[Updated 3PM] — Linus Torvalds has written a source code management (SCM) tool to manage the open source Linux kernel project he maintains. The “Git” SCM replaces a proprietary SCM from BitKeeper used previously by the Linux project, amidst mounting controversy.

According to a detailed article at eWEEK by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, Torvalds was forced to drop BitKeeper after newly appointed OSDL fellow and Samba Project founder Andrew Tridgell began developing his freely licensed SourcePuller tool to extract BitKeeper data, causing BitKeeper to clamp down on the features available in a free version of its SCM. According to Vaughan-Nichols, Tolvalds said, “I'm very disappointed by this whole brouhaha, but my whole life I've been writing my own tools for my own use. I'll survive. It's just sad, because I really did like BK.”

In an exclusive interview with eWEEK, Torvalds says the new Git system is very fast at showing which of Linux's 17,000-plus files have changed from version to version, while remaining very slow at file-level operations, such as figuring out the kernel version in which a specific change first occurred.

Get the full history on the great Torvalds-Tridgell BitKeeper Brouhaha by reading Vaughan-Nichol's background article at eWEEK.

Or, read Vaughan-Nichol's exclusive interview with Torvalds about the origins of git, what its name means, and what it actually does.

 
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