Some of our stacks have git submodules, because each package is in a separate 
git repository. For the ros release script, it clones a git repository 3 
times, with a recursive clone of the submodules. The first time to create the 
release package and the two other times to tag and to branch. However, for 
tagging and branching, the submodules are not needed at all, since this only 
involves the parent git repository. A lot of time (15 minutes waiting) is 
wasted during the release process because of this step.

I wonder if the release scripts could be modified such that the VCS module gets 
an extra option 'aim' which contains one of "package"/"tag"/"branch". The git 
vcs module could use this information to decide if a recursive checkout is 
needed or not.

Another question which rises is why on earth 3 checkouts are done, and why it 
doesn't work on a single checkout of the sources.

Peter