Comment by rbanffy
8 years ago
We don't use Github to host Git repos alone. We use it as a tool for collaboration - to track bugs, host some documentation, do code reviews, track workflow and so on. And, most of all, we use it for discoverability. It's easy to find things on Github.
> Why did we stop at DNS?
A lot of companies host their domain servers on AWS because Route 53 makes it convenient.
A real successor to Github would allow all the extras around Git, but in a federated way. We'd deploy a server for our projects, different addresses for our repos and all members of this federation would agree on an API and share data with each other.
It's doable, but, unless it's easier than other options, it won't fly.
Back in 2011 I saw this problem — that social networking (profiles, ratings, collaboration of all kinds) is all based on centralized platforms.
Even github as you said provides all the social layer on top of git and you jusy have to trust them.
There was no good software to take care of that stuff. So we built it. It’s exactly the federated API layer you’re talking about!
Here it is:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ1O_gmPneI