No, people use github for the social features, the wiki, the issue tracker, comments, etc. These features are not portable, and as a result if github went down, your entire workflow suffers.
[1] Github:
(0) freedom to run the program as you wish - YUP
(1) freedom to study & change the source - NOPE
(2) freedom to make and distribute exact copies - NOT SO MUCH
(3) freedom to make and distribute copies of your modified versions - NOThis isn't the same kind tyranny as presumably binary distributed software. Right? That should be obvious, unless I am losing my mind.
So if someone builds me a house and I pay them ... Is it immoral for them to have built the house without being some kind indentured servant to me for the rest of their lives doing whatever I want for whatever reason ...
That seems like a weird thing to say, but what you're saying is just as silly. Should I have access to unlimited resources from this builder and if they do not consent to my demands then they tyrants?
It's a service that I pay for and I have agreed to conditions of said service and I can choose to stop paying if I am not happy or I can sue if I feel the terms have not been met. I don't see the problem but I do see clearly the alternative is charity.
Someone else responded, a user jszz on this thread and said something crazy about Germany and how we need become a self-sufficient commune. I'm not sure what it meant and I'm not sure that anyone that holds this view knows what they mean. =(
Stallman always talks about community.
I don't really know anything about you, but I couldn't really understand the free software movement until I got that we are not advancing software as a community.
We are more like thousands of egotistical entities, the great majority in a "consumer" behavior, using software that someone (the "producer") writes and only he/she has the right and the capabilities to read and change.
In your house analogy, it was like someone (let's call her "Sarah") built a house for you, but in a way that you could not build a new room, fix the plumbing or even get your stuff out of it by yourself. Instead, you had to call Sarah, who would then decide if it was worth her time, and what should be the price.
You could just move to a new house with just your personal items and furnish it all over again, but as we inhabit bigger and bigger digital mansions, we can't escape the fate of always losing lots of things when we want to change. This situation may even coerce us to never change at all, even though there are so many fucking problems with this damn house.
I feel this is getting too metaphorical, so I'll end up here. When Stallman's point gets into your head, you see that this is just an instance of a more abstract class of problems with our societies (he has a wide range of controversial opinions outside software world). It really is about being part of a community.
Github provides an amazing service, but it's closed source SaaS.
I think github seems to have been fairly careful toeing the line, and I don't get the sense of being locked in the way I do with some other sites. They appear to be content to compete on the basis of usability and ease of collaboration, not lockin.
What is the alternative for you all? Charity? I'm being serious.
[0]: https://github.com/samuelclay/NewsBlur
You might also find the Franklin Street Statement[1] to be an interesting read -- it tries to set out a useful collection of ideas for services that respect the users' freedoms.
[1]: http://autonomo.us/2008/07/14/franklin-street-statement/
This thing you are talking about United States and this and that ... It is some kind of alternative to Github or hosted services?
I don't know if it makes sense ... Oh wait how would these governments get money to support all charity?
I believe freeing software will eventually free the regulation on transactions, energy, and communications. Something like a government subsidized team that controls a vagrant-mesos-docker for connecting CJDNS nodes (the SaaSS). Time Warner cable and all of these other companies who don't run OSS are stopping the digital divide and prohibiting peer communications. WebRTC and websockets are enough!
The topic should be on why BSD software is more important right now than GPL. Since we're talking about freedom.
Don't get sucked into arguing on a rational basis with people whose sole method of conviction is appeal to emotion and looking profound through obscurity.
I am not saying Github should distribute their source, but Github and their fans should stop the "holier than thou" attitude.