Shawn Pearce [off-list ref] writes:
Why a new --allow-non-tip flag? Why not always do this with the
existing --stateless-rpc flag?
It certainly would be much easier from implementation point of view, but I
did it that way for two and half reasons:
(1) It might make sense to give admins who run upload-pack not behind
smart-http an option to allow fetching from a non-tip; and
(2) It also might make sense to let admins who do run upload-pack behind
smart-http force re-fetching when the race is encountered.
and the remaining half-reason was that I was too lazy to think things
through to refute the above two "might make sense" and convince myself
that they should instead be "is not necessary".