Microsoft GitHub recently published a blog saying that it will stop supporting the version control system Subversion, also known as SVN, on January 8, 2024.
Version control systems are often used in software development, and Subversion and git are the two main version control systems, the former being a centralized version control system and the latter being a distributed version control system. Over time, git has become the dominant tool used by developers, while Subversion has fallen into decline.
GitHub officials say that when GitHub introduced Subversion support in 2010, the version control landscape was very different. Many customers were using centralized version control systems. subversion was 10 years old and complemented other centralized systems, while git was just coming into its own.
At the time, GitHub was not sure that distributed version control would eventually become mainstream, let alone that git would become the dominant version control system.
GitHub data shows that less than 0.02% of requests to the git backend come from Subversion, and only about 5,000 repositories receive one Subversion request per month.
So, as GitHub usage continues to grow and the number of Subversion requests drops dramatically, GitHub officials plan to focus their efforts entirely on git.
GitHub will discontinue support for Subversion entirely on GitHub.com. Subversion support will also be removed from GitHub Enterprise Server when it is released sometime in early 2024.
