As noted, the merge strategy(-ies) git uses is less prone to causing conflicts-- but TBH, you're always going to encounter some. (DVCSes in general produce fewer conflicts due to various tree merge shenanigans. Darcs and Codeville in particular have more interesting merge algorithms.)
The other huge factor I find that helps with maintaining git release/signed-off/otherwise cherrypicked branches is that git commits tend to be smaller and more discrete (due to, among other things, git stash and cheap history operations) -- I almost never see commits like 'Updates' and then 10-20 files with git, and they're endemic with every SVN/p4 instance I've seen.
It's pretty easy to stash your changes and make a tiny fix with git. Separating things out into discrete changes with SVN (and p4, named changelists don't help that much) usually involves some vimdiff/ediff and patch pain. There are some utils to make it easier, but git makes it trivial.
The other huge factor I find that helps with maintaining git release/signed-off/otherwise cherrypicked branches is that git commits tend to be smaller and more discrete (due to, among other things, git stash and cheap history operations) -- I almost never see commits like 'Updates' and then 10-20 files with git, and they're endemic with every SVN/p4 instance I've seen.
It's pretty easy to stash your changes and make a tiny fix with git. Separating things out into discrete changes with SVN (and p4, named changelists don't help that much) usually involves some vimdiff/ediff and patch pain. There are some utils to make it easier, but git makes it trivial.