Git's Discontents: Examining the Cracks in Version Control's Crown

Git fundamentally transformed software development, enabling the open-source explosion we've witnessed over the past two decades. But as we approach Git's 20th birthday, it's worth examining where this beloved tool shows its age. Today's main segment digs into three key areas of discontent: Git's well-documented struggles with massive monorepos (forcing Facebook to switch to Mercurial and Microsoft to develop GVFS), the paradox of a decentralized tool creating unprecedented centralization around GitHub, and the current state of alternatives like Subversion and Mercurial.

The monorepo challenge is particularly revealing—when Facebook's engineers approached Git maintainers about scaling issues in 2012, they were told their repository was "too huge" and to split it up. This dismissive response led Facebook to migrate their entire codebase to Mercurial, while Microsoft took a different approach, engineering solutions like GVFS to make Git handle the 300GB Windows repository. These extreme cases expose Git's architectural assumptions and remind us that even dominant tools have their limits.

In today's news, we cover a critical React Native CLI vulnerability (CVE-2025-11953) that scores 9.8/10 on severity—exposing developer machines to remote command execution through the Metro development server. The vulnerability affects versions 4.8.0 through 20.0.0-alpha.2, with millions of weekly downloads at risk.

We also explore a fascinating paradigm shift: WebAssembly support has been added to the Linux kernel, enabling an entire operating system to run in virtual, portable environments. This isn't about web browsers—it's about running Linux itself on WebAssembly, complete with BusyBox in a browser. The technical achievement required working around WebAssembly's lack of MMU and interrupt mechanisms, showcasing remarkable engineering creativity.

Finally, our weird science story features a genetic mutation in the LRP5 gene that gives some people bones up to 8 times denser than normal—making them virtually unbreakable but unable to swim. This real-life superpower has pharmaceutical companies racing to understand the mutation for osteoporosis treatments, while affected individuals must avoid deep water at all costs.

Links

Main segment

• The Fork-It-and-Forget Decade - Tim O'Brien on Medium
• Why Facebook Doesn't Use Git - Graphite.dev Blog
• Announcing GVFS (Git Virtual File System) - Microsoft Azure DevOps Blog
• On Centralized Development Forges - Ariadne's Space Blog
• Apache Subversion 1.14.5 Released
• Mercurial 7.0 Released

News

• Critical React Native CLI Vulnerability Exposes Millions of Developer Machines
• WebAssembly Support Added to Linux Kernel
• Genetic Mutation Makes People's Bones 8x Denser
• Microsoft Discovers SesameOp Backdoor Using OpenAI API
• Shift Technology AI Models Stolen in Insider Breach
• YouTube Announces Voluntary Exit Program for US Staff
• Norway Wealth Fund Votes Against Musk's $1T Pay Package