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I feel like there is a great opportunity right now for anyone to make a Github replacement. Sounds like a lot of these features are sorely needed at the moment.

I feel like there is a great opportunity right now for anyone to make a Github replacement. Sounds like a lot of these features are sorely needed at the moment. Why has Github been complacent?

seangrant 11y ago
Because Github succeeded in being the Git repo host. I think you're on track with saying their complacency is an opportunity and I wouldn't doubt to see a Github killer born this year.
kmfrk 11y ago
They've pretty much been profitable since the start unlike other start-ups who may be more eager to please users/customers.
jmsdnns 11y ago
Why not bitbucket?
- zabuni 11y ago
  Bitbucket requires payment for larger numbers of collaborators. Github requires payment for private repositories. Open source requires unlimited collaborators, and no one wants to pay.
  - ddbennett 11y ago
    Public (Open Source) repositories on Bitbucket do not have a limit to the number of contributors.
- briandear 11y ago
  Bitbucket's UX and integrations are worse than Github.
  - dvdgsng 11y ago
    That's almost entirely subjective. YMMV.
shmerl 11y ago
> I feel like there is a great opportunity right now for anyone to make a Github replacement. There is GitLab, which is good and is FOSS in addition.
- Zikes 11y ago
  I'm maintaining a GitLab instance for my team at work and it's been really great for us. I am pretty disappointed that the CE version doesn't include GitLab Pages, though, as that was the one feature I missed most from GitHub and GitLab Enterprise is outside of our budget at this time.
  - jobvandervoort 11y ago
    Thanks, good to hear. As people can use GitLab Pages on GitLab.com for free, we felt the ability to host your own static pages was more interesting for larger teams, hence our decision to bring it to GitLab Enterprise Edition.
  - skulbuny 11y ago
    The hosted version at Gitlab.com is running EE, so it'll be just like Github.com is.
    - Zikes 11y ago
      I understand, but that's just not an option for us. I don't resent them at all, they've every right to decide which features are restricted to EE licenses, but I can lament it all the same.
  - kodablah 11y ago
    At a previous company, we did this in GitLab with a simple post receive hook that just checked out the gh_pages (or gl_pages) branch on a webserver configured w/ rewrite to serve at a proper path. We even were able to do one better and allow PHP since it was self hosted and we trusted the committers.
zabuni 11y ago
Because those features are not ones from the people paying money to Github? Most of these features are ones that only affect public projects. You're not customers of Github, you're the product. Or rather, the advertising.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
rhinoceraptor 11y ago
The same reason YouTube is so popular. Neither GitHub or YouTube are big because of their technology, it's their community that keeps people there. It's a huge tax on attention and contributions if a project decides not to use GitHub. There are many GitHub replacements but none of them have the community of GitHub.
- tholford 11y ago
  Playing devil's advocate - in their respective heydays, SourceForge and Google Code both seeemed unassailable. They had large, active communities that hosted the most popular OSS projects. Could the same thing happen to GitHub?
  - zanny 11y ago
    But it requires feature expansion on the scale of github, and a perpetual decline and ignorance of the community on the parts of the current host for years for that kind of transition to happen naturally. That, and github has centralized development to a degree that sourceforge or gcode in 2008 could only dream of. It not only obsoleted other hosting solutions but also brought millions of developers into these kinds of development ecosystems whom used to just use forums or their own personal websites to host their projects.
ben174 11y ago
By their very nature, git repos are one of the easiest things to migrate. Simply point at a new remote and push, and that's really it. It means that, unlike many other services, I could see GitHub being completely abandoned almost over night. If something better came along.
- mynewtb 11y ago
  You would lose the issues.
  - twothamendment 11y ago
    You say that like it is a bad thing...
  - albertoleal 11y ago
    There are lot of tools to migrate them. Example, github.com/babel/babel has migrated their issues to phabricator.babeljs.io
  - fosk 11y ago
    I am pretty sure that a potential competitor will use GitHub's APIs to import issues as well.
  - detaro 11y ago
    True, but thanks to the API and their relatively simple structure it's reasonably easy to at least copy their contents as well. Linking them correctly to user accounts on a new platform is probably the biggest issue.
    - johnmaguire2013 11y ago
      Users with public SSH keys would be easy: https://github.com/JohnMaguire.keys https://github.com/JohnMaguire.keys When a new user signs up, ask them for their existing Github username and to upload an SSH key that matches.
  - duncan_bayne 11y ago
fweespeech 11y ago
> I feel like there is a great opportunity right now for anyone to make a Github replacement. Sounds like a lot of these features are sorely needed at the moment. Why has Github been complacent? Network effects strong enough to slow the growth of any competitor long enough for GitHub to adapt.
0xffff2 11y ago
For a very large percentage of young developers I work with, "Git" and "GitHub" are synonyms. GitHub has made themselves literally synonymous with version control to a large number of people. That's a lot of social momentum that a competitor has to overcome. In light of that, it's not that surprising at all that GitHub has become complacent.
ajsharp 11y ago
> Why has Github been complacent? Management, money, growth.
joeblau 11y ago
That will be extremely challenging. GitHub has a huge community with a lot of heavy weight projects behind it. Sure you can add a few features on top of whatever you build, but GitHub has the ability to copy whatever seems popular very quickly.
chippy 11y ago
Most people on GitHub do not suffer these issues, simply put. It's only really the popular open source projects, which represents a small minority but are loud and vocal.

