Many people prefer Hg over Git, though I prefer Git, and it was written before Git.
I'd agree that Linus helped "advance the state of free version control", but certainly not by a decade when compared to other pre existing free version control systems.
I'd say that's a bit of a stretch. Remember DARCS and Mecurial were both out when he wrote git. Though Mercurial wasn't that old:)
Read this: http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/version-control/version-con...
Many people prefer Hg over Git, though I prefer Git, and it was written before Git.
I'd agree that Linus helped "advance the state of free version control", but certainly not by a decade when compared to other pre existing free version control systems.