GitHub

About

Github is a website for hosting repositories of code, allowing for distributed version control and source code management. Programmers often upload their code projects to Github to share them publicly or privately. Public code projects are often seeking contributors or code help, and can be sold or be open source. Github is not the only code repository on the Internet, but it is the most popular, boasting over 9 million users and more than 2.1 million projects as of 2015.

Users create repositories, or "repos", and share them. Other users can "fork" the repo, or create an organizational offshoot of the code for editing purposes, but they often will have to send a "pull-request" to the original programmers to be able to fork.

The logo of Github is the Octocat, and Github hosts editing contests where users are invited to create different costumes or scenarios for the logo. These edits are housed in a sub-site called the Octodex.^[6]

Online History

Founded in 2008, Github quickly caught on with programmers looking for an easier way to store and share code online. By 2010, Github announced that it had 1 million total repositories.^[2]

International Censorship

On December 3, 2014, Russian Internet controller RosComNadzor blocked Github^[3] after the platform was found to be hosting a file that detailed 32 different ways to kill yourself in Russian. Github didn't comply with the Russian government's request that the content be removed and therefore was fire-walled.

A few weeks later, on December 17th, 2014, Github was included as one of 30 websites blocked by the government-run Internet Service Providers for purportedly hosting content related to ISIS. On December 31st, Indian access to Github was restored.^[4]

Chinese DDoS Attack

On March 26th, 2015, Github was hit with a large DDoS attack which originated in China. The attack caused the site to be unavailable in some places for more than 24 hours.^[5] Github has said that they believe they were the subject of the attack because they host content that shows users how to subvert the censorship of the Chinese Internet.

Related Memes

Many memes that are programs have source code hosted on Github. These include 2048, Danooru, the 4Chan Get Encyclopedia, and the bots that run @Everyword.

Search Interest

External References