New bug "sync does not commit with alwasycommit = false"

doc/bugs/sync_does_not_commit_with_alwasycommit___61___false.mdwn

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+### Please describe the problem.
+
+The documentation of `git annex sync` states
+
+> The sync process involves first committing all local changes, then fetching and merging […]
+> You can use standard git commands to do each of those steps  by  hand,  or  if  you
+> don't want to worry about the details, you can use sync.
+
+The documentation of `alwasycommit` states
+
+> By default, git-annex automatically commits data to the git-annex branch after each
+> command is run. To disable these commits, set to false. Then data will only be
+> committed when running `git annex merge` (or by automatic merges) or `git annex sync`.
+
+In fact, however, `git annex sync` will not commit or will not commit some pieces of information when `alwasycommit` is false. This leads to various problems, the first of which is that cloned repositories do not have information about the other remotes.
+
+It is hard to work around this problem because `git commit` cannot be used in direct mode.
+
+This problem does not show up when using local, non over-the-network, remotes.
+
+### What steps will reproduce the problem?
+
+The following script (available at <https://gist.github.com/gioele/5ffeff8988a535164e5b>) will reproduce this problem. If you do not have SSH running on localhost, you can change the `h` variable to point to another host.
+
+    #!/bin/sh -x
+
+    set -e ; set -u
+    export LC_ALL=C
+
+    h=${h:-localhost}
+    dr="/tmp/annex"
+
+    chmod a+rwx -R pc1 pc2 || true
+    rm -Rf pc1 pc2
+
+    # create central git repo
+    ssh $h "chmod a+rwx -R ${dr}/Docs.git" || true
+    ssh $h "rm -Rf ${dr}/Docs.git"
+    ssh $h "mkdir -p ${dr}/Docs.git"
+    ssh $h "cd ${dr}/Docs.git ; git init --bare"
+
+    d=$(pwd)
+
+    # populate repo in PC1
+    mkdir -p pc1/Docs
+    cd pc1/Docs
+    echo AAA > fileA
+    echo BBB > fileB
+
+    git init
+    git config annex.alwayscommit false # change to true to solve this problem
+
+    git remote add origin $h:$dr/Docs.git
+    git fetch --all
+
+    # simulate a host without git-annex
+    git config remote.origin.annex-ignore true
+
+    git annex init "pc1"
+    git annex info
+
+    git annex direct
+    git annex sync origin
+
+    git annex add .
+    git annex sync
+
+    # re-create repo on PC2
+    cd $d
+    mkdir -p pc2
+    cd pc2
+    git clone $h:$dr/Docs.git
+    cd Docs
+
+    git config remote.origin.annex-ignore true
+
+    git annex init "pc2"
+    git annex direct
+    git annex info
+
+    # git annex info shows only pc2, shouldn't pc1 be there as well?
+
+### What version of git-annex are you using? On what operating system?
+
+git-annex version: 5.20140708-g8c9c55c on Ubuntu 12.04.4