Changes to "git"

The code from the "master" branch is pretty much dead at this point. Therefore, I plan on: a) moving the code from "master" to an "old-dev" branch b) updating "master" to be the same as "stable" c) leaving "stable" alone, but no longer doing commits to it. The question is this: should I simply *replace* the "master" branch with "stable", or *merge* them? Merging them means that all checkouts of "master" will get the old deprecated code. Ugh. Replacing them means that everyone with a copy of the repository has to do a "force" update of their local "master" branch. This is annoying, but shouldn't be a problem because no one should be using the "master" branch. Any comments before I go poke the repository? Alan DeKok.