How likely is it that Linus will add better support for binary files from an outside project or do we just have to use the forked git?
Subversion is "better" at this only because it does shallow checkouts - it only gets the last version of the project. It is still ludicrously inefficient in it's transfer protocol.
Git can actually do this type of development fine - if you do 'git clone --depth=1 [url]' it will also do a shallow clone (just the last commit and it's associated content) and will transfer the data much more efficiently than SVN. In the past you couldn't then commit to that repo, which was the issue, but in newer versions you can. You can also later deepen the repository if you want. It is not an often used feature, but I think it brings Git pretty close to on-par with SVN for large projects, if not better in many respects.
You cannot do this as of Git 1.6.6, according to the documentation, which states:
"A shallow repository has a number of limitations (you cannot clone or fetch from it, nor push from nor into it), but is adequate if you are only interested in the recent history of a large project with a long history, and would want to send in fixes as patches."
What newer version of Git is there?
I don't think I've ever stored a binary file in my source-code control system. (Hint: your VCS is not your backup server.)
(Yes, OK, I have a favicon.ico in some of my repositories. This has not detracted from the "git experience".)
A version control system is such that it can handle versions of the project and not just versions of the source code.
FWIW: I keep whatever files in the project I have uncompressed in git and it hasn't killed my HD space yet.
Of course, if Photoshop were Free Software, then you could just make the undo history and the git repository the same thing. That would be the ideal situation.
The developers should have been soundly thrashed with a cane, but if it is possible to check in a binary. They will do it.
Or don't do that. git users are happy about git in part because they don't work with idiots that misuse their tools.
That sounds like how Vesta works: http://www.vestasys.org/why-vesta.html (item 3)
I do small-scale game development (Flash and iPhone) with a team of 2-3. We've always committed image, audio and animation binary files to source control (currently Subversion) so we can track changes, just as we do for code. To be honest, I can't imagine what other approach we should be taking.
Backup is not the point. The point is that you should be able to get onto a new machine, and execute your build process, and it should work. If some of the application files are missing, it wont.
I have a favicon.ico in some of my repositories.
It seems that all you're really saying is that your applications aren't media-intensive (binary files limited to an icon), and you don't want to think about ones that are.