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Github absolutely would not make itself interoperable just because users wanted it to. That would be a terrible business move -- it would lead to Github hemorrh
by bccdee 6y ago
Github absolutely would not make itself interoperable just because users wanted it to. That would be a terrible business move -- it would lead to Github hemorrhaging users and projects as they left to other, smaller competitors while still begin able to interact with the users and projects that remain on Github.
It's not Github's job to do what customers want. It's Github's job to do whatever will make them money, whether it's good for customers & the broader tech community or not. You're right that it's not a conspiracy though -- there's nothing secret about this at all. It's just business.
- api 6y agoYou can already mirror a repo easily to/from GitHub, and moving is pretty easy unless you are deeply invested in GitHub proprietary features. People use GitHub because people use GitHub. It’s a classic network effect.
- bccdee 6y agoI mean like me forking your Github repo to Gitlab and then submitting a PR from my Gitlab fork to your Github repo. Can't do that. If I want to contribute to a Github project, I need a Github account. That doesn't apply to interoperable protocols like email -- you can use gmail and I can use yahoo mail, or even a self-hosted mail server, and we can still send messages to each other. This would certainly be doable, but they wouldn't do it, because it would damage their market share.