git commit –m “CodePlex now supports Git!”
Finally, yes, CodePlex now supports Git! Git has been one of the top rated requests from the CodePlex community for some time:
Admittedly, when we launched CodePlex, we never expected that at some point we would be running a source control system originally invented by Linus Torvalds to use for the Linux kernel. Though I would also say, nobody would have thought the open source ecosystem would be as important to Microsoft as it has become now.
Giving CodePlex users what they ask for and supporting their open source efforts has always been important to us, and we have a long list of improvements planned, so stay tuned as we have more up our sleeves!
Why Git?
So why Git? CodePlex already has Mercurial for distributed version control and TFS (which also supports subversion clients) for centralized version control. The short answer is that the CodePlex community voted, loud and clear, that Git support was critical. Additionally, we just like it, we use Git on our team every day and making the DVCS workflows more available to the CodePlex community is just the right thing to do.
Forks and Pull Requests
One of the capabilities that distributed version control systems, such as Mercurial and Git, enable is the Fork and Pull Request workflow. Just like with Mercurial, projects configured to use Git enable Forking the source and submitting contributions back via Pull Requests. The Fork/Pull Request workflow is a key accelerator to many open source projects and you will see improvements in our support coming later this year.
More Choice
With the addition of Git, now CodePlex has three options when it comes to Open Source project hosting. Projects can now select between TFS, Mercurial, and Git.
Each developer has their own preferences, and for some, centralized version control makes more sense to them. For others, DVCS is the only way to go. We’re equally committed to supporting both these technologies for our users.
You can get started today by creating a new project or contribute to an existing project by creating a fork.
For help on getting started with Git on CodePlex, see our help documentation here. If you would like to switch your project to use Git, please contact us at CodePlex Support with your project information, and we will be happy to help you out.
We're Listening
CodePlex is your community, and we want to deliver the experiences you need to have a successful open source project. We want your ideas and feedback to make CodePlex a great development community. The issue tracker on CodePlex is publicly available. Add suggestions or vote up existing suggestions.
And you can always find us on Twitter, I’m @mgroves84; follow us to keep up to date with our latest releases: @codeplex
