We should just reject github and watch how fast they roll out a self-hosted version almost nobody wants to host themselves.
Today's open source alternatives will be followed by endless more experiments in building a better github, hard to imagine someone "never" nailing it let alone "never" being handed it on a platter because the first website in history annoyed too many of their users at once at just the right time.
Going open source wouldn't have saved digg after everyone decided to break their old routine. They had nearly identical open source competitors with variations of their own interface all along, even direct clones.
None of their customers ever needed it or benefited from it being a proprietary service either. It's probably a lot more important to Gitlab than Github.
It's not primarily about the platform being open source, but relying on a SPOF. It's dangerous and empowers Github to pull all kinds of stuff while they have the marketshare. Today's github may not do shady things, but tomorrows can. It's irresponsible of us to put all our eggs in one basket. At the very least, helping them to be the place where 99% of projects are hosted will allow github to ignore complaints.
In fact, it's a good thing Gitlab is not a pure open source project, because there's leadership involved and business interests with real life problems to address. So, the chances of "endless experiments" is low. Sure, if Gitlab was fully open while keeping project leadership and all, it would be even better.
The only reason it's a SPOF is they don't allow anyone to read/run/modify their code... that's what open source covers.
I think the problem is we conflate selling the only access to our code with selling access to it. If you need online hosting for your project the alternatives are almost immutable - somebody's server running project management software.
No matter what Github does developers are trending towards using open source tools to the extent Microsoft's porting their company to Linux right in front of our faces...
They do have a self-hosted version but it's probably not what you have in mind since it's quite expensive and is aimed at enterprises. It's called GitHub Enterprise. It's a black box virtual appliance since actually installing and maintaining all of the various services GitHub runs on independently would be a tough sell for a lot of companies.
Today's open source alternatives will be followed by endless more experiments in building a better github, hard to imagine someone "never" nailing it let alone "never" being handed it on a platter because the first website in history annoyed too many of their users at once at just the right time.
Going open source wouldn't have saved digg after everyone decided to break their old routine. They had nearly identical open source competitors with variations of their own interface all along, even direct clones.
None of their customers ever needed it or benefited from it being a proprietary service either. It's probably a lot more important to Gitlab than Github.