...
Git, is a version control system that allows you to make commits locally that don't bother anyone else's system. So you can work on your feature locally for a week or so, committing every couple of hours as you make progress, and once its finished and tested, you can then push it to a remote/central server. Thats what distributed means.
Git Resources
A list of some possibly useful external Git resources:
- Intro to Git for those who know SVN: http://git.or.cz/course/svn.html
- Fedora Developers' list of useful Git Resources: Git Resources
- Fedora Developers' Best Practices (not all are Fedora specific): Git Guidelines and Best Practices
- Fedora Developers' Git Quick Start Guide: Git Quick Start Guide
- Git Reference: http://gitref.org/
- Pro Git Book (Online): http://progit.org/book/
- Chris Wilper's (Fedora Committer) tips/rules on using Git: https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/~cwilper/How+I+Use+Git
Still want to use SVN locally?
- GitHub does have some basic SVN client support: https://github.com/blog/966-improved-subversion-client-support
- Or, you could obviously download the Zipped up DSpace release packages and import them into your local SVN
Working on a big feature in SVN, but wanting to be able to locally commit every so often (with Git)
...
See: https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/wiki
Git adoption by the DSpace developers
Final Note: The DSpace developers (committers), are currently firmly committed to using SVN for official contributions to the DSpace source code. The cost of migrating to Git is still substantial, especially as many modules are not being mirrored on Github, not all developers are fluent in Git, and our release process is only configured for subversion.
There has been a DSpace Developers Meeting on Git: DevMtg 2011-02-09
And the IRC chat log is: http://irclogs.duraspace.org/index.php?date=2011-02-09