In 2007 the docbook project made the mistake of converting ' to \' for man pages [1]. It's a problem because groff interprets \' as acute accent which is rendered as ' in ASCII, but as ´ in utf-8. This started a cascade of bug reports in git [2], debian [3], Arch Linux [4], docbook itself [5], and probably many others. A solution was to use the correct groff character: \(aq, which is always rendered as ', but the problem is that such character doesn't work in other troff programs. A portable solution required the use of a conditional character that is \(aq in groff, but ' in all others: .ie \n(.g .ds Aq \(aq .el .ds Aq ' The proper solution took time to be implemented in docbook, but in 2010 they did it [6]. So the docbook man page stylesheets were broken from 1.73 to 1.76. Unfortunately by that point many workarounds already existed. In the case of git, GNU_ROFF was introduced, and in the case of Arch Linux a mapping from \' to ' was added to groff's man.local. Other distributions might have done the same, or similar workarounds. Since 2010 there is no need for this workaround, which is fixed elsewhere, not just in docbook, but other layers as well. Let's remove it. [1]ea2a0bac56[2] https://lore.kernel.org/git/20091012102926.GA3937@debian.b2j/ [3] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=507673#65 [4] https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/9643 [5] https://sourceforge.net/p/docbook/bugs/1022/ [6]fb55343426Inspired-by: brian m. carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net> Signed-off-by: Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com> Reviewed-by: Jeff King <peff@peff.net> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Git - fast, scalable, distributed revision control system
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 for installation instructions.
Many Git online resources are accessible from https://git-scm.com/ including full documentation and Git related tools.
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).
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 git@vger.kernel.org (read Documentation/SubmittingPatches for instructions on patch submission and Documentation/CodingGuidelines).
Those wishing to help with error message, usage and informational message
string translations (localization l10) should see po/README.md
(a po file is a Portable Object file that holds the translations).
To subscribe to the list, send an email with just "subscribe git" in the body to majordomo@vger.kernel.org (not the Git list). The mailing list archives are available at https://lore.kernel.org/git/, http://marc.info/?l=git and other archival sites.
Issues which are security relevant should be disclosed privately to the Git Security mailing list git-security@googlegroups.com.
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.
The name "git" was given by Linus Torvalds when he wrote the very first version. He described the tool as "the stupid content tracker" and the name as (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.
- stupid. contemptible and despicable. simple. Take your pick from the dictionary of slang.
- "global information tracker": you're in a good mood, and it actually works for you. Angels sing, and a light suddenly fills the room.
- "goddamn idiotic truckload of sh*t": when it breaks