CodePlex, Microsoft's open source project hosting service, will now support the use of the git distributed version control system.

git, created by Linus Torvalds to support the development of the Linux kernel, has won widespread praise for its powerful branching and merging support. Where CVS and Subversion once ruled the roost, git has become the version control system of choice for many projects and organizations.

Prior to today's announcement, CodePlex supported a version of Microsoft's TFS, which is a centralized version control system, and the open source Mercurial, which, like git, is a distributed system. Although Mercurial arguably has better tools available for Windows developers, git is the system that has won most mindshare, and the feature request had the second most votes of any on CodePlex's issue tracker. The only request with more votes was support for Subversion—and Microsoft fulfilled that request in 2008.