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Unfortunately, here, I think the problem is that English is not very clear.

As a native English speaker, the first time I encountered the word 'draft' was at primary school. We used it to describe a piece of writing where presentation was not the focus, instead, content and accuracy in terms of spelling, grammar, and punctuation would be the focus. Once the drafts were complete, we would 'copy these up' in our neatest handwriting.

However, if I prepare a 'draft' of some document or other for my boss, I expect it to be essentially an unapproved version of a final document, perhaps needing some minor modifications before release, but also perhaps not.

Although personally, I would use 'sketch' to mean something disposable which illustrates a more perfect version, my grandmother is an artist, and she refers to the initial drawings she makes on the canvas as 'sketches', which she then paints over in more detail.

Essentially, I don't think there's a big difference between draft and sketch - both could (in my opinion) represent either a version which will be discarded or which will be developed further.

Overall, I think here, the 'Work In Progress' label is the clearest and least likely to be interpreted differently by different users.

It's also interesting the in English we also have Drafters or draughtsman/draughtswoman, who's job is drafting, which is the process of creating technical drawings for manufacture.[1]

In a highly technical environment this is the kind of work I associate with drafting, but not necessarily with the word draft.

The wikipedia page for "Draft" has a veritable smorgasbord of different things that are considered "Drafts"[2], which kind of illustrates that getting pedantic about the definition of the word is losing proposition.

But a native english speakers as well, I agree with you, that the everyday colloquial definition of the word "draft" is an incomplete piece of work that needs further refinement before it can be considered complete or final.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drafter [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft

But in the days of digital files, unlike the days of typewriters that put ink on paper, it's much easier to edit a draft into the final product.

> I am not a native English speaker (and I don't work at Gitlab) but I am curious and interested in using proper terms, as I think as developer that naming is a very important skill.

That is it for me too and why I think this change is so annoying.

WIP means something is being worked on. [0]

Draft can mean the same, but it also has a bunch of other possible meanings. Note that if you search in both of your sources, you'll find "sketch" as an explaination. It can mean the same, but it can also mean a bunch of other things. It's a strictly worse name.

[0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/WIP

Most likely the rename is in order to get more people to understand what it is without having to look up abbreviations. "Draft" is clear to most people who know English, while "WIP" puts a lot more burden on the reader in terms of what they already need to know in order to understand.

But they can just google WIP at work! ...Until Cardi B comes out with another song about her hoo haa haa with that title.

Yeah, I think this is fair.

A draft in the visual arts (drawing, painting), is typically abandoned, like a sketch. Perhaps it uses a different medium to the final version, and in any case can't easily be adapted.

A draft in writing is typically incrementally improved, or at least we think of it that way now that we write on computers. We don't need to start again even for substantial changes like adding a new paragraph.

In internet, in most places I've seen "draft" as being something that is not yet published. For example in a lot of blogging software like WordPress, you can save your post and it will be "Draft", but only will be visible to others when you publish, so it's not thrown away in most contexts that I know it being used in the Internet.

Isn't it the same connotation here? The work is shared with your collaborators, but not yet "published" to the master branch or to customers or wherever?

Yeah, so in my opinion "draft" works well as a descriptor.

Draft is also the depth of water displaced by a boat/ship.

Draught (sounds the same as draft) is the wind through a crack or a type of beer. A door or window might be draughty but a beer wont.

Drought looks similar but sounds like "drowt" and is what you get when there is a long period of time without rain.

Be careful with draft, draught and drought!