> Linus took a look at Monotone and Mercurial IIRC, but they were not nearly fast enough at that time That's incorrect for Mercurial, it was started by another

> Linus took a look at Monotone and Mercurial IIRC, but they were not nearly fast enough at that time That's incorrect for Mercurial, it was started by another kernel developer (Matt Mackall) at the same time, for the same reasons (but they ended-up with different trade-offs, which makes mercurial still very interesting and relevant in a post-github world).