Comment by simoncion

> I get that they were written before git, but not before the advent of version control.

  git clone https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/bash.git
  git clone https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/coreutils.git

Plug the repo name into https://savannah.gnu.org/git/?group=<REPO_NAME> to get a link to browse the repo.