Typically, most users don't get the AFNI source code from git directly-- you would then have to compile it on your own computer to get executable "binary" programs (for the C ones, that is; the python and tcsh scripts would be executable directly). And it is not impossible to build AFNI on your own computer, it would just take users a little time and more installation.

We keep a git repo of the latest code, and then perform builds from time to time to compile all the C codes, so that when a user downloads AFNI, they get the latest version for their OS; of, if they have AFNI, then they can run a command which will: see if a newer version of compiled (="built") AFNI is available, and if so, get it and put it into the same location as their current AFNI binary directory. So, assuming you have AFNI on your computer at this moment, likely all you need to do to update your AFNI is run the following in your terminal:

@update.afni.binaries -d

Daniel's mention of the git repo means that: an update has been made in the codebase, but probably we haven't done a new build yet, so it isn't available to The World by the "@update.afni.binaries -d" command yet. It will be soon; we tend to build fairly often with minor fixes+updates.

--pt