git-annex is a distributed file synchronization system written in Haskell. It aims to solve the problem of sharing and synchronizing collections of large files independent from a commercial service or even a central server.
| Original author(s) | Joey Hess |
|---|---|
| Initial release | 19 October 2010; 13 years ago (2010-10-19) |
| Stable release | 10.20230802 / 2 August 2023; 11 months ago (2023-08-02) |
| Repository | |
| Written in | Haskell |
| Operating system | Linux, FreeBSD, Android, OS X, Windows |
| Size | 44.2 MB |
| Type | File synchronization |
| License | GPL3+, AGPL3+ [1] |
| Website | git-annex |
The development of git-annex began in 2010.[2] In 2012-13 the development was funded through a Kickstarter campaign.[3] The main development of this campaign was the git-annex assistant, a component that runs in the background to automate the synchronization of repositories.
The next crowd funding campaign for 2013-14 was organized over a self-hosted platform.[4]
git-annex uses Git to index files but does not store them in the Git history. Instead, a symbolic link representing and linking to the probably large file is committed. git-annex manages a content-addressable storage for the files under its control. A separate Git branch logs the location of every file. Thus users can clone a git-annex repository and then decide for every file whether to make it locally available.
git-annex packages are available for a variety of operating systems, including:[5]
Linux
Internet
