Agree - I guess Tom is still working out his github workflow. The problem he'll be facing is that you don't want to commit untested changes to the official repo (from a support point of view).
This is really unfortunate. It really goes against how git is designed to be used.
* Commit often with small, atomic commits
* Tag stable releases
* Master is unstable (OR master is production ready and another branch, like dev, is the primary)
* On Sausage Making http://sethrobertson.github.io/GitBestPractices/#sausage