Terms Governing Version Name Optimism
Terms under which a file saved as final, final-v2, or final-FINAL-USE-THIS remains subject to subsequent versions.
Article I: Definitions
1.1 "Version Name Optimism" refers to the act of saving a file with a name that implies finality, including but not limited to: final, final-v2, final-revised, final-APPROVED, final-FINAL, and final-USE-THIS-ONE.
1.2 "Successor File" means any file created after the Version Name Optimism event whose name implies that the prior final file was not, in fact, final.
1.3 "The Subject" means the person who saves a file with a name implying finality and then creates several more files after it.
Article II: Governing Terms
2.1 Any repeated case of Version Name Optimism becomes standard procedure until someone deliberately replaces it. Replacement requires an alternative file-naming convention that the Subject is willing to apply consistently. No such convention has been adopted.
2.2 Version Name Optimism solves the immediate inconvenience once. The immediate inconvenience is the discomfort of uncertainty about whether the current file represents a completed state. The name resolves this discomfort at the moment of saving. Discomfort returns at the next revision.
2.3 That success makes repetition feel safer than reconsidering the behavior from scratch. The Subject does not reconsider from scratch. The Subject names the next file final-v2.
2.4 The step looks like part of making something, yet it delays the part where uncertainty cannot be controlled. The delay is pleasant. This is not a violation of these terms.
Article III: Precedent
3.1 One successful use of Version Name Optimism creates precedent for the next similar moment. The precedent is established silently. The Subject is not informed of the precedent's creation. The Subject is nonetheless bound by it.
3.2 After enough repetitions, the workaround survives even when the original inconvenience is gone. A file that has only been edited once may still be named final. The name is now a convention rather than a description.
Article IV: Termination
4.1 These terms terminate when the Subject accepts that the final file is the current file, not the correctly named file. No termination date has been established.
4.2 The Subject acknowledges these terms by saving the file.