The author makes the argument that these commits changed the direction of git, and "Thanks to these two commits, it's now a tradition." The author's argument is

The author makes the argument that these commits changed the direction of git, and "Thanks to these two commits, it's now a tradition." The author's argument is made more compelling by the fact that it was the lead maintainer that made these commits. Did he need to name the lead maintainer? Perhaps not. But doing so does not convert the reasonable argument to an ad hominem fallacy.