Mercurial was not the commercial competitor to Git. The commercial predecessor to both Git and Mercurial was Bitkeeper. The Mercurial and Git projects were both

Mercurial was not the commercial competitor to Git. The commercial predecessor to both Git and Mercurial was Bitkeeper. The Mercurial and Git projects were both started as a response to Bitmover (the company behind Bitkeeper) announcing changes in how it would license Bitkeeper for open-source projects.