GitHub Registers Its 3 Millionth User

hypnosec writes "Online version control system GitHub, which is based on Git — the distributed version control system developed by Linus Torvalds — now has over three million registered users, it has been revealed. Announcing the achievement, the code sharing site used by the likes of jQuery, Perl, PHP, Ruby as well as Joomla said in a blog post that the 'three millionth person signed up for a GitHub account' on Monday night."

Re:

[cod3r_]

They should have given the guy like a prise or something. Made him semi famous. That would have been cool.

It's a great service

[stoolpigeon]

I've started using it for personal projects. It makes it easy for me to work on multiple machines, provides a form of backup by spreading the code around and should I ever do anything that actually interests someone else - they'll be able to join in or use what I've done.

Social Network that *matters*

[oGMo]

I "joke" that github is my social network of choice .. but it's not really a joke. A lot of real actual stuff happens on github, and it's highly useful.

The distribution features you've mentioned have arguably been provided for awhile by SourceForge (which was great for its time), but nothing beats the sheer speed, simplicity, and focus on the code that github provides. And while git beats the pants off everything else, I dread having to deal with "other" sites (*cough*gitorious*cough*) because they're just not as fast and useful as github. That is, git alone doesn't make github what it is.

I just wish their private hosting was a little less pricey, but hey whatever the market will bear.

Re:

[MightyYar]

It's true... it's simple and fast. Little projects that I wouldn't have bothered to put on SourceForge are trivial to push to GitHub. It's a little feature-sparse, but I suppose that's the point.

Re:

[blackm0k]

I've joked about the same thing: that github is my social network of choice.

Unfortunately, my less technically-inclined friends took that to mean that I had joined a network exclusively for curmudgeons.

Re:

[GyroLC]

I also use it for personal projects for the exact same reasons. Plus, their support for non-command line users with an easy-to-use GUI has made it a lot more accessible.

Re:It's a great service

[jez9999]

I'm gonna repeat my usual spiel here: use Bitbucket. Github's only real benefit is its network graph - I'd like to see Bitbucket implement that. But I jumped ship to Bitbucket a while back so I could get attachments on my issue tracker and never looked back. Free private repos too. And for a "social coding" site, Github doesn't have very much social stuff going on. There's no forum - just some lame web form for feedback that Github never seems to respond to.

Oh and I remember seeing a talk from one of the main Github developers some time ago and he kept saying "fuck" all the time like Beavis & Butthead. Not impressive.

Re:

[0100010001010011]

Bitbucket doesn't seem to have an enterprise solution.

Re:

[skids]

Isn't the enterprise solution to git to... host an origin on your own damn server?

No. The enterprise solution to git is to have a repo on the most popular site, so that when a random person wants to send a 4-line pull request, they probably already have an account on the service and won't be dissuaded.

Re:

[grouchomarxist]

Github is much more than just git. It provides a number of services: issue tracking, update feed, project management, file viewing, etc. that raw git doesn't provide. My employer moved from their previous git-web system to Github Enterprise and it has been a joy to use.

Re:

[0100010001010011]

> host an origin on your own damn server?

Yes, Like Github Enterprise.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

check out atlassian stash

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes they do. It's here: https://www.atlassian.com/software/stash/overview/ [atlassian.com]

Re:

[hackula]

Network graph is probably the worst feature on github. Totally useless visualizations, and if you have ever use it on a real project then you will notice that it take half a decade to load. Personally, I use both, but prefer github a "bit" over bitbucket.

Re:

[Raumkraut]

I use the graph to see whose fork of a codebase is most up-to-date, or has potentially useful revisions not merged into the master. I've come across a few projects whose "master" repo is all but dead, and a dozen other people have continued development independently - sometimes having created duplicate bugfixes, etc.

Developers come and go (often without warning), so what I'd *really* like to see is an interface where the codebase is the focus, and no one user or team "owns" any kind of one-true-fork. All fo

Re:

[jgrahn]

Oh and I remember seeing a talk from one of the main Github developers some time ago and he kept saying "fuck" all the time like Beavis & Butthead.

I can't recall either Beavis or Butthead ever saying "fuck" ...

Re:

[bcrowell]

What I like is that it cuts down on the effort required to manage different projects. The 14 projects that I now have on github all used to have different makefiles used for building tarballs and posting them publicly. Each used to have a web page saying stuff like "the current version is 3.1.5," which had to be edited when I put out a new version. Now all of that stuff is automatic. I just do a git tag and a git push, and bam, it's there. I had material on the individual web pages which is now in each proj

Fuck Github, privacy invading Facebook of code

[Anonymous Coward]

I refuse to use it for personal projects because of the Facebook-like "register with real name" requirement. That refusal is no big deal by itself-- git is a distributed VCS so centralizing it on a single site like Github seems counter to its purpose anyway and I'm happy to run my own Git repos. The bigger problem is I'm required to use Github at work because the company hosts its code there. It's "use Github or lose your job". But it's worse than this: I'm apparently not allowed to enroll a work accoun

Re:

[0100010001010011]

The best part about distributed VCS... distributed.

