[MichaelGG]

Thus making your application build process require full Internet connectivity, and making it require that every dependency hosting site is working.

Committing dependencies is a solid decision to avoid taking a dependency on a bunch of third parties.

[lstamour]

"application build process" or simply the checkout process? I'd suggest your deployment process shouldn't include a public git repo others can change. Instead, use your own fork on Github, or alternatively host a git repo local to your deploy network. After all, you're trying to avoid dependencies on things like Github working/failing, right? ;-)