[PLUG] Why Git "Won" (WAS: Exim oops (vs Postfix?))

[brent timothy saner via plug <plug@lists.phillylinux.org>]

On 9/6/19 5:25 PM, JP Vossen via plug wrote:
> On 9/6/19 1:13 PM, brent saner via plug wrote:
>> You can have my git when you pry it from my cold, lifeless hands! ;)
> 
> Yeah, but *you* are the correct target audience for Git.  :-)
> 

true. different strokes, etc.

> <soapbox>
> I think there are a large number of people who use it because of Github
> or because everyone else uses it (and thus they have to) for whom a more
> friendly tool would be a better choice.  I'm talking about "casual"
> users who would see great benefit from an RCS without having to have the
> intricate understanding of Git internals that's required for any but the
> most trivial uses.  (https://xkcd.com/1597/)
> 
> Git is perfect for Linux kernel devs (duh) and hard-core Real
> Programmers(tm).  It sucks for the rest of us.  But it clearly won the
> war, which I blame a lot of on Github.
> </soapbox>

hrm. i personally *detest* GH and only use it as free (as in beer)
mirror for some select repositories that i host on git.square-r00t.net.

but i agree somewhat with it contributing to git's success - but it's
not quite *that* simple. bzr was pushed heavily by Canonical, and also
has free hosting available - Launchpad.net, Savannah.nongnu, Sourceforge
(which predates GH by a LOT. i'd argue it was even dethroned by GH, as
it used to be #1 for this sort of model). There are couple others - and
those are just free-as-in-pizza repo hosts; there's countless more for paid.

and that's just for bzr. there's plenty of other examples for other
VCS/SCM host offerings.

so was it something about GitHub *specifically* that made git succeed
and "win"? i'd argue no, because many of the features it had in the
beginning were found in already established VCS hosts. i think the
inverse is true - git was the first *really well-functioning* VCS. it
didn't require checkouts and central control like SVN and CVS/RCS. it
was free, unlike bitkeeper (the licensing change of which being what
spurred the creation of git). much of bazaar and hg interactions are
based on git (well, technically based on bitkeeper, since git's syntax
is largely based on it), even much of the commandline syntax remains the
same (and they came afterwards).

so i'm not so sure it was github per se. clout isn't always the cause of
reputation; sometimes it's the *result* of reputation. likewise, both
cases aren't indicative of any inferiority, either.

but again, all this to say "it doesn't really matter all that much, use
what makes sense to you/your organization/your resource
requirements/your employer requires".

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