I guess. But in this particular case, the early development of git looks almost exactly like what's described. You can go back and read Linus's early descriptions and the traffic in the early days on the mailing list and see the design as it actually unfolded.

Why use a parable when you can use history instead?

It takes a lot more time and effort to sift through mountains of emails than it does to read a single post whose sole purpose is to distill all that information into one, easy to consume piece.

Here's a couple of interesting posts Linus wrote a few years ago summarizing some aspects of Git's history and design.

http://mid.gmane.org/[email protected]... http://mid.gmane.org/[email protected]...