SVN fixed a lot of the issues with CVS, FWIW; setup, maintenance, robustness were much improved. But, yes, git was a major breakthrough. Even if you ignore the

SVN fixed a lot of the issues with CVS, FWIW; setup, maintenance, robustness were much improved. But, yes, git was a major breakthrough. Even if you ignore the advantages of a DVCS and git's raw speed, git provides the ability to branch freely, with reasonable confidence that you can merge without spending days reconstructing your divergent source ("merge hell").