Git is a free and open source distributed code management and Version control system that is distributed under the GNU General Public License version 2. In addition to software version control, Git is used for other applications including configuration management and content management.

Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, developed and released Git in 2005. The project was originally undertaken because available open source version control systems at that time weren’t up to up to the requirements of Linux kernel development. For one thing, version control for such a large-scale collaborative effort requires better performance than available systems were capable of — three seconds to apply a patch, for example, versus 30. In addition to its superior performance, Git provides support for a distributed workflow and safeguards against corruption.