Agreed -- and it's absurd that BitKeeper's enormous influence here has been reduced to two sentences in the article. Not to take anything away from Torvalds and git, but McVoy and BK (and TeamWare and NSE/NSElite before it) are the real pioneers here. I got a bit into this deeper history in a USENIX talk in 2011[0] -- but I would welcome a more thorough treatment!
he has only himself to blame for that. the whole story shows the power of collaboration in the FOSS community. get in the way of that collaboration and you will get rolled over. i have seen that happen multiple times. you get to ignore the will of the community at your own peril.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc#t=2m50s