"For anyone unfamiliar with free and open source version control systems (VCSs), Subversion has become the standard non-commercial VCS, replacing the old champ, Concurrent Versions System (CVS). CVS is still just fine for limited use, but Subversion's allure is that it requires only a little bit of setup on a Web server and not much beyond that. Subversion does have some issues, which I'll discuss here, but for the most part, it just works.
"So, why do we need another one? Git (capital "G"; git is the command-line tool) is in many ways designed to be better than Subversion. It is one of many distributed VCSs. My own first experience with these was with Arch/tla, as well as Mercurial, Bazaar, darcs, and a few others. For many reasons, which I'll discuss as far as they are relevant, Git has become popular and is often considered together with Subversion as the two leading choices for a personal or corporate VCS.
"There are two important reasons to be interested in Git if you are a Subversion user.
You are looking to move to Git because Subversion is limiting you in some way.
"You are curious about Git and want to find out how it compares to Subversion."
