The untold story of Github
Github is a web based Git repository hosting service which primarily offers distributed version control and source code management functionality of git.
Here are some interesting facts about github:
1)Github was originally known as Logical Awesome LLC
2)As of April 2016,Github reports having more than 14 million users and more than 35 million repositories making it the largest host of source code in the world.
3)The trademark mascot of Github is called Octocat, a personified cat with octopus limbs portrayed in manga style.
4)Approximately two-thirds of the employees at GitHub work remotely.
5)In July 2015, Github raised $250M of venture capital in series B round.
Brief history of git
As with many great things in life, Git began with a bit of creative destruction and fiery controversy.
The Linux kernel is an open source software project of fairly large scope. For most of the lifetime of the Linux kernel maintenance (1991–2002), changes to the software were passed around as patches and archived files. In 2002, the Linux kernel project began using a proprietary version control software called BitKeeper.
In 2005, the relationship between the community that developed the Linux kernel and the commercial company that developed BitKeeper broke down, and the tool’s free-of-charge status was revoked. This prompted the Linux development community (and in particular Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux) to develop their own tool based on some of the lessons they learned while using BitKeeper.
Since its birth in 2005, Git has evolved and matured to be easy to use and yet retain these initial qualities. It’s incredibly fast, it’s very efficient with large projects, and it has an incredible branching system for non-linear development.
History of github
Development of the GitHub platform began on 1 October 2007. The site was launched in April 2008 by Tom Preston-Werner, Chris Wanstrath, and PJ Hyett after it had been made available for a few months prior as a beta release.
When Chris and Tom started working on GitHub in late 2007, Git was largely unknown as a version control system.There were no commercial Git hosting options whatsoever.And so GitHub was created to provide developers the option to host code securely and manage commits to code in proper manner.
Soon the adoption of github for managing opensource projects grew rapidly due to which paid git hosting became a viable option and paid subscriptions made the project profitable.The software that runs GitHub was written using Ruby on Rails and Erlang.
Simon Oxley designed the octopuss, alongside the white bird Twitter used (before they received a proper logo) as part of a usual routine of cranking out images for iStock. GitHub saw it, and wanted it, presumably under the notion that it can represent how complex code combines to create peculiar things, much like the octopuss…except the CEO of GitHub called it an octocat, and it has been the octocat since.
And slowly github became the new facebook for coders where instead of posting pictures and life events people post code for projects and your fellow developers comment, request features and fork the code to suit there needs.Brian Doll, GitHub’s vice president of strategy says “If you look at the top 100 sites, you’ve got a handful of social sites, thirty flavors of Google with national footprints, a lot of media outlets — and GitHub”
Now, pretty much everyone hosts their open source projects on GitHub, including top companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and even Microsoft.Google's new-age programming language Go, is housed on GitHub, and it’s entirely public.Facebook recently open-sourced its reactjs, reactnative and graphql frameworks on github for building websites and hybrid apps. Microsoft also open-sourced its .net framework — the software that millions of developers use to build and operate websites and other large online applications on github.
Thanks to github developers have a platform to showcase there talents and work to the world and maintain there status quo in the community. With increasing the stars on there repositories they are able to build there reputation in the programming community. Even companies today like to have a look at prospective employees github profile and contributions he/she made to major open-source projects.
