If it weren't for Linux, git wouldn't have existed; git was Torvalds scratching the itch that was needing a better way to manage the Linux source.

He's an outspoken detractor of subversion [1], and after bitkeeper went pear-shaped [2], two projects sprang into being around the same time, solving the problem: Git, and Mercurial [3]. Whichever you think is better, when Torvalds converged on git as the choice for the kernel, the rest of the world could but follow.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8 [2] https://lwn.net/Articles/130746/ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercurial