[gentoo-dev] Re: [RFC pre-GLEP] Gentoo Git Workflow

[Duncan]

Michał Górny posted on Tue, 25 Jul 2017 10:05:06 +0200 as excerpted:

> ==Backwards Compatibility==
> Most of the new policy will apply to the commits following its approval.
> Backwards compatibility is not relevant there.

s/Backwards/Backward/ (both header and body)

"Backwards" is a regionalism I too have problems with (as a native
USian with time in the former Crown colony Kenya and exposure to various
European and Asian as well as widely dispersed USian usage.  According
to the wictionary entry, "backward" is strictly speaking the adjective in
British English, "backwards" the adverb, while in the US, the usage is
more flexible/regional and may be reversed.

But (when I catch myself) I always try to use "backward", because the
addition of the terminating "s" adds no meaning and has come to sound
like "hick-speak" to my ear.

Regardless, in this instance "backward" is used as an adjective, so the
stricter "backward" should sound find to the British ear, while being at
least flexibly tolerated to the American ear even if their particular
region reverses it.

(Besides, "backwards compatibility" sounds... like something my car
lacked when I was trying to teach someone to drive, after they jammed the
transmission in reverse while going forward.  Hmm... Maybe I favor the
-s form as adverb more than I thought. =:^)

> One particular point that affects commits retroactively is the OpenPGP
> signing. However, it has been an obligatory requirement enforced by the
> infrastructure since the git switch. Therefore, all the git history
> conforms to that.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman