[antonvs]

For a summary line, I don’t see big problem with recommending they be kept that short. The git commit docs say this:

> Though not required, it’s a good idea to begin the commit message with a single short (no more than 50 characters) line summarizing the change, followed by a blank line and then a more thorough description.

It’s like the headline of an article, it doesn’t need to tell you everything. That’s the job of the “more thorough description”. And if you omit the summary line, then you’re just writing a description, and the limit no longer applies. It’s not a hard limit anyway.

I’m not sure it has to do with tiny terminal windows so much as encouraging people to be concise. It allows you to skim commits without reading essays, for example.