Those were not his ideas. Before Git, the Linux kernel team was using BitKeeper for DVCS (and other DVCS implementations like Perforce existed as well). Git was created as a BitKeeper replacement after a fight erupted between Andrew Tridgell (who was accused of trying to reverse engineer BitKeeper in violation of its license) and Larry McVoy (the author of BitKeeper).
I agree and that’s the point I was trying to make.
Linus’s contribution is a great one. He learned from prior tools and contributions, made a lot of smart technical decisions, got stuff moving with a prototype, then displayed good technical leadership by handing it off to a dedicated development team.
That’s such a good lesson for all of us devs.
So why the urge to lie and pretend he coded it in a week with no help? I know you’re not saying this, but this is the common myth.
https://graphite.com/blog/bitkeeper-linux-story-of-git-creat...
You may find this 10-year-old thread on HN enlightening, too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11667494