Comment by da_chicken

A version control system is a tool for managing a project, not exclusively a tool for managing source code.

Wanting to split up the project into multiple storage spaces is inherently hostile to managing the project. People want it together because it's important that it stays together as a basic function of managing a project of digital files. The need to track and maintain digital version numbers and linking them to release numbers and build plans is just a requirement.

That's what actual, real projects demand. Any projects that involve digital assets is going to involve binary, often large, data files. Any projects that involve large tables of pre-determined or historic data will involve large files that may be text or binary which contain data the project requires. They won't have everything encompassed by the project as a text file. It's weird when that's true for a project. It's a unique situation to the Linux kernel because it, somewhat uniquely, doesn't have graphics or large, predetermined data blocks. Well, not all projects that need to be managed by git share 100% of the attributes of the Linux kernel.

This idea that everything in a git project must be all small text file is incredibly bizarre. Are you making a video game? A website? A web application? A data driven API? Does it have geographic data? Does it required images? Video? Music or sound? Are you providing static documentation that must be included?

So the choices are:

1. Git is useful general purpose VCS for real world projects. 2. Git does not permit binary or large files.

Tracking versioning on large files is not some massively complex problem. Not needing to care about diffing and merging simplifies how those files are managed.