Git With It!
Just weeks ago, the kernel development team received a clear edict from its benevolent dictator Linus Torvalds: stop using BitKeeper, start using (Torvalds’s own) Git. Some foretold of calamity, but what impact has Git really had on kernel development? Here’s an assessment from Torvalds and others.
Wednesday, September 14th, 2005
On April 6, 2005 at 10:41:57 Eastern Standard Time, the news finally broke. In a year that had already seen the retreat and toppling of many political dictatorships around the world, the benevolent dictatorship of Linux strongman Linus Torvalds itself announced a major pullback.
“As a number of people are already aware (and in some cases have been aware over the last several weeks), we have been trying to work out a conflict over[ BitKeeper] usage over the last month or two,” wrote Torvalds under the headline “Kernel SCM Saga…” “That hasn’t been working out and as a result, the kernel team is looking at alternatives.”
BitKeeper, of course, is the proprietary software configuration manager used by Torvalds to handle large-scale directory merges since early 2002. Adopted in the wake of numerous complaints over the sloppy handling of incoming source code trees during the development of the 2.4 kernel, the decision to use BitKeeper set up Torvalds for even harsher criticism. Many developers decried the positioning of a proprietary software tool at the center of a free software project, an observation Torvalds routinely rebuffed by noting the inadequacy of free software competitors when it came to serving the distributed kernel team’s needs.
