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We've raised $17M to build what comes after Git

blog.gitbutler.com

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Re: We've raised $17M to build what comes after Git

#601

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

malicka wrote: post #584
nine_k wrote: post #578

The tool that could replace git must free, ubiquitous, and arguably open-source. This is why I cannot imagine how raising $17M may pay for itself in that case, to say nothing of a 10× return. It may be a great tool, but I'd be very reluctant to use a closed-source solution as a cornerstone of infrastructure.

I would argue it being proprietary would be completely unacceptable, for such a position of importance. In any case, Git has become tremendously entrenched over the past couple decades. Anything that hopes to replace it would have to be significantly better to break from the inertia Git has. I’m honestly skeptical as to whether this is even possible in the near future. We’re not at all in the same historical moment a…

yeah, it used to be that things like Perforce could still exist, because when they were created, they could do things that their OSS equivalents could not.

but since then, so many people have gotten used to the basic model that git offers (even if they still have issues with details of the syntax).

to gain a foothold in this environment is a monumental task, and anything that wasn't unambiguously libre and probably gratis too has little hope.

Re: We've raised $17M to build what comes after Git

#602

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

tiffanyh wrote: post #42

A lot of people seem confused about how they raised the money, but it’s actually a pretty easy VC pitch. - It’s from one of GitHub’s cofounders. - GitHub had a $7.5B exit. - And the story is: AI is completely changing how software gets built, with plenty of proof points already showing up in the billions in revenue being made from things like Claude Code, Cusor, Codex, etc. So the pitch is basically: back the team th…

put differently: there's already a lot of money moving from A to B as people use AI & agentic coding. Find a way to get yourself in the middle of that cash flow and suck out a few percentage points of it .. profit!

Re: We've raised $17M to build what comes after Git

#603

Post by conartist6 »

MyHonestOpinon wrote: post #545
conartist6 wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I have just as good a shot at building what comes after git as their team does, and perhaps quite a lot better. I'm not famous though, I'm just a good engineer who is patient, inquisitive, and determined enough to spend the last five years of my life on nothing but this. My question is: say the investor believes that some new platform will win out over Github. How do I make the case that it will be mine over…

They are using fame and past success as a proxy. You would need to do it on the basis of your ideas and the work that you have done. Someone really knowledgable would need to dig deep on your work and then the VCs will need to trust these person(s). The other alternative might be to try to get traction with users like Linus did with git and hope that they like it enough that it becomes popular. But Linus had the adva…

I've considered trying to get Linus to be the knowledgeable person given his history. I haven't actually reached out though.

I badly want someone to take that deep dive given the work I've put in to be ready for it

Re: We've raised $17M to build what comes after Git

#604

Post by conartist6 »

cedilla wrote: post #568
conartist6 wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that money is at the root of the question. I don't see any problem with my strategy for making money, which is to win over all their users with a wildly better product. Github itself basically followed this route. They didn't built Git on top of SVN. They built a much better product (than Sourceforge) and they used network effects (particularly their free-for-OSS offer) to grow their userbase until they…

I don't know if you wanted to imply that, but just to make sure no one misunderstands: GitHub didn't invent git. I don't know if they were the first git forge, but they were certainly among the first.

Yeah I know that they didn't. Even though they didn't invent it and don't own it, it's still the cornerstone of the wall that has become the Github empire.

The specific problem is that all the competitors to Github have to use git, and that limits how different they can really be than Github and thus how aggressively they can compete to win users

Re: We've raised $17M to build what comes after Git

#605

Post by heeton »

Orygin wrote: post #320
heeton wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not 17m for an idea to improve git. It’s 17m for a tool which hopes to serve companies and charge money and make more than 17m in profit as a result. If you look at the set of dev tooling, teams will frequently pay many hundreds per dev on things like CI, Git tools, code review, etc. And to be fair, GitHub is really quite bad for a lot of workflows. I haven’t used gitbutler, but my team pays ~$30 a month per dev…

So it's gambling that they can extract money from open source project, by repackaging most of the existing features through a nice UX and hope business gamble their tech stack on it. Great use of 17 million dollars.

I wouldn't say "buying software that saves us time" is gambling, but you do you.

Re: We've raised $17M to build what comes after Git

#607

Post by yard2010 »

factorialboy wrote: post #537
schacon wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to clarify (and we do say this when you run `but setup`), the `pre-commit` hook is needed because of the way that we manage commits - we allow for multiple parallel applied branches, which Git cannot do. The way we accomplish this is to maintain a hidden 'megamerge' commit (as JJ would say). All Git commands work fine the way we're doing it except 'git commit', which is not aware of our operating model and will…

All I did was install GitButler via my OS's package manager, and open a local repo via the GUI. And I saw these malicious (pre-commit) git hooks installed by GitButler, without any confirmation, or prompt seeking my approval. I'm sure you folks will come up with a "technical explanation" or some "legal-marketing language" to cover up for this — but in my book — redirect `git commit` to `but commit` is dishonest and u…

You keep using the word malicious, what do you mean? What is the malice?

Re: We've raised $17M to build what comes after Git

#608

Post by jayd16 »

devin wrote: post #542
jayd16 wrote: post #536

Seems fine I guess. I'm not a fan of Perforce but it does have some features that git still struggles with and needs to address to break into new customers. This Gitbutler seems to address some of them but I can't say it really feels next gen. I like the idea of parallel branches. I feel like you could probably get away with just creating multiple, named stages but having a full history is nice. P4 has multiple pendi…

Could you explain parallel branches vs what git offers today? If it's to enable multi-agent scenarios, don't worktrees (at least in the local sense) allow for this?

My understanding is parallel branches allow multiple changelists to be applied to a single workspace. eg you can have multiple WIP fix branches active in your feature branch workspace and not worry about polluting your feature branch with unrelated/duplicated commits.

Worktrees are multiple workspaces, each in their own directory, sharing a single git repo. This is helpful because you reduce the overhead and the CLI command juggling for fully separate clones.

I have no idea what approach is better for your multi-agent scenario.

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