If `-m <msg>` or `-F <file>` is given and `-a`, `-s`, and `-u <key-id>`
are absent, `-a` is implied.
-Otherwise just a tag reference for the SHA1 object name of the commit object is
+Otherwise just a tag reference for the SHA-1 object name of the commit object is
created (i.e. a lightweight tag).
A GnuPG signed tag object will be created when `-s` or `-u
GnuPG key for signing. The configuration variable `gpg.program`
is used to specify custom GnuPG binary.
+Tag objects (created with `-a`, `s`, or `-u`) are called "annotated"
+tags; they contain a creation date, the tagger name and e-mail, a
+tagging message, and an optional GnuPG signature. Whereas a
+"lightweight" tag is simply a name for an object (usually a commit
+object).
+
+Annotated tags are meant for release while lightweight tags are meant
+for private or temporary object labels. For this reason, some git
+commands for naming objects (like `git describe`) will ignore
+lightweight tags by default.
+
OPTIONS
-------
In such a case, you do not want to automatically follow the other
person's tags.
-One important aspect of git is its distributed nature, which
+One important aspect of Git is its distributed nature, which
largely means there is no inherent "upstream" or
"downstream" in the system. On the face of it, the above
example might seem to indicate that the tag namespace is owned