Allow disabling "g" prefix for commit hash in version number

I’ve had multiple folks (including myself) be confused about the g in front of the commit sha of a version number like 16.0.40-preview+ge6c3a1f9e4.

You don’t immediately realize without knowing this convention that the g isn’t part of the sha and wonder why you can’t find the commit. Is there a reason for the prefix or could there be an option to turn it off?

[AArnott]

I think the approach to fix this should be that we remove the g whenever the version.json file has opted into semver 2 for nuget packages. Or in other words, we use the g only for nuget package versions, and only when using semver 1 rules (which is the default).

[AArnott]

It stands for git, and provides a more deterministic way to ascertain that what follows is the commit ID. I don’t remember where it came from (I didn’t invent the convention).

I’ve heard this feedback several times though, and I sympathize with the inconvenience of not being able to just double-click to select the “word” and paste it somewhere else without having to trim off the leading g.

I’m not sure anyone even likes the leading g (as folks don’t tend to reinforce behavior that they like), so while an option to remove it seems perfectly reasonable, it’s worth considering simply removing it entirely, or at least making the option default to removal.

I’m planning some breaking changes for a 3.0 version, and changing this behavior (or at least the default) would be well-placed for the 3.0 version, I think. And perhaps we can add the option in 2.3, but change its default in 3.0.