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.
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stupid. contemptible and despicable. simple. Take your pick from the dictionary of slang.
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"global information tracker": you're in a good mood, and it actually works for you. Angels sing, and a light suddenly fills the room.
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"goddamn idiotic truckload of sh*t": when it breaks
Git is a fast, scalable, distributed revision control system with an unusually rich command set that provides both high-level operations and full access to internals.
Git is an Open Source project covered by the GNU General Public License version 2 (some parts of it are under different licenses, compatible with the GPLv2). It was originally written by Linus Torvalds with help of a group of hackers around the net.
Please read the file INSTALL.md for installation instructions.
See Documentation/gittutorial.txt to get started, then see
Documentation/giteveryday.txt for a useful minimum set of commands, and
Documentation/git-commandname.txt for documentation of each command.
If git has been correctly installed, then the tutorial can also be
read with "man gittutorial
" or "git help tutorial", and the
documentation of each command with "man git-commandname
" or "git help commandname
".
CVS users may also want to read Documentation/gitcvs-migration.txt ("man gitcvs-migration" or "git help cvs-migration" if git is installed).
Many Git online resources are accessible from http://git-scm.com/ including full documentation and Git related tools.
The user discussion and development of Git take place on the Git mailing list -- everyone is welcome to post bug reports, feature requests, comments and patches to [email protected] (read Documentation/SubmittingPatches for instructions on patch submission). To subscribe to the list, send an email with just "subscribe git" in the body to [email protected]. The mailing list archives are available at [http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/, http://marc.info/?l=git](http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/, http://marc.info/?l=git) and other archival sites.
The maintainer frequently sends the "What's cooking" reports that list the current status of various development topics to the mailing list. The discussion following them give a good reference for project status, development direction and remaining tasks.