FOSDEM 2026 talk by Mercurial maintainers examines how the project stayed active after losing the popularity war to Git in the 2010s.
Key Takeaways
Mercurial launched in 2005 and has remained continuously active despite widespread perception that it is dead.
The talk covers behemoth company involvement, community funding, and modern tooling that kept the project competitive.
Mercurial influenced tooling and workflows that developers use today without knowing the origin.
The speakers use Mercurial’s history to assess the current state of version control and predict its future.
Core argument: community-based open source can remain relevant even after losing a mainstream adoption battle.
Hacker News Comment Review
Commenters broadly agree Mercurial was the more user-friendly and safer tool, but Bitbucket dropping support in the early 2020s was the practical kill switch for most holdouts.
Jujutsu (jj) is the dominant suggested successor: commenters argue it absorbed Mercurial’s best UX ideas while running on Git repositories and forges, removing the main remaining reason to run Mercurial.
Mercurial’s branch model drew split opinions: some found the simpler command surface liberating compared to Git, while others cite bookmarks and short-lived branch handling as the feature that finally pushed them to Git.
Notable Comments
@BeetleB: argues Mercurial’s demise is near-certain now that Jujutsu exists as a Git-compatible alternative with the same UX benefits.
@juvoly: “Git has so many gotchas… whenever I’m doing something out of the ordinary I’m wondering if there isn’t an easier way.”
