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by Someone1234 2911 days ago
They could, but I'd argue GitHub is powerful for the community, shared user accounts between projects, and integrations. None of which you'd benefit from if you deployed your own instance.

If Microsoft open sourced GitHub, I'd still use GitHub.com, for the reasons I stated above. Heck GitLab is already OSS and I don't use that because GitHub wins via the network effect[0].

PS - I have no issue with people asking for this; I'm simply pointing out the "win" if Microsoft agreed, is lower than you'd immediately anticipate.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect