Except that there is no such canonical repository. I can set your laptop as a remote and pull from you. You can set my raspberry pi as a remote and pull from me. There is no such thing as a “canonical” repository in git. Such a concept only exists in the systems built on top of git, if it exists at all.
No, no, you misunderstand. The canonical repository is just an agreement among developers. Nothing more (other than a bit of infrastructure to enable it).
