[thataccount]

Here is a simple question to highlight my point. Do you think Github would exist had Git not first existed?

I know SVN is still developed, but it is no longer really treated as a solution. That is why we are talking about Git and not Subversion.

[tombert]

Well, it certainly wouldn't be called Github, but I'm sure there would be some equivalent "MercurialHub" or "MonotoneHub" had Git not been created.

Even before Git, there was Bitkeeper (which in some ways was arguably better), and that was what they used for the kernel until some drama with Larry McVoy happened. If there wasn't that drama, I think some kind of BitkeeperHub might have eventually happened.

Yes, Git overtook it, but I still don't really understand your point; it's not about Git, it's about a centralized forge.

[thataccount]

>Yes, Git overtook it, but I still don't really understand your point; it's not about Git, it's about a centralized forge.

What you aren't understanding is that all software development proceeds first by an underlying philosophy that evolves into other solutions inspired by the software that came before it. Git inspired the way Github works. You are trying to separate the two into distinct entities when they are really a flowing into one another.

[tombert]

Sure, but GitHub sort of runs contrary to what Git's philosophy, which is why I'm arguing that "Git" is an irrelevant variable with regards to the problems with Github.

Git, as a software version control platform, is supposed to be decentralized. It's designed to mimic the way that kernel development was done, with a lot of separate repos and email being used to merge in diff files.

If anything, Github really brings the subversion model to Git; Git primarily just has categorically better merging than SVN.

[thataccount]

>Sure, but GitHub sort of runs contrary to what Git's philosophy, which is why I'm arguing that "Git" is an irrelevant variable with regards to the problems with Github.

Ah, well that makes your position clearer. It does "sort of run contrary" but it also doesn't totally "break" what Git was trying to do. You still have your local copy but your ability to share it is centralized.

The next iteration for SVN MIGHT have been to have some kind of p2p website to share sources since it all ready had a centralized way to share the code. That's usually the way things bounce around. Higher centralization/decentralization/back to centralization. Git kind of arrested that evolutionary curve with a quasi-decentralization and a centralized sharing hybrid.