Mozilla is changing its version control system from Mercurial to Git for the development of the Firefox browser. This was announced by Byron Jones, who is responsible for software release management, among other things.
The source code repository will exclusively be available on Github. However, Mozilla does not plan to implement Github’s tools and services and the associated workflows immediately.
Mercurial was developed around the same time as Git, which is now dominant in open-source development. However, many major projects that used Mercurial have since ceased to exist.
Mozilla’s transition will take time
For example, in 2016, the standard implementation of Python switched from Mercurial to Git, and Facebook created its own replacement called Sapling. Currently, Mercurial is still used by Nginx and Pypy.
Jones explained the decision to switch, saying, “For a long time, Firefox desktop development has supported both Mercurial and Git users. This dual SCM requirement places a significant burden on teams that are already overloaded.” Mozilla’s main goal with this change is to save resources.
The process involves removing Mercurial clients from employees’ computers after switching the repository. However, the actual workflow for creating, submitting, and editing patches will remain the same, using existing tools like Phabricator.
Bugzilla will continue to be used as well. The team will not use Github Issues or Pull Requests. In addition, Mozilla plans to migrate internal tools and infrastructure built on Mercurial to Git, so that Mozilla can eventually fully transition away from Mercurial.
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