Matthieu Moy [off-list ref] writes:
The old Git version where it appeared is not useful only to historians,
not to normal users.
That statement cannot be generally true, unless the "old" is really
old and no longer relevant but 0.99.9 is sufficiently old so the
value of the part of the message you removed that warns users with
ancient versions that they may not be able to use the feature
without upgrading has diminished.
quoted hunk
+Git uses a simple text file format modeled after `.ini` format
+familiar to some people to store its configuration. The `.git/config`
+file is used to hold per-repository configuration options, and
+per-user configuration can be stored in a `~/.gitconfig` file.
+Here is an example:
------------
#
@@ -559,7 +560,7 @@ people. Here is an example:
Various commands read from the configuration file and adjust
their operation accordingly. See linkgit:git-config[1] for a
-list.
+list and more details about the configuration mechanism.
Both look sensible.