Main Track
Mercurial, 20 years and counting: how are we still alive and kicking?
January 31, 2026
12:00 PM – 12:50 PM Add to calendar
12:00 PM – 12:50 PM Add to calendar
Janson
<p><a href="https://www.mercurial-scm.org/">Mercurial</a> is a Distributed Version Control System created in 2005.</p>
<p>The project has been constantly active since then, fostering <a href="https://heptapod.net/">modern tooling</a>, introducing <a href="https://octobus.net/blog/2020-11-26-modern-mercurial">new</a> <a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2025/schedule/event/fosdem-2025-5989-a-glimpse-into-a-smoother-version-control-experience/">ideas</a>, spawning multiple <a href="https://engineering.fb.com/2022/11/15/open-source/sapling-source-control-scalable/">recent</a> <a href="https://github.com/jj-vcs/jj">tools</a> from its community, keeping <a href="https://hg-edge.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/log?rev=51489f639f649cb13fd7a2e28284ee7e957425df">itself</a> <a href="https://repo.mercurial-scm.org/hg/rev/8b7123c8947b">competitive</a>, and with sustained funding for its development. However nowadays, most people we encounter remember Mercurial for losing the popularity battle to its sibling <a href="https://git-scm.com/">Git</a> in the 2010s and think the project dead.</p>
<p>This talk confronts this paradox. How did Mercurial get itself in such a situation? What can everyone learn from it? What does this mean for the future of version control?</p>
<p>Using our first hand knowledge of Mercurial's history, we look at a selection of events, contributor profiles, technical and community aspects, to see how they've affected the project's course.</p>
<p>We will focus on topics that we have been asked about most frequently, such as:
* How has Mercurial weathered the Git storm?
* Which impacts has Mercurial had on your life, unbeknownst to you?
* How has the involvement from behemoth companies reshaped the project?
* What brings people to Mercurial in 2025?</p>
<p>Finally, we leverage the knowledge extracted from our past, to assess the present state of version control, try to predict its future, and highlight how community-based open-source remains as relevant as ever.</p>
Additional information
| Live Stream | https://live.fosdem.org/watch/janson |
|---|---|
| Type | maintrack |
| Language | English |
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