If you remember the actual history of NPM, you will remember that TJ had a competing package manager called "kiwi" which was entirely github / git / and bash ba

If you remember the actual history of NPM, you will remember that TJ had a competing package manager called "kiwi" which was entirely github / git / and bash based ( using semver ). Nodejitsu ( me ) choose to back NPM over Kiwi starting in 2009. It's all public information if you start crawling through emails.