GitHub's ³pull request² is proprietary lock-in

[Ben Finney]

Christian Gollwitzer <auriocus at gmx.de> writes:

> Arguably, the most valuable outcome of the pull request in the end is
> the patch, which is of course contained in the git repository.

Arguably, the most valuable outcome of a database system is the query
result, which is of course contained in the result set of tuples
contained in the response data.

Arguably, the most valuable outcome of a version control system is the
source code tree, which is of course contained in a filesystem directory.

Arguably, the most valuable outcome of a programming language is the
programs we write with it, which is of course contained in the compiled
binary.

By your reasoning, that means we should not care about handing the
control over our database system, our version control system, or our
programming language to a vendor-locked, proprietary, gratuitously
centralised technology.

I hope the analogy makes it clear why that's not an argument I think
anyone would accept as sound.

> I doubt that many people want to go back to see the arguments for a
> certain merge

I doubt many people want to go into the source code for my operating
system and tell me exactly what it's doing, where my data is stored, how
to get it from this operating system to a different one.

My freedom to migrate from that system to a different one when I choose,
is entirely dependent on *anyone* being able to do that, no matter how
few people express an interest where you might see it.

-- 
 \               “There's no excuse to be bored. Sad, yes. Angry, yes. |
  `\    Depressed, yes. Crazy, yes. But there's no excuse for boredom, |
_o__)                                          ever.” —Viggo Mortensen |
Ben Finney