[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

If anything, github's lock-in fragmented "the open source scene". The internet and the web are distributed systems, there is no reason why all code has to be hosted with one proprietary service in order to be discoverable, just as there is no reason for hosting all websites with one proprietary service in order to be discoverable. That's what standardized protocols and interfaces are for.

[krapp]

There's no lock-in with github. It's a service that many people prefer to use, but nothing is stopping anyone from moving their repos elsewhere.

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

Well, first, there is lock-in for non-owners of projects: You cannot submit pull requests to pull from git repositories hosted elsewhere and without signing in. Which also is an incentive to use it for other things, once you have an account that you need in order to contribute.

Secondly, they do have proprietary features, embrace, extend, extinguish style.

[krapp]

Unless they convert repos to a proprietary format that requires a Github client to use, don't allow git cloning or pushing, and are trying to add Github-only features to git itself, then I think "embrace, extend, extinguish" is a bit overblown.

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

That's not how it works. Microsoft didn't add Windows-only features to Netscape either. It added them to IE. And then lured people into using those in order to make them dependent on these proprietary features and in order to decrease interoperability of websites using those extensions with other browsers.

see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish

[true_religion]

Was this possible with any previously popular solution?

The only thing I can think of is patches via email, but that's just using no repository at all.

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

I don't follow ... patches via HTTP is a repository, patches via email is not?!

But apart from sending changes via email (which is actually a very good way to go for small(ish) changes--actually, it is so good, the Linux kernel developers use exactly that: git can generate emails that are both human-readable, so you can easily review and comment on patches, but also can be imported automatically into a repository by the recipient), you can just send pull requests via email? You simply put into an email the URI of your git repository, wherever it is hosted, and the recipient can pull from it. That is the power of an open distributed system like the internet.

And to spin this a bit further: Actual "hosting" isn't even necessary technically. Especially once we get rid of IPv4 and NAT, it should be trivial to spin up a git server instance on your workstation (or maybe your smartphone, as that probably is online 24/7) so people can pull from there. Whether that is practical? It well might be--but my point is more to show what is technically possible.

And yes, all of that was possible with a "previously popular solution"--git existed before github, obviously, and its popularity is what caused github. Also, all of that applies just the same for other distributed SCMs, of course.