The vast majority of that doesn’t require anything like GitHub though, that’s just having multiple users.

At a push you could have the same thing massively more spread out using GitHub purely as auth.

Totally different thing, and if you don’t want to engage don’t, this is simply rude.

> this is simply rude

Look, you are the one that opened with "What on earth is the social component of GitHub?". What's the semantic function of that specific construction if not being completely ironic, like you decided I was wrong before engaging?

> if you don’t want to engage don’t

I am engaging, you just don't like that I'm not spelling it out. This is perfectly within the community guidelines.

> Totally different thing

It's just the same thing, you both are ignoring how important convenience is.

I'm not sure how to make it clearer. I do not understand what the "social" component of github is that people are using so heavily that it's a big thing to break from and requires huge centralisation, that it is the "most important aspect of the platform". I said that I assume I am missing something because I don't see much that really ties all these things together, and nothing like the network effects of, say, X or facebook.

All you've pointed to is devs working together and people filing bugs. All that requires is auth, no? Is that it? Is an SSO button really this enormous hurdle?

> It's just the same thing,

Saying dropbox is irrelevant because all end users could just "build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem." is not the same as saying "what is the social aspect of github?".

Closer is what I've argued elsewhere, which is that multiple different hosts running (something like) gitea selling cloud based storage as a service would be extremely close to github for end users. And it would be identical for what you've talked about wouldn't it?

> you both are ignoring how important convenience is.

The convenience of what, specifically? Not having to click an SSO button on a new website?

> All you've pointed to is devs working together and people filing bugs. All that requires is auth, no?

Collaboration is a form of socialization. GitHub made a social network on top of a SVN to create a forge that people can interact with each other creating issues, pull requests, reviewing and commenting on them, engaging in discussions, forking and improving upon each others works... These are not "just auth" and it's not something git solves by itself. I really don't know how to make this clearer, sorry. Maybe it's this is the kind of thing that you see it and you get it or you don't, I don't know. For me and apparently for lots of people in this thread that makes sense.

I know git doesn't do this by itself, but then we're not talking about github vs raw git - perhaps that's where you're confused by what I'm saying.

All these other services have what you're talking about, and the only cross-repo/org work I can see here is:

* Aligned accounts (person X on one service is person Y on github), if you want that continuity across services

* Forking

And the whole forking/branching/merging side is handled by raw git.

That's why I've been asking what githubs huge centralisation gets us. It has a UI and features that are useful, great, those exist in other projects too, so what is the stickiness?

Either you understand or you don't understand the value of UAC in social networks, I can't explain it anymore than I had. Sorry.

That’s literally the thing I called out as being cross repo, auth.

Auth isn't UGC. And it's not enough to have a GitHub clone, you need people there doing work, therefore the value of the social component.

Edit: I've written UAC in both my posts by accident, but I actually meant UGC: User generated content.

Good lord. Yes, people adding the content is important. What is the social component bringing people there? I’m repeatedly asking and you’re never covering this. Please try and actually read what I’m saying and engage with that because at no point are you covering the question I’m asking. I am not asking why people use GitHub. I am asking why there needs to be a single central place everyone goes, like social networks, because the vast majority of interaction is so focused within projects that if they were all isolated and you had one sso provider I’m not sure what you’d lose (and this is the extreme case).

I find repos because of search engines, links from project pages, links from package managers, hn, all external sources. If it’s from linked issues that’s user generated and can easily link off site (and often do).

Are you following users and finding repos like that by seeing that they commit to? Having GitHub recommend repos?

Why so impatient? Do you think opening up with "good lord" will make people more interested in helping you?

> What is the social component bringing people there?

We've answered that again and again, pull requests, discussions, comments, following people. These bring people value. There isn't much more to it. And these aren't "just auth over cross repos". You reached the ocean here and you are still thinking it's just water, expecting it to be something greater. This is just it. That's the social component and the value it brings to the community.