Avoiding the removal of .gitignore by gbp-import-orig

[Rafael Laboissière <rafael@debian.org>]

JFYI, since version 0.8.14 of git-buildpackage, option merge-mode of 
gbp-import-orig has the default value "replace".  Contrary to the 
behavior of the previous default value "merge", each time I run 
gbp-import-orig now, I get the file .gitignore wiped away.  My workaround 
for the problem is to add the following lines to ~/.gbp.conf:

 [import-orig]
 merge-mode = merge

I am just sharing this with you, in case you are facing the same problem 
and have not found a solution.  I am not fully sure that using a 
non-default value for merge-mode is appropriate, but it is working for 
me, at least.

Rafael