-# We want gnits strictness only when rolling a formal release so that we can,
-# for example, run make dist at other times without being required to add a
-# bogus NEWS entry.
+# We want gnits strictness only when rolling a stable release. For
+# release candidates, we use version strings like 2.4.3_rc1, but gnits
+# doesn't like that, so we let the underscore disable gnits. Between
+# releases, we want to be able run make dist without being required to
+# add a bogus NEWS entry. In that case, the version string
+# automatically contains a dash, which we also let disable gnits.