+1 to you for that. We tried github for some of our private projects, but soon switched to a linode+redmine+git/hg. Now we are no rails champs; we all are python guys but setting up redmine(with some plugins was a cake walk) same goes for git/hg. We never needed to hire hardcore sysadmins for this stuff.

PS: We love github very much. its made it so easy to collaborate everyone.