I agree completely - SVN is very standard, seems to be stable, and basically does everything most people will need. TortoiseSVN is a great client if you're using Windows.

The Linux kernel is fairly important and the kernel developers trust a "bleeding edge" VCS.

SVN is great for an individual or simple project, but sharing patches between branches is a nightmare.

It's more than fairly important, it's extremely important and big. That means that it's also a bit of an outlier in terms of lines of code, people involved, and so on, which is why Linus seems to have undertaken the painful project of making his own revision control thing.

I'll wait till he's shaken the bugs out until I give it a go, though, as being an early adopter gives me zero competitive advantage.