https://github.com/automatist/thank-you-github
An open letter of gratitude to GitHub
https://github.com/automatist/thank-you-github
Last synced: about 1 month ago
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An open letter of gratitude to GitHub
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/automatist/thank-you-github
- Owner: automatist
- Fork: true (pseudomuto/thank-you-github)
- Created: 2016-01-15T22:44:25.000Z (over 9 years ago)
- Default Branch: master
- Last Pushed: 2016-01-15T22:48:25.000Z (over 9 years ago)
- Last Synced: 2024-11-04T06:35:12.256Z (6 months ago)
- Size: 55.7 KB
- Stars: 4
- Watchers: 2
- Forks: 0
- Open Issues: 0
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Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
Awesome Lists containing this project
- awesome-starred - automatist/thank-you-github - An open letter of gratitude to GitHub (others)
README
> Dear GitHub, Before 2007, the way to participate in Open Source was
> fragmented. Each project had their own workflow, patches circulated in
> emails, issues were reported in a myriad ways, and if anyone wanted to
> contribute they had to figure out every project's rules.
[Free software](http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html), since
the GNU project started in 1985, and in the many surrounding waves of
activity, has been a place for a diversity of practices, programming
styles, opinions, time schedules, personalities and tools. *And that's a
very good thing. This diversity is the core to Free software's strength.
*Social participation *is* often messy and rightly requires an
investment of time and consideration of others.**
> Then, a handful of people took the challenge to build an awesome
> platform and as a consequence of their hard work, their platform
> earned its hegemony.
Handful of people? Right, standing on the backs of the community that
produced [git](https://git-scm.com/) (for which I feel truly thankful),
the history of alternative [version control
systems](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_version_control_software)
and web platforms, not to mention then all the developers whose
contribution to github in the form of entrusting it to manage their code
has made it as valuable a commodity as it is today. *Hegemony, indeed.*
Github represents a [cultural
hegemony](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_hegemony) in software
development today, and as such is actively displacing and distorting the
practices of the very community that helped to create it.
> Nowadays doing Open Source is infinitely easier thanks to you, GitHub.
> You've provided the tools and the social conventions to make those
> days a thing of the past. Your impact in the Open Source movement is
> unprecedented.
Social conventions? Like enabling a culture of hostile forking rather
than collaboration? Check out the story of Natacha Porté and [libupskirt
/ libsoldout](http://fossil.instinctive.eu/libsoldout/index) and give
[this thoughtful essay from Aymeric
Mansoux](http://areyoubeingserved.constantvzw.org/Fork_Workers.xhtml) a
browse.
> We want to express our gratitude for all you've done and do for Open
> Source.
And please, may you stop doing it.
> GitHub, thank you very much.
As Lily Allen would say, GitHub, fuck you very much.
Signed,
- Michael Murtaugh ([@automatist](https://automatist.org/))