JGit and EGit are implementations of the Git SCM (by King Penguin) in
Java. Git is the killer SCM originally developed for the Linux Kernel, but now thanks the
versatility and extreme performance is taking over as the main
SCM tool for an ever increasing number of other projects
too. Git is available on any Unix-like platform plus Microsoft
Windows.
The original goal of JGit/EGit was to provide an Eclipse plugin for working with software using the Git SCM. The Eclipse plugin is still the main goal of most of the developers, but we are open to anyone wanting to interface with other tools, like Netbeans, Ant, Maven etc. For those the JGit part provides a high performance API for working with Git repositories.
The most accurate information on JGit/EGit can be found on a Git wiki page.
Cheers!
PS. If you found yourself this far you may try to install using the update site available here. Point the update manager to http://www.jgit.org/update-site and install. Builds are now tagged. See Gitweb. We do not yet push tags to repo.or.cz. DS.