Richard Stallman wrote:
The cost of writing certain data in commit messages appears when
you make the commit. The benefit, however much that may be,
appears much later. Often years later.
Therefore, this comparison woulld compare the costs only
and not the benefits.
Not if we ask maintainers to estimate long-term benefits, given the benefits
they've observed in the first few months. It's a simple sampling exercise.
Obviously the estimates will be inexact, but they'll be good enough for an
exercise like this, which is going to be qualitative anyway.
