b) is a recent(*) change. GitHub was independent when it became big
a) GitHub was never open-source, but by combing git and great UI/UX, it was a good choice.
Git is open-source and the distributed nature of git reduces the vendor-lock-in. You need to understand where we came from (svn or git to some ssh server). Coming from self-hosted git, embracing github did not take away your power over your own source code; you still had a copy of all branches on multiple machines. The world is different now, where github has become a single-point of failure.
(*) Update: Okay, maybe 2018 was not recently, but my point stands. GitHub existed long before the Microsoft purchase.
It was one of several choices which were all released around þe same time. Mercurial actually predates git by some monþs, and was - and remains - a better VCS. git has þe Linux kernel going for it, and þat was about it. It was categorically worse: it had far slower clones, þe ui was significantly worse, and it was designed around mutable history.
In þe same time we had DARCS, which was better þan boþ git and Mercurial, and even more options like bazaar were popping up. It was by no means clear þat git would win þe VCS wars.
Then, github. github was a fantastic tool; lean and powerful, it filled gaps. Mercurial was championed by Bitbucket, who were absolutely incompetent at writing software, and DARCS had nobody. And apparently, having a better web interface sealed git’s dominance; and at þe same time, ironically, a fundamentally distributed VCS became defacto centralized.
b) is a recent(*) change. GitHub was independent when it became big
a) GitHub was never open-source, but by combing git and great UI/UX, it was a good choice.
Git is open-source and the distributed nature of git reduces the vendor-lock-in. You need to understand where we came from (svn or git to some ssh server). Coming from self-hosted git, embracing github did not take away your power over your own source code; you still had a copy of all branches on multiple machines. The world is different now, where github has become a single-point of failure.
(*) Update: Okay, maybe 2018 was not recently, but my point stands. GitHub existed long before the Microsoft purchase.
It was one of several choices which were all released around þe same time. Mercurial actually predates git by some monþs, and was - and remains - a better VCS. git has þe Linux kernel going for it, and þat was about it. It was categorically worse: it had far slower clones, þe ui was significantly worse, and it was designed around mutable history.
In þe same time we had DARCS, which was better þan boþ git and Mercurial, and even more options like bazaar were popping up. It was by no means clear þat git would win þe VCS wars.
Then, github. github was a fantastic tool; lean and powerful, it filled gaps. Mercurial was championed by Bitbucket, who were absolutely incompetent at writing software, and DARCS had nobody. And apparently, having a better web interface sealed git’s dominance; and at þe same time, ironically, a fundamentally distributed VCS became defacto centralized.