GitHub

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
GitHub, Inc.
Type of businessSubsidiary
Type of site
Collaborative version control
Available inEnglish
FoundedFebruary 8, 2008; 16 years ago (2008-02-08) (as Logical Awesome LLC)
HeadquartersSan Francisco, California, United States
Area servedWorldwide
Founder(s)
  • Tom Preston-Werner
  • Chris Wanstrath
  • P. J. Hyett
  • Scott Chacon
CEONat Friedman
Key people
  • Erica Brescia (COO)
  • Carrie Olesen (CHRO)
  • Mike Taylor (CFO)
IndustrySoftware
ParentMicrosoft
RegistrationOptional (required for creating and joining projects)
Users100 million (Jan 2023)[1]
LaunchedApril 10, 2008; 15 years ago (2008-04-10)
Current statusActive
Written inRuby

GitHub is an online software development assistance and version control service.[2][3][4][5][6] This platform uses Git.[7] It is operated by GitHub, Inc. based in the United States.

In January 2020, GitHub reported that they have more than 40 million users[8] and more than 100 million repositories[9] (including at least 28 million public repositories).[10] Therefore, it is recognized as the largest host of source code in the world.[11]

Organizational users[change | change source]

Currently, there are many individual GitHub users. On the other hand, there are also organizational users such as educational institutions[12][13][14] and companies. The following companies are using GitHub to distribute open source projects:

Desktop version[change | change source]

GitHub was made for users who want to save their programs on their web browsers. But there is also a desktop version known as GitHub Desktop.[23]

GitHub Pages[change | change source]

All GitHub users can create websites with the github.io domain. This service is known as GitHub Pages.[24] The development history of the HTML code will be recorded with Git.

Similar services[change | change source]

Today, there are several GitHub like services for developers. Some of them use Git but have different interface with unique web-design. One of the most famous GitHub rival is GitLab.[25][26] This is also based on Git. Users can export their programs on GitHub to GitLab.

References[change | change source]

  1. https://github.blog/2023-01-25-100-million-developers-and-counting/
  2. Dabbish, L., Stuart, C., Tsay, J., & Herbsleb, J. (2012, February). Social coding in GitHub: transparency and collaboration in an open software repository. In Proceedings of the ACM 2012 conference on computer supported cooperative work (pp. 1277-1286).
  3. Pipinellis, A. (2018). GitHub Essentials: Unleash the power of collaborative development workflows using GitHub. Packt Publishing Ltd.
  4. Mergel, I. (2015). Open collaboration in the public sector: The case of social coding on GitHub. Government Information Quarterly, 32(4), 464-472.
  5. Beer, B. (2018). Introducing GitHub: A non-technical guide. " O'Reilly Media, Inc.".
  6. Dawson, C., & Straub, B. (2016). Building Tools with GitHub: Customize Your Workflow. " O'Reilly Media, Inc.".
  7. Blischak, J. D., Davenport, E. R., & Wilson, G. (2016). A quick introduction to version control with Git and GitHub. PLoS computational biology, 12(1), e1004668.
  8. "User search". GitHub. Retrieved Jan 29, 2019. Showing 40,206,691 available users
  9. "GitHub passes 100 million repositories". VentureBeat. 2018-11-08. Retrieved 2019-06-13.
  10. "Repository search for public repositories". GitHub. Retrieved June 5, 2018. Showing 28,177,992 available repository results
  11. Gousios, Georgios; Vasilescu, Bogdan; Serebrenik, Alexander; Zaidman, Andy. "Lean GHTorrent: GitHub Data on Demand" (PDF). The Netherlands: Delft University of Technology & †Eindhoven University of Technology: 1. Retrieved July 9, 2014. During recent years, GITHUB (2008) has become the largest code host in the world. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  12. Griffin, T., & Seals, S. (2013). Github in the classroom: Not just for group projects. Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, 28(4), 74-74.
  13. Fiksel, J., Jager, L. R., Hardin, J. S., & Taub, M. A. (2019). Using GitHub Classroom To Teach Statistics. Journal of Statistics Education, 27(2), 110-119.
  14. Angulo, M. A., & Aktunc, O. (2019). Using GitHub as a teaching tool for programming courses. In ASEE Gulf-Southwest Section Annual Meeting 2018 Papers. American Society for Engineering Education.
  15. github.com/facebook
  16. github.com/google-research
  17. github.com/IBM
  18. github.com/microsoft
  19. github.com/microsoftopensource
  20. github.com/Microsoft-OpenSource-Labs
  21. github.com/TeXUsersGroup
  22. github.com/WolframResearch
  23. Van Strien, D. (2016). An Introduction to Version Control Using GitHub Desktop. The Programming Historian.
  24. Owen, D. (2017). Using GitHub pages for a computer science course website: conference tutorial. Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, 32(3), 36-36.
  25. Van Baarsen, J. (2014). GitLab Cookbook. Packt Publishing Ltd.
  26. O'grady, A. (2018). GitLab Quick Start Guide: Migrate to GitLab for all your repository management solutions. Packt Publishing Ltd.