internal: use empty merge commit to clean up git diff from 16.x.x (#4412)

This no-op merge commit "pretends" to take in all of the changes from the 16.x.x branch since this branch was created from the 16.4 point release. These changes were actually cherry-picked from 16.x.x separately into this branch, but this merge commit allows us to pretend that the branch was created from 16.11.

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Co-authored-by: Ivan Goncharov <ivan.goncharov.ua@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Chris Karcher <chris@chriskarcher.net>
Co-authored-by: Sten Reijers <37755871+stenreijers@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Artem Zakharchenko <kettanaito@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Gunnar Schulze <gunnar.schulze@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Aaron Moat <2937187+AaronMoat@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Jovi De Croock <decroockjovi@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Benjie <benjie@jemjie.com>
Co-authored-by: enisdenjo <denis@denelop.com>
Co-authored-by: Denis Badurina <badurinadenis@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Laurin Quast <laurinquast@googlemail.com>
Co-authored-by: Erik Kessler <erik.kessler1@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Benedikt Franke <benedikt.franke@mll.com>
Co-authored-by: Michael Hayes <michael@hayes.io>
Co-authored-by: Mike Ciesielka <maciesielka@comcast.net>
Co-authored-by: Jeff Auriemma <bignimbus@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Saihajpreet Singh <saihajpreet.singh@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: James Bellenger <github@james.bellenger.org>
Co-authored-by: Sachin D. Shinde <SachinShi@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: tpoisseau <22891227+tpoisseau@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Dimitri POSTOLOV <dmytropostolov@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Benjie <code@benjiegillam.com>
Co-authored-by: Rabah Ali Shah <117630286+rabahalishah@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Guspan Tanadi <36249910+guspan-tanadi@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Fatih Ozdemir <106387422+fto-dev@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Cris Naranjo <12249221+cristunaranjo@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Shubhdeep Chhabra <chhabrashubhdeep@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Sarah Sanders <88458517+sarahxsanders@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: roman-lakhnov <128961185+roman-lakhnov@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Eddy Nguyen <github@eddeee888.me>

Author: 29 people