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Comment by akerl_ | Hacker News Reader

Properly used, GitHub doesn't stop git from being decentralized.

A surprising number of developers don't really understand that...which is partially a problem of how complex things generally are in development, and partially a result of how good Github has become.

Case in point: During the whole Julie Horvath controversy, a few anti-Github developers started a campaign to create awareness of the harmful effects of Github's culture (or something)...but they created their standalone site using Github Pages:

https://github.com/CultureOffset/cultureoffset.github.com

I pointed out, independent of how I felt about Horvath or Github, that not only does it send a terrible message to run a boycotting campaign on the service you want to boycott...it is completely unnecessary, thanks to how git actually works and the many other great build tools/stacks to do static web development in under 24 hours. However, I got reamed for being an asshole and "man-splaining" things.

But really, as useful as Github is, every dev should spend some time on thinking through what underlies Github, and how to get by without it...especially if you intend on protesting Github.

I don't think that was a boycotting campaign - it basically says "we recognise you might want/need to keep using GitHub, so if you want to make a positive contribution to better culture/whatever then here are ways to do so without changing your workflow". It was like airplane companies advertising carbon offsets.

Yeah, but the concept of "offset" implies that there is something essentially poisonous to counteract. You may have to continue doing some of these poisonous activities...but you're acknowledging that the consequences of them are negative, period.

"Offsets" may not be literally a boycott, but the message is the same. And if at all possible, the organizers of such should avoid creating more "poison" to "offset"...in this case, if you wanted to put your name as a pledge, you had to have a Github account, and you had to use Github's services...which, in the end, helps to perpetuate Github.

But the kicker is that using Github as a necessary evil is not necessary at all, thanks to the great work of open-source developers...

(and yes, the question of, what the hell does "offseting" Github's culture even mean is a whole separate mind-dislocation, but not worth debating in this thread)

The whole "Wiki" feature comes to mind. Can I leave and take my project's wiki with me?

Sure, just add .wiki in before .git in the git URL:

> git clone git@github.com:wicketstuff/core.wiki.git