
+* git-format-patch can be told to use attachment with a new configuration,
+ format.attach.
+
+* git-format-patch can be told to produce deep or shallow message threads.
+
+* git-grep learned to highlight the found substrings in color.
+
+* git-imap-send learned to work around Thunderbird's inability to easily
+ disable format=flowed with a new configuration, imap.preformattedHTML.
+
+* git-rebase can be told to rebase the series even if your branch is a
+ descendant of the commit you are rebasing onto with --force-rebase
+ option.
+
+* git-rebase can be told to report diffstat with the --stat option.
+
+* Output from git-remote command has been vastly improved.
+
+* git-send-email learned --confirm option to review the Cc: list before
+ sending the messages out.
+
+(developers)
+
+* Test scripts can be run under valgrind.
+
+* Makefile learned 'coverage' option to run the test suites with
+ coverage tracking enabled.
Fixes since v1.6.2
------------------
Here are fixes that this release has, but have not been backported to
v1.6.2.X series.
+* "git diff --pickaxe-regexp" did not count overlapping matches
+ correctly (backport by cherry-picking 50fd699).
+
+* "git-fetch" in a repository that was not cloned from anywhere said
+ it cannot find 'origin', which was hard to understand for new people.
+
+* git-gc spent excessive amount of time to decide if an object appears
+ in a locally existing pack (if needed, backport by merging 69e020a).
+
+* "git-ls-files --deleted" did not work well with GIT_DIR&GIT_WORK_TREE
+ (backport by cherry-picking 8ad3dae).
+
+* "git-read-tree A B C..." without -m option has been broken for a long time
+ (backport by merging jc/maint-1.6.0-read-tree-overlay)
+
+* 'git-submodule add' did not tolerate extra slashes and ./ in the
+ path it accepted from the command line; it now is more lenient
+ (if needed, backport by merging db75ada).
+
+* git-send-email ignored --in-reply-to when --no-thread was given
+ (backport by merging tr/maint-1.6.0-send-email-irt)
+
+---
+exec >/var/tmp/1
+O=v1.6.2.1-213-g7d4e3a7
+echo O=$(git describe master)
+git shortlog --no-merges $O..master ^maint