Yes, but in the presented hypothetical and over such a long time, the fact that it was able to maintain this in its current underdog role does not mean it would have been able to so as the main adopted 'nix.
I'm not sure it's fait acompli (I could be convinced!).
My thinking is: there's no requirement that a project not only accept just about any half-baked feature patch, but actually design an entire version control system to optimize for that use-case.
