[davestephens]

Out of interest why do you "need" a repo/branch replicating production? I ask out of curiousity rather than criticism.

We also have the same at my place of work, but for convenience when requiring to patch production - ie just branch master rather than scramble to find the commit hash last released. It's not a requirement, but it definitely makes life easier.

[chmike]

Because it provides a unique reference point. If there wasn't such a a reference point, there is a risk that the production branch of programmers becomes desynchronized.

It is easier and safer to have n developpers synchronizing to one reference repository, than to keep n developpers and repositories synchronized with each other.