I was working in a data entry job in 1983 and the system would expand predefined text sequences into the matching full text as needed.
Doing this through a pretty dropdown is the same idea.
I'll bet the idea wasn't new in 1983 either.
Since the commit history for
https://github.com/notwaldorf/github-canned-responses/commit...
is fairly new, it's easy to believe this feature was in GitHub's pipeline for a while.
If this wasn't the case, it can sting from a brand perception point of view. GitHub is suppose to be synonymous with innovation, and if you start getting called out for copying, no matter how trivial, it will devalue your brand over time.
The question now is, how closely is GitHub looking at something like this:
https://github.com/stefanbuck/awesome-browser-extensions-for...
and other similar Chrome extensions.
Right now, they are in a damned if they do and damned if they don't, as the result of the dear GitHub letter.
The reason why Enterprise sales cycles are so long, is because they want to make sure if they go with vendor X, they aren't shooting themselves in the foot in the long run. The trial period for the most part is risk assessment, because once you start building solutions around something, decoupling is extremely painful and risky.
Companies are desperately trying to get off ClearCase (million dollar licenses), but they can't because their existing build systems, verification, etc. are so integrated with it, that decoupling introduces too much down time risk.
If we found a situation where GitHub was constantly copying from Bitbucket or GitLab or who ever becomes the next thing, it's definitely going to introduce doubts about whether GitHub is the right choice for the long run.
Drama will not affect that web designer that is paying $7 a month for a hosting plan, but it will cause doubts for those looking to spend 10s of thousands a year.
What was their innovation previously, though? I think they built a pretty great site around git, but I struggle to see where this massive innovation is.
I'm not sure I agree. GitHub's core service - git - is one that they did not create. I'd argue that if anything, GitHub is synonymous with accessibility and reliability.