Cloned the repository? You can now declare yourself the canonical source for that repo instead of Github, host it from your own machine, and let others pull directly from you. Not that you'd usually want to do that, but it's available as an option if you do.
If Github closed down tomorrow, we'd lose a lot of code. If Github announced that in one year they were going to close down, then we'd only lose private repositories that no one bothered to clone.
There is the issue of, well, issues. And pull requests and wikis and all that.
But wikis are, as far as I know, just git repos themselves, so that's not too bad.
Issues and pull requests and all of that sort of data probably has to be pulled out through the API into some format that's hopefully useful in other places. Could easily lose a lot of work here if Github went poof.
Not that I think they will or that I want them to, just something that's important to consider when a service becomes a monopoly becomes critical infrastructure.
Github imposes a Terms of Service; I don't have to agree to any Terms of Service to use my own site. I am the Terms of Service.
There is all sorts of cruft in the ToS. Here is something I just spotted: "GitHub does not target our Service to children under 13, and we do not permit any Users under 13 on our Service." If a good programmer has produced a good patch, I want it, whether they are twelve or 92; and they are welcome to post it to a mailing list or send it to me directly. GH have to have this kind of rule because they can't 100% control what goes on their site, 24/7. (Really, if they were smart, they would make that 18.)
Another: If you believe that content on our website violates your copyright, please contact us in accordance with our Digital Millennium Copyright Act Policy. No spectre of DMCA hanging over my own site.
Abuse or excessively frequent requests to GitHub via the API may result in the temporary or permanent suspension of your account's access to the API. I can hammer my own server with as many requests as I want.
GitHub has the right to suspend or terminate your access to all or any part of the Website at any time, with or without cause, with or without notice, effective immediately. GitHub reserves the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason at any time. No comment required. Today, you have a bustling project; tomorrow it's gone.
The age restriction is 13 years because of COPPA. It is there because of (sensible) Federal law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Online_Privacy_Pr...
> No spectre of DMCA hanging over my own site.
A C&D could be sent to your hosting provider, your ISP and/or the registrar of your domain.
All of whom have a contract stating that they'll pass off all DMCA and Abuse messages to me, and I let my lawyer handle them directly.
Furthermore GitHub is great for quickly looking over a project when trying to determine if it suits my needs and for getting an impression of how complete it is, how maintained it is and what the code is organized like.
I love GitHub, it is the single best thing that happened in software development for a long while.
GH is not perfect, but it is awesome nonetheless.