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GitHub Registers Its 3 Millionth User
hypnosec writes "Online version control system GitHub, which is based on Git — the distributed version control system developed by Linus Torvalds — now has over three million registered users, it has been revealed. Announcing the achievement, the code sharing site used by the likes of jQuery, Perl, PHP, Ruby as well as Joomla said in a blog post that the 'three millionth person signed up for a GitHub account' on Monday night."
I've started using it for personal projects. It makes it easy for me to work on multiple machines, provides a form of backup by spreading the code around and should I ever do anything that actually interests someone else - they'll be able to join in or use what I've done.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
I "joke" that github is my social network of choice .. but it's not really a joke. A lot of real actual stuff happens on github, and it's highly useful.
The distribution features you've mentioned have arguably been provided for awhile by SourceForge (which was great for its time), but nothing beats the sheer speed, simplicity, and focus on the code that github provides. And while git beats the pants off everything else, I dread having to deal with "other" sites (*cough*gitorious*cough*) because they're just not as fast and useful as github. That is, git alone doesn't make github what it is.
I just wish their private hosting was a little less pricey, but hey whatever the market will bear.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
They should have given the guy like a prise or something. Made him semi famous. That would have been cool.
I refuse to use it for personal projects because of the Facebook-like "register with real name" requirement. That refusal is no big deal by itself-- git is a distributed VCS so centralizing it on a single site like Github seems counter to its purpose anyway and I'm happy to run my own Git repos. The bigger problem is I'm required to use Github at work because the company hosts its code there. It's "use Github or lose your job". But it's worse than this: I'm apparently not allowed to enroll a work account and use it, even though the company is paying for hosting and would surely be willing to pay for developer accounts. I instead have to enroll a personal account, then get it added to an ACL for the work repositories. And this is a screw because I've been in this situation at more than one company. And there's supposed to be just one account per person.
In other words Github somehow thinks it's their business to know that I've worked for multiple clients, when I move from one company to another.
I said "fuck it" and enrolled seperate accounts per company anyway, which is against the TOS, so maybe I'll get busted like Aaron Swartz, but Github just sucks too much to go along with what they're demanding.
When you offer free beer! Waiting for the next drink up.
Please do not use Github as it is non-free software. Please support websites that only run on free software like Gitorious.
Github offers the least options, has had numerous publicised security issues and seems more concerned with being like facebook than something for real programmers.
Sorry but I'll stick with bitbucket and if I have to switch I'll take sourceforge or one of the many other sites that offer what Github offers minus the attraction of fauxgrammers and brogrammers.
Taken from http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/github-needs-take-open-source-seriously-208046
What are the terms under which the code in all those GitHub projects is made available? A precise answer depends on your jurisdiction and would require a lawyer's advice, but it's likely that the answer for most people is "all rights reserved" -- in other words, you have no rights to use the code. GitHub does not include any useful default licensing terms in its terms of service; the most likely scenario is that any use of the copyrighted material in one of those no-license projects is formally a breach of copyright. Under copyright law, code without a license cannot be legally shared, as the default for copyrighted materials is that all rights are reserved.
Brian Doll, GitHub's VP of Marketing, confirmed this arrangement is intentional:
Code without an explicit license is protected by copyright and is by default All Rights Reserved. The person or people who wrote the code are protected as such. Any time you're using software you didn't write, licensing should be considered and abided.
This is in no way unique to GitHub. Anything you find and see on the web (code, pictures, videos, poems) is subject to copyright. If the author has not explicitly set a license, you can't use it.
And I don't think GitHub should include any default licensing terms in its terms and conditions. Demanding a license for the users' content is what got people upset about Twitter and Instagram - and no company would publish code on GitHub if they are not in control of the licenses. What GitHub could do is offer a selection box with popular licenses (including "all copyright is mine!") when creating a repository just to remind people.
I really hope that when the 3 millionth user created his account the website blasted, "Congratulations! You are our 3 millionth registered user! you are eligible for a free cruise!"
Oh wow! So you're the goatse man? It's a pleasure to meet you :)
On sourceforge, you have to select a open-source license, which guarantees that all projects hosted can be downloaded, used and forked (but not necessarily combined).
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
I agree this is a problem, I've seen companies put API examples on github without a license. So if I use it in a client's code, and then later I use it in a competing product, I could be in hot water. Whereas if it is BSD licensed I am good. And if it is GPL there are implications too. If I don't know, I can't use it. I complained to github about it and they refused to give any policy about what is or isn't open source enough for to be flagged as such on the site.