GIT - the stupid content tracker

"git" can mean anything, depending on your mood.

 - random three-letter combination that is pronounceable, and not
   actually used by any common UNIX command.  The fact that it is a
   mispronunciation of "get" may or may not be relevant.
 - stupid. contemptible and despicable. simple. Take your pick from the
   dictionary of slang.
 - "global information tracker": you're in a good mood, and it actually
   works for you. Angels sing, and a light suddenly fills the room.
 - "goddamn idiotic truckload of sh*t": when it breaks

This is a stupid (but extremely fast) directory content manager.

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GIT - the stupid content tracker

Linus Torvalds, 2005

README, from the first commit, 7 April 2005

Excerpt. The complete work is at the source.

In April 2005 the Linux kernel lost its free licence to BitKeeper, and Torvalds wrote a replacement in four days. The first commit, on 7 April, carried the message "Initial revision of 'git', the information manager from hell" and a README that opened like this.

The commit held eleven files. The design is in the word "content": every file, directory, and commit is stored under the SHA-1 hash of its contents, so the history is a graph of immutable objects and a repository can be copied in full to any machine. That design is why git could be self-hosting on the day it was written, and why, twenty years later, so much of the world's software is kept in it. The README is here for its voice. The tool began as a four-day hack, named in irritation, and the first thing its author wrote about it says so.

Source: github.com
Rights: Git, GPL-2.0; excerpt from the README of commit e83c5163 reproduced with attribution