I feel like there is a great opportunity right now for anyone to make a Github replacement. Sounds like a lot of these features are sorely needed at the moment. Why has Github been complacent?

seangrant 11y ago

Because Github succeeded in being the Git repo host. I think you're on track with saying their complacency is an opportunity and I wouldn't doubt to see a Github killer born this year.

kmfrk 11y ago

They've pretty much been profitable since the start unlike other start-ups who may be more eager to please users/customers.

jmsdnns 11y ago

Why not bitbucket?

zabuni 11y ago
Bitbucket requires payment for larger numbers of collaborators. Github requires payment for private repositories. Open source requires unlimited collaborators, and no one wants to pay.
- ddbennett 11y ago
  Public (Open Source) repositories on Bitbucket do not have a limit to the number of contributors.
briandear 11y ago
Bitbucket's UX and integrations are worse than Github.
- dvdgsng 11y ago
  That's almost entirely subjective. YMMV.

shmerl 11y ago

> I feel like there is a great opportunity right now for anyone to make a Github replacement. There is GitLab, which is good and is FOSS in addition.

Zikes 11y ago
I'm maintaining a GitLab instance for my team at work and it's been really great for us. I am pretty disappointed that the CE version doesn't include GitLab Pages, though, as that was the one feature I missed most from GitHub and GitLab Enterprise is outside of our budget at this time.
- jobvandervoort 11y ago
  Thanks, good to hear. As people can use GitLab Pages on GitLab.com for free, we felt the ability to host your own static pages was more interesting for larger teams, hence our decision to bring it to GitLab Enterprise Edition.
- skulbuny 11y ago
  The hosted version at Gitlab.com is running EE, so it'll be just like Github.com is.
  - Zikes 11y ago
    I understand, but that's just not an option for us. I don't resent them at all, they've every right to decide which features are restricted to EE licenses, but I can lament it all the same.
- kodablah 11y ago
  At a previous company, we did this in GitLab with a simple post receive hook that just checked out the gh_pages (or gl_pages) branch on a webserver configured w/ rewrite to serve at a proper path. We even were able to do one better and allow PHP since it was self hosted and we trusted the committers.

zabuni 11y ago

Because those features are not ones from the people paying money to Github? Most of these features are ones that only affect public projects. You're not customers of Github, you're the product. Or rather, the advertising.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

rhinoceraptor 11y ago

The same reason YouTube is so popular. Neither GitHub or YouTube are big because of their technology, it's their community that keeps people there. It's a huge tax on attention and contributions if a project decides not to use GitHub. There are many GitHub replacements but none of them have the community of GitHub.

tholford 11y ago
Playing devil's advocate - in their respective heydays, SourceForge and Google Code both seeemed unassailable. They had large, active communities that hosted the most popular OSS projects. Could the same thing happen to GitHub?
- zanny 11y ago
  But it requires feature expansion on the scale of github, and a perpetual decline and ignorance of the community on the parts of the current host for years for that kind of transition to happen naturally. That, and github has centralized development to a degree that sourceforge or gcode in 2008 could only dream of. It not only obsoleted other hosting solutions but also brought millions of developers into these kinds of development ecosystems whom used to just use forums or their own personal websites to host their projects.

ben174 11y ago

By their very nature, git repos are one of the easiest things to migrate. Simply point at a new remote and push, and that's really it. It means that, unlike many other services, I could see GitHub being completely abandoned almost over night. If something better came along.

mynewtb 11y ago
You would lose the issues.
- twothamendment 11y ago
  You say that like it is a bad thing...
- albertoleal 11y ago
  There are lot of tools to migrate them. Example, github.com/babel/babel has migrated their issues to phabricator.babeljs.io
- fosk 11y ago
  I am pretty sure that a potential competitor will use GitHub's APIs to import issues as well.
- detaro 11y ago
  True, but thanks to the API and their relatively simple structure it's reasonably easy to at least copy their contents as well. Linking them correctly to user accounts on a new platform is probably the biggest issue.
  - johnmaguire2013 11y ago
    Users with public SSH keys would be easy: https://github.com/JohnMaguire.keys https://github.com/JohnMaguire.keys When a new user signs up, ask them for their existing Github username and to upload an SSH key that matches.
- duncan_bayne 11y ago

fweespeech 11y ago

> I feel like there is a great opportunity right now for anyone to make a Github replacement. Sounds like a lot of these features are sorely needed at the moment. Why has Github been complacent? Network effects strong enough to slow the growth of any competitor long enough for GitHub to adapt.

0xffff2 11y ago

For a very large percentage of young developers I work with, "Git" and "GitHub" are synonyms. GitHub has made themselves literally synonymous with version control to a large number of people. That's a lot of social momentum that a competitor has to overcome. In light of that, it's not that surprising at all that GitHub has become complacent.

ajsharp 11y ago

> Why has Github been complacent? Management, money, growth.

joeblau 11y ago

That will be extremely challenging. GitHub has a huge community with a lot of heavy weight projects behind it. Sure you can add a few features on top of whatever you build, but GitHub has the ability to copy whatever seems popular very quickly.

chippy 11y ago

Most people on GitHub do not suffer these issues, simply put. It's only really the popular open source projects, which represents a small minority but are loud and vocal.