[TxMt] Why the software history was not kept?

[Gustavo Henrique Lima Pinto]

Hi there,

I'm a researcher studying software evolution. As part of my current
research, I'm studying the implications of open-sourcing a proprietary
software, for instance, if the project succeed in attracting newcomers.
However, I observed that some projects, like _textmate_, deleted their
software history.

https://github.com/textmate/textmate/commit/9894969e677c39007c2860f09e3f8235d3cde1ac

Knowing that software history is indispensable for developers (e.g.,
developers need to refer to history several times a day), I would like to
ask textmate developers the following four brief questions:

1. Why did you decide to not keep the software history?
2. Do the core developers faced any kind of problems, when trying to refer
to the old history? If so, how did they solve these problems?
3. Do the newcomers faced any kind of problems, when trying to refer to the
old history? If so, how did they solve these problems?
4. How does the lack of history impacted on software evolution? Does it
placed any burden in understanding and evolving the software?

Thanks in advance for your collaboration,

Gustavo Pinto, PhD
http://www.gustavopinto.org
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