Jonathan Nieder [off-list ref] writes:

Thomas Rast wrote:

quoted

The problem with -b is that it's a backwards-compatibility shorthand for
--binary, which used to pass --allow-binary-replacement (or --binary) to
git-apply.  However, that option was obsoleted in 2b6eef9 (Make apply
--binary a no-op., 2006-09-06) and has been a no-op for over 5 years.
It has also not been documented since cb3a160 (git-am: ignore --binary
option, 2008-08-09).

So perhaps we can safely claim -b for --keep-non-patch, like so:

We can delete "git am -b" (as it was deprecated long time ago), wait
for a cycle or two, and then repurpose it.  I do not mind starting
the first step (delete, but do not say anything about repurposing)
before 1.7.10-rc1 happens.