How Github has changed the open source world
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Re: How Github has changed the open source world
#2I would agree with the author, but I am still wondering why other platforms do not win. I mean, for example, SourceForge or code.google.com. Except for the first point, most hosting sites provide exactly same functionalities.
Then, I guess, the point is 'easiness' or fancy/cool user interface.
Re: How Github has changed the open source world
#3I have only recently become a major convert into the DCVS world coming from Subversion and CVS before it. When I first started going I found that git was rather hard to for me to wrap my brain around, especially since it so radically changed the way certain commands worked. So I looked at Mercurial and felt much more at home as it felt like Subversion.
Since then I've wrapped my brain around Git and absolutely love it. I now have accounts on both Bitbucket and Github and both work equally well for what I want. The only feature that I feel is missing from Github is the ability to create unlimited private repositories for free, if not at least, on their lowest paid tier.
I tend to create random projects haphazardly, and while I like to have it versioned and "backed up" somewhere where I can invite friends to collaborate with me, I don't want some of these projects out in the open. Some of them are research projects for new products I am developing, others are projects I am working on with friends that could potentially be monetized.
Don't get me wrong, I understand where Github is coming from, and being familiar with both Git and Hg is not going to hurt, it is annoying on a context switching level to have to remember how to do something in hg and then in git when switching between projects.
At the point where I am in my career I don't yet make enough money (after paying student loans, car insurance, etc...) to spend money on monthly billing paid services.
Re: How Github has changed the open source world
#48. Get people using Git (and more generally, get more people using version control for their projects)
9. Made it popular to post more than just projects (off hand I'm thinking about dot/config files)
10. Make it easier to actually provide patches to open source projects
Re: How Github has changed the open source world
#5I would agree with the author, but I am still wondering why other platforms do not win. I mean, for example, SourceForge or code.google.com. Except for the first point, most hosting sites provide exactly same functionalities. Then, I guess, the point is 'easiness' or fancy/cool user interface.
GitHub has managed to take advantage of the Git hype and make code social in a way that SF or Google Code never could. Today's SF, although powering lots of high profile floss projects, feels increasingly dated with its traditional developer-user model. Google Code is arguably even less social and definitely lacking in features. GitHub, finally, looks great, is easy to use and has a lot of small yet very neat features that making coding easier.
Re: How Github has changed the open source world
#6I would agree with the author, but I am still wondering why other platforms do not win. I mean, for example, SourceForge or code.google.com. Except for the first point, most hosting sites provide exactly same functionalities. Then, I guess, the point is 'easiness' or fancy/cool user interface.
In this respect, I think github's killer feature over sourceforge is its focus on people instead of projects. Perhaps we could call it an increased democratization of open source.
Sourceforge is centered around projects. You have to register and get approval for each project separately (at least you did a few years ago, it has been a long time since I last went through the exercise). This left a significant percentage of projects with descriptions of the author's intent, but no actual code. It also meant that any third party contributions had to go back through the author (who might have lost interest).
I have never seen a project on github with no code. There is no approval process. You simply push and you are up and running. Forking allows others to start contributing right away without any action from the original author (and github really encourages you to fork projects). Then the tools that github provides makes collaboration way easier than it was in the past (pull requests vs emailing patches).
I agree with all of the things the author notes, but I really think this is github's killer feature. (Hope I didn't come off as too much of a github fanboy).
Re: How Github has changed the open source world
#7With github, it generally feels like the focus is on a developer, whereas with something like sourceforge the focus is on the project/code. I'm not saying that like it's a bad thing either - I think it's generally been a positive shift.
Re: How Github has changed the open source world
#8As a Ruby developer its sometimes hard to know if a particular Gem is still being actively maintained or if there is a better, more recent alternative. I find that Github does an outstanding job solving both problems. If there haven't been commits in the last year (6 months?) I'll generally look elsewhere. That elsewhere is generally the "Network" page. :)
Re: How Github has changed the open source world
#9From what I've seen, a Github profile now influences the hiring process too.
Re: How Github has changed the open source world
#10I would agree with the author, but I am still wondering why other platforms do not win. I mean, for example, SourceForge or code.google.com. Except for the first point, most hosting sites provide exactly same functionalities. Then, I guess, the point is 'easiness' or fancy/cool user interface.
BitBucket actually does everything GitHub does on that list of ways that GitHub supposedly changed the world. In fact, I find the BitBucket interface generally easier to use and easier on the eyes -- and, my God, the colors on the GitHub issue tracker pages are fucking awful.
. . . but somehow GitHub gets so much attention that many people think it's the only code hosting site in the world, just like so many idiots think that Ubuntu is the only open source operating system in the world.