[yeukhon]

For big projects like Linux or Python, they don't move to Github because they have their own system running for years. They just don't see the benefit and they find their existing mechanism effective. Many projects today still run on Bugzilla, mailing list and IRC.

For smaller projects the cost to migrate from older services like Google Code or even from Bitbucket to Github (or sometimes from Google Code to Bitbucket) is not trivia. I think one reason why Django still use its own system (Trac) rather than going for full Github is the difficulty to migrate old issues over.

So if the reason is "because we have a solid process in place" it is understandable. But actually, running your own system is also a lock-in but you just happen have full control of the system. You are lock in because you are still using that one software which may or may not continue to exist in a few years. If next decade you decided you don't want mailman to run your mailing list, instead you want to use MailFooBar, you will need to prepare migration. The only advantage is you control your stack, your data. Github can shut down next year all the sudden and you can lose everything (this is particularly true and dangerous for people whose software development cycle depends on small start-up services out there).

I think the attitude is a bit strong to potential contributors, even though I can see the reason why it's bad for an established project to consider any migration. It's a personal preference. If you are the main author and you don't want to move, you don't have to move. I don't have time to manage a full system. Heck, I don't have any open source code that is popular enough warrant me to think about running a mailing list or a buildbot farm. Github is perfect for me for just tracking and sharing code with the world.

[__david__]

> Github can shut down next year all the sudden and you can lose everything…

This is entirely false, if github shuts down tomorrow you don't lose everything. In fact, most likely you don't lose anything, since the git repo on your computer has everything. This is the only reason I use Github, myself. It's not like the old days of Sourceforge hosted CVS servers where you didn't actually have access to your data.

[anko]

How about github issues? Is there a way to export that info?

I'm not against github (in fact i like it very much) but issues does seem to impose a little lockin.

[mbleigh]

The GitHub API is extremely robust. You can export issues, including comments etc. to JSON with a script that will take you maybe 10 minutes to write, max.

[sharyanto]

There should be (or is there already?) a script that automatically downloads an issue and its conversation in text or JSON format and commits it so the data/archive is in the git repo.

[yeukhon]

As someone else already mentioned, this is not entirely false. You will lose your issues which is a huge reason why big projects don't move to Github. You lose your wikis. You don't run backup of your issues every day, do you? In fact, how many of you do that?

I bet the number is almost zero. Source code is one thing, but the history of discussion? That worth something.

Also, sometimes some repos just don't exist on your computer anymore or out of sync because you done work on multiple computers. Or if your computer is stolen.

[__david__]

I don't care about issues or wikis. I don't use either feature in the projects that originate from me (people send me issues but I don't use them to organize development). The code is the important part. Any discussion is already backed up in my email. And even if I did care about issues I could download them through the api, as was pointed out elsewhere.