BitKeeper, Linux, and licensing disputes: How Linus wrote Git in 14 days (Graphite blog)

Post Syndicated from corbet original https://lwn.net/Articles/974914/

This
Graphite blog post retells the history of the BitKeeper fiasco and the
dawn of the Git era.

When we think of history, we often romanticize it as being born of
a sudden stroke of inspiration. But the creation of git shows the
far harsher reality of invention: a slowly escalating disagreement
over a license; the need for a scrappy backup solution to unblock
work; and then continued polishing and iteration through years and
years, led not by the inventor, but rather a community.

For those who weren’t around in those days, a perusal of the LWN coverage
from the time might be of interest too, including:

…and a lot more for those who care to search for it.