Tom Preston-Werner discusses his development of egitd, an Erlang-based replacement for the traditional git-daemon used by GitHub to handle anonymous requests for git repositories. Designed to provide greater flexibility and power, egitd allows for custom mapping of repository names to disk locations and logging of first-time repository clones, enabling users to track how often their public repositories are cloned. Additionally, egitd improves error handling by offering more informative error messages than the default git-daemon, addressing common user frustrations with vague and confusing errors when interacting with public clone addresses. While the new system is still in development, these enhancements aim to improve user experience and understanding of GitHub's functionalities.