>"I looked at Git, I looked at Mercurial, and I looked at my requirements and I thought, “You know what? I’m just going to write my own,” so I wrote my own version control system, which is now a project unto itself, and that worked out very, very well, because think, Linus Torvalds wrote Git to support the Linux kernel, and it is perfectly designed to serve the needs of the Linux kernel development community. If you’re working on the Linux kernel, Git is absolutely the perfect version control system.
>Now, if you’re working on something else, though, maybe not so much, and so, it’s a perfectly atrocious version control system for working for SQLite.
>Fossil is absolutely the perfect version control system for working in SQLite, and I wrote it for that purpose, and so, because I wrote it myself, it exactly meets my needs and is the perfect product for what it’s doing, so by doing things yourself, you control your own destiny, you have more freedom, you’re not dependent upon third parties."
I never had the impression of Dr. Hipp saying "Fossil > Git", but "Fossil might fit you better than Git".
Amen to that.
FWIW... i've actively contributed to fossil since 2008 and can say with some authority that we (the "regulars" on the project) have never done "PR pushes" for more users. It's simply not how any of us function. We welcome those who stop by, and we're happy to evangelize when approached, but we don't go actively hunting for more users. We're more of a "build it and they will come (or not)" project. Every couple of years someone pops up in the mailing list/forum proposing ways we could gain more users if we'd just do this and that and that other thing, but that's simply not a priority for any of us who actively work on Fossil. Continued work on Fossil is not about dominating the DVCS field (git has, for better or worse, long since done that). As Richard is quoted in earlier responses in this thread, Fossil is, first and foremost, a tool for maintaining sqlite. Similarly, i make use of Fossil for literally all of my own code because it's a great tool for the job, whereas git is... errr... less so.
PS: the overwhelming majority of FOSS projects are far closer in size and scope to sqlite than they are to the Linux kernel (for which git was created).
It's amusing if not ironic how many comments are something to the effect of "...but how messy and clumsy would the Fossil approach be when working with the Linux kernel that has 1000s of contributors pushing 1000s of commits..." when the sum total of projects approximating the size of the Linux kernel can be counted on one hand, and the authors of such comments are almost certainly not working on such projects.
Not to mention the author of Fossil has clearly stated that Git is great for Linux kernel development, and Fossil was not developed for such a project.
I don't quite think it's a race to be won.
SQLite has had about 33 contributors (after you combine people using multiple login names). But 92% of the commits have been from just two people. 97% from just three people. Then there is a long tail of other contributors.
Fossil itself is similar: https://fossil-scm.org/home/reports?type=ci&view=byuser - 5 or 10 people account for most of the commits, and then there is a long tail.
But aren't most projects like this? A few core developers are responsible for most changes and enhancements, and then there lots of others that might contribute a patch or two here and there? I suspect there exceptions to this (the Linux kernel comes to mind) but I think they are rare. Correct me if I'm wrong.
If we accept drive-by patches from anonymous users, then SQLite would have to be relicensed as GPL or similar, which would undermine many of its use cases.
In the US, authors cannot put their works in the public domain. This ability doesn't exist in statute, nor have the courts accepted the concept. Past attempts to allow this have failed in Congress. One can refuse to enforce their rights on creative works, but copyright still exists from the moment of creation and works won't enter public domain until the expiration of the copyright.
Furthermore, the US allows authors (except work-for-hire) and their heirs the right of termination for copyright transfers and licenses. This is an inalienable statutory right which cannot be restricted by contracts.