
GitHub supports open source provisions in National Defense Authorization Act - joeyespo
https://github.com/blog/2455-github-supports-open-source-provisions-in-national-defense-authorization-act
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freedomben
I completely agree with this blog post, but every time I hear these sorts of
things from Github it always begs the same question:

If you believe in open source so much, why is Github a closed-source product?

Many businesses, particularly SaaS businesses, have managed to be hugely
profitable while making their code open source, so I don't accept the argument
there.

And considering that the choices of many open source projects to host there
and standardize on the Github ecosystem were a big factor in enabling GH to
become what they are today, at some point I would feel an obligation.

It's their business and they can run it how they see fit, but it's something
that has always bothered me.

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knownothing
Does a company have to open source their entire product to meet with your
approval? It sounds like you're completely unaware they do open source large
internal projects and hire people from community projects.

EDIT: also, Git is completely open source, and all of the data stored on
GitHub can be exported. A lot of other tools even import data directly from
GitHub. There's literally nothing stopping people from moving except that they
want to use it.

~~~
craftyguy
> Does a company have to open source their entire product to meet with your
> approval?

Not OP, but it does seem a little hypocritical to demand others completely
open source their projects while still holding onto proprietary software.

~~~
knownothing
I'm not sure how GitHub demands that you open source anything. You can keep
projects private if you want to keep them private.

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mankash666
Disagree. Maybe other federal agencies have nothing to lose by open sourcing
their code, but the DoD should NOT open anything. If the nation's security is
entrusted to the DoD, their software shouldn't be publicly available for
potential intruders to study and exploit.

~~~
majewsky
Yeah, because everyone knows that Security by Obscurity has a perfect track
record. /s

