news
Community Strikes Back: 12 Open Source Projects Born from Resistance
Imagine being the creator of Linux and yet people know you more for creating Git. That's the story of Linus Torvalds.
Before Git, BitKeeper was the primary software used for distributed revision control of Linux kernel source code. And it was revolutionary because before that, according to Torvalds, the only good option was to manually check the patches and put them in.
While Stallman and some others crticized the use of a properitary tool for the development of open source Linux kernel project, BitKeeper remained the choice of VCS tool.
It was in 2005, that BitKeeper revoked the free license for Linux kernel project. They blamed Andrew Tridgell who tried creating an open source version of BitKeeper, the same way he had created Samba protocol, by resevre engineering existing project.
This move violated BitKeeper's terms as Tridgell was employed by OSDL, predeccors of Linux Foundation, the non-profit organization pushing the Linux kernel development.
After a public feud with Tridgell, Torvalds started working on his own source control software and released the first version before the month ended. And that's how Git was born, out of necessity, just like Linux project.
Fun fact, this incident also led to the birth of Mercurial, another open source VCS. Popularity of Git overshadowed Mercurial.