I have 3 push URLs. Granted right now I only pull from GitHub because that's where I like to publish my work. But if it disappeared over night I'd just delete the "url=" for github and I don't know the difference.

Re:

[kiddygrinder]

What requirement, just checked my account on there and i don't even have a real name set.

See what happens..

[SolarStorm]

When you offer free beer! Waiting for the next drink up.

Ugh

[Anonymous Coward]

Please do not use Github as it is non-free software. Please support websites that only run on free software like Gitorious.

Re:

[loufoque]

Are you having much success preaching your unforgiving alter-mondialist views?
I guess not.

Re:

[mfnickster]

Their desktop client app is also not free software. I got an account and then they dropped support for Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6) in their client app - now it's Lion or Mountain Lion -only. They refuse to distribute any older versions.

Now, if the client were F/OSS, I could get the latest version and make it work on 10.6, leaving out the Lion-only features if necessary. Instead, I'm stuck with the command-line interface.

GitHub says they did this because they want to provide "the best experience for their u

Don't like it

[thetoadwarrior]

Github offers the least options, has had numerous publicised security issues and seems more concerned with being like facebook than something for real programmers.

Sorry but I'll stick with bitbucket and if I have to switch I'll take sourceforge or one of the many other sites that offer what Github offers minus the attraction of fauxgrammers and brogrammers.

Re:Don't like it

[phantomfive]

I stayed on Sourceforge for a long time, it has good features. It supports multiple SCMs simultaneously (git, cvs, svn...).

I stopped using it when they started spamming up their download page. It's not cool to be on the download page and accidentally download "Zoom Downloader Free Trial" because it has a giant 'DOWNLOAD' button right on the middle of the screen.

Re:

[thetoadwarrior]

I have to agree that Sourceforge was looking really poor for awhile. The same ancient look with more and more ads was really bad. I think they are improve. Admittedly pretty slowly and there is some legacy stuff that's in a questionable state (like the unsupposed API) but at least they're realising they have competition now.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? Fauxgrammers and brogrammers? Can we please not make software engineering into a hipster trend by isolating and labeling subsets of the developer community? I find the thought of what your silly terms will lead to unprofessional, disgusting, and counterproductive to say the least.

Re:

[thetoadwarrior]

If you want to believe that then go ahead. I don't try to stop people from having their own opinion and my opinion is the site isn't that fussed about being helpful to those who are more concerned about code than their image. I think their changes to profile pages pretty much prove that. Their fanbase shows it too. In their mind nothing else exists and in reality it's not even the biggest site in their market.

Re:

[semi-extrinsic]

You, sir, owe me a new keyboard. But thanks.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

The feature that sets github apart from others is fork/pull request workflow(which you can discuss). This lower barrier of contribution significantly.

bitbucket was really late implementing this feature (mid/late last year IIRC). The cost of moving community is very steep (look at how many project are still at sourceforge and google code). I think bitbucket, even though it has better pricing, will be a lost cause.

Re:

[lattyware]

To be honest, I've worked with Git on Windows and it wasn't that painful. Mercurial is great, don't get me wrong - 99% of the work I do is Python stuff, so it's natural to use Mercurial, but I tend to find myself working with Git more - I've never been a fan of the hard line that Mercurial takes on history modification.

To be clear though, I'll happily use either tool - they are both great.

Re:

[EngnrFrmrlyKnownAsAC]

fauxgrammers

It's funny because it still rhymes!

Re:

[grouchomarxist]

> fauxgrammers and brogrammers

You mean like the Linux project [github.com]? Yeah, they're just a bunch of posers.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[mattiaza]

This is in no way unique to GitHub. Anything you find and see on the web (code, pictures, videos, poems) is subject to copyright. If the author has not explicitly set a license, you can't use it.

And I don't think GitHub should include any default licensing terms in its terms and conditions. Demanding a license for the users' content is what got people upset about Twitter and Instagram - and no company would publish code on GitHub if they are not in control of the licenses. What GitHub could do is offer a

Re:

[buchner.johannes]

On sourceforge, you have to select a open-source license, which guarantees that all projects hosted can be downloaded, used and forked (but not necessarily combined).

Re:

[Aighearach]

I agree this is a problem, I've seen companies put API examples on github without a license. So if I use it in a client's code, and then later I use it in a competing product, I could be in hot water. Whereas if it is BSD licensed I am good. And if it is GPL there are implications too. If I don't know, I can't use it. I complained to github about it and they refused to give any policy about what is or isn't open source enough for to be flagged as such on the site.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh wow! So you're the goatse man? It's a pleasure to meet you :)

Congratulations! You win a free cruise!

[teotwawki42]

I really hope that when the 3 millionth user created his account the website blasted, "Congratulations! You are our 3 millionth registered user! you are eligible for a free cruise!"