Junio C Hamano wrote:
>  (2) also wondered why you were confused to think if your home directory
>      (for that matter, any higher directory, like /.gitattributes at the
>      filesystem root level) that is clearly outside of the project could
>      possibly affect what happens inside a project; and

Because it would be useful if it did; specifically, it would be 
convenient to be able to say that ChangeLog files use 
git-merge-changelog wherever they appear, and not have to repeat that in 
all my projects.  I didn't really expect it, but thought that maybe it 
was designed to work that way.

>  (3) was puzzled why you do not have any patch to description of ignore
>      files (perhaps you do not even a similar confusion on them).

I hadn't really thought about them, but looking at the documentation now 
I see that ignore files have the core.excludesfile config variable to 
provide global ignores; there doesn't seem to be anything analogous for 
attributes.

>  (1) To a long-time git person, "up to the root" is obviously talking
>      about the toplevel of the work tree, not "root of the filesystem",
>      but is it clear to _you_ (or do you think it would be clear to
>      somebody else without much previous exposure to git)?

It seems clear enough, as it would be pointless to say it if it meant 
the root of the filesystem.

>  (2) If not, I think we should come up with a good wording and use that in
>      both.  How does the "toplevel of the work tree" sound for that
>      purpose?

Sure, I'll use that.