Gihub pioneered a new way of collaboration (not necessarily in programming)

Preliminaries or “What the hell is Github anyway?”

Github is the most successful website which hosts projects that use git as a version control (this blog is an example of such project). Github is completely free of charge for public projects (projects where entire workflow is visible to anyone).

Some background for people who don’t know what git is (and no, it’s not me): it is a distributed version control system. Distributed means there is no central repository (storage). Each participant has a .git folder in their project’s folder which contains the history of the project. Time to time participants synchronise their .git folders with each other in order to communicate changes.

Git is mostly used for open-source software development, but some use it for science projects (latex) or blogs. It could be used with anything which needs version controlling, e.g. files which store progress of games. I sometimes start a git repository before mass-renaming files just so that I can restore them if my attempts fail.

I have already explained what distributed means, but haven’t empathised that it implies no other participants are needed at all. In fact anyone can start using git even with no internet connection. It is just a way to maintain history of anything that you are working on, somewhat like making multiple copies but more advanced (git allows for a non-linear history tree, visualising changes, searching through the history tree, reapplying changes from branches or deleting changes selectively in the past and much more).

Now there is a subtle point with regards to Github. Since there is no central repository, what is the role of Github? Github is like a participant who never contributes. His task is to always be online and to share his .git folder with the rest of the world. People can “push” to Github’s .git folder and others can “pull” from it and thus they keep in sync. The only reason Gihub’s .git folder might appear central is because other participants treat it as such. However all project participants have the entire history of the project in the respective .git folders and can choose to stop synchronising for good (thus abandoning Github altogether).

What is so innovative about Github?

Github’s growth in popularity resulted in hosting many popular projects. This list is incredibly long, but you might be surprised to learn that The Guardian’s frontend is hosted there. The most incredible thing about Github is that anything which is hosted there is open for contributions from anyone in the world with no permission required to be obtained first. The way I used to think about contributions:

Consumer: Hello, I like your software project/magazine/blog and I would like to add some content. Please tell me how if it’s possible.

The guy in charge: Sure. I am attaching the rules your piece of work must follow and please get back to us with the completed work. We will review it and hopefully include it in our project.

Now, none of the above is necessary for people who use Github instead. Each user on Gihub can “copy” any project hosted on Github by pressing the “Fork” button:

So say your github username is X and you really really like this blog and want to add an entry. OK, go to this blog’s github page and click “Fork”. Boom, you have the exact copy of my blog under your name X. And now you can start playing around with it: correct my poor grammar, write that I am a moron on every page, change that logo above to a monkey or just add a new entry. Do whatever you want, I don’t need to approve of what you do or even know that you exist - it will be posted in your name anyway.

Only when you are done with playing around you can finally contact me and say: “Hey, Tom, look at what I have done with your blog. Fancy pulling from my repository to yours?”. And then I will look at the changes and if I like them I will indeed pull, our .git folders will be in sync and your changes will be accepted (“into the mainstream”).

The difference is subtle, but it is there: anyone who knows how to use git can start working on anything hosted on Gihub right away: no need to ask for permission or guidance beforehand. And if the original projects ceases to exist, the forks inherits the original project and becomes mainstream. In fact some forks become more popular than the original even before the original project dies: people start forking the forked project instead because they like the fork more.

As an added bonus Github forms a transparent social network which is completely meritocratic since contributions of each member are public. So join us and have fun forking!