4 ms·

> It dominated the world thanks to Linus cult (their hero can do no wrong), and being required for Linux contributions. I think parent's point is that that dem

by Jedd 4y ago

> It dominated the world thanks to Linus cult (their hero can do no wrong), and being required for Linux contributions. I think parent's point is that that demographic is positively tiny, and there were plenty of other serviceable offerings around at the time. The claim stands - git won despite its UX flaws, which does suggest the alternatives, while serviceable, weren't sufficiently fit for purpose.

pjmlp 4y ago
The alternatives weren't required for collaboration in Linux development.
- Jedd 4y ago
  Yes, but again, the number of people collaborating on Linux kernel development is truly tiny. I think perhaps you're over-estimating the network effect for VCS's -- having multiple version control binaries on your machine is low cost, and aliases can, up to a point, give you a consistent interface to them all. The highly sophisticated demographic of kernel developers would not have been at the pub insisting that their friends drop svn and use git (exclusively!), anymore than they would have been trying to get any other projects they worked on to adopt bitkeeper previously. The fact that bitkeeper was required for 'collaboration in Linux development' for so long supports this position.
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    Bitkeep wasn't free beer and its adoption was widely controversial, until Git was born given their change of heart.
    - Jedd 4y ago
      Well it was a bit more complicated than that. (I met Tridge shortly after the fracas, actually.) There were perhaps 5k kernel contributors in 2005, would that be fair? There's perhaps 20k now, I guess. github alone has 80+ million users. It's possible, I suppose, that the former is predominantly the cause of the latter, but it seems hugely unlikely. 6 years ago Larry released BitKeeper under an Apache licence. I still don't anyone who's ever actually used that.

4 ms·

> It dominated the world thanks to Linus cult (their hero can do no wrong), and being required for Linux contributions. I think parent's point is that that dem

by Jedd 4y ago

pjmlp 4y ago
The alternatives weren't required for collaboration in Linux development.
- Jedd 4y ago
  Yes, but again, the number of people collaborating on Linux kernel development is truly tiny. I think perhaps you're over-estimating the network effect for VCS's -- having multiple version control binaries on your machine is low cost, and aliases can, up to a point, give you a consistent interface to them all. The highly sophisticated demographic of kernel developers would not have been at the pub insisting that their friends drop svn and use git (exclusively!), anymore than they would have been trying to get any other projects they worked on to adopt bitkeeper previously. The fact that bitkeeper was required for 'collaboration in Linux development' for so long supports this position.
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    Bitkeep wasn't free beer and its adoption was widely controversial, until Git was born given their change of heart.
    - Jedd 4y ago
      Well it was a bit more complicated than that. (I met Tridge shortly after the fracas, actually.) There were perhaps 5k kernel contributors in 2005, would that be fair? There's perhaps 20k now, I guess. github alone has 80+ million users. It's possible, I suppose, that the former is predominantly the cause of the latter, but it seems hugely unlikely. 6 years ago Larry released BitKeeper under an Apache licence. I still don't anyone who's ever actually used that.