News Torvalds Gives Inside Skinny on Git

King Penguin, as you will know if you've been reading the news, has ditched BitKeeper in a highly publicised spat with it's author. However, that meant that Linux was without a Software Config Managment tool. So Linus rolled up his sleeves, and coded his own - GIT. This from eWeek:

Linus Torvalds didn't want to change software configuration management tools; however, business and open-source philosophy problems left the Linux founder with no choice but to abandon BitKeeper and create his own system: Git.

SCM programs are used to control the flow of updates and track program changes. In a project as large as Linux—more than 17,000 files—this can be very difficult and very slow. ADVERTISEMENT
Because most SCMs—such as CVS (Concurrent Versions System)—are too slow for him, Torvalds built his own.

He describes Git as "a stupid (but extremely fast) directory content manager. It doesn't do a whole lot, but what it does do is track directory contents efficiently." ​

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