Short Bytes: Microsoft has almost moved all of its Windows developers to Git version control system, which was developed by Linux creator Linus Torvalds. This has also resulted in the largest Git repo on the planet. This repo is about 300GB in size and contains 3.5 million lines of code.

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arlier this year in February, Microsoft announced that it has created open source Git Virtual File System (GVFS) to manage its vast amount of code in a better way. Now, it has announced that almost all of its engineers are using Git to develop Windows

For those who don’t know, Git is an open source distributed version control system developed by Linux creator Linus Torvalds. The Windows Git repository today has about 3.5 million lines of code, which are about 300GB in size.

It’s worth noting that Git starts causing issues when it’s used to manage a large size project. That’s why Microsoft created GVFS. Now available under MIT license, the GVFS code is available for download and contribution in GitHub.

Microsoft made a decision to switch to Git due to its widespread adoption and support for creating many branches. Apart from creating GVFS, the other steps were making algorithmic improvements to Git and building a Git proxy server to make sure that remote teams are able to work without any pain.

If we take a look at the numbers, the Windows repository has now 4,400 active branches. About 8,500 code pushes are made every day and 6,600 code reviews take place each day.

Surprisingly, a staggering number of 1,7600 different Windows builds are made every day. Read more insight here.

Has Linus Torvalds won?

You might be knowing that Linus Torvalds, Git and Linux creator, once said that if Microsoft ever does applications for Linux, it would mean that he had won. Do you think that Microsoft using Git to build Windows counts as a win? Don’t forget to share your views with us.