[SciPy-User] Central File Exchange for SciPy

[Gael Varoquaux]

On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 12:36:46PM -0700, Keith Goodman wrote:
> From where I sit, the gallery above the peanut gallery, I think it is
> disheartening that we all use github instead of a FOSS version like
> gitorious. If the linux kernel did the same (continued to use
> proprietary package management) we wouldn't even have git. I wonder
> what our choice to use github (along with what seems like a million
> other developers) means for the prospects of a gist-like feature in
> gitorious (which we could install on our own servers).

While I have (very) mixed feeling for git, github is really awesome. The
git usability is, in my eyes, horrendous. It is compensated by a
fantastic internal design, and great power. However, I wouldn't be using
git if there was not github: its usability is fantastic and unlike git
there is almost no learning curve[*].

I guess there is a lesson to be learned here: free software tends to make
first good design and worry about normal users only very late down the
pipeline. We have seen this story repeat over and over. So many people
use Apple computers, even in the free software community.

Gael

[*] I must confess that I hadn't looked at gitorious for a while, and it
seems that it is making a lot of progress in terms of being usable. It's
probably doing better than most code sharing platforms. There is value in
competition!