How Linus Torvalds’ Frustration Sparked the Birth of Git

Linus Torvalds and the Scaling Problem

Linus Torvalds famously said he created Linux "just for fun," but the project quickly became an operating‑system revolution. By 1998 the kernel community had outgrown Linus’s personal patch‑review workflow, making him a bottleneck.

"Please don’t waste time creating these patches. They are available in the vger tree."

Discussions about the need for a more scalable version‑control system led Larry McVoy to develop BitKeeper.

BitKeeper’s Origin

Sun’s slow NSE tool prompted Larry McVoy to rewrite it in Perl, creating NSElite, which evolved into TeamWare and later the distributed version‑control system BitKeeper.

BitKeeper offered distributed workflows that relieved Linus’s workload, and in autumn 1998 he adopted it for kernel development.

Git v0.01 – The First Release

When BitKeeper’s free licence was revoked, Linus announced the need for a new tool. On 7 April 2005 he uploaded the first Git prototype, consisting of seven small C programs.

# Download the repository
bk clone bk://linux.bkbits.net/linux-2.5 linux-2.5
bk clone linux-2.5 alpha-2.5
# Pull changes from another place
cd alpha-2.5
bk pull bk://gkernel.bkbits.net/alpha-2.5
# Edit files and push changes back to the remote
bk vi fs/inode.c 
bk push bk://[email protected]/alpha-2.5

The early Git stored objects in a simple content‑addressable file system using SHA‑1 hashes, similar to Monotone’s design but without a database.

Early Contributors

Key early contributors included Petr Baudis (who created the first Git web site), Junio Hamano (who became the long‑term maintainer), and many others who added commands, improved performance, and wrote documentation.

GitHub and the Ruby Community

Git’s popularity exploded when Tom Preston‑Werner, Chris Wanstrath, and PJ Hyett founded GitHub in 2008, providing a social platform for Git repositories. The site quickly became the de‑facto home for open‑source projects.

Legacy and Outlook

BitKeeper was eventually open‑sourced in 2016, but Git now dominates version control with a market share over 90 %. The article ends by pondering what might replace Git, suggesting that future breakthroughs could involve AI and a new generation of talented developers.