Reading on, "Open sourcing it would mean thousands of people worldwide could use it to build interesting Git tools, creating an even more vibrant Git ecosystem."
Awesome Git bindings to Ruby are critical to the functionality of Github, but a vibrant Git ecosystem is essential to its success. Business value trumps technical implementation.
In fact, Tom also mentions the libgit2 library that Github is working on, and may even replace some of what they use Grit for today.
Another point: Zurb recently open-sourced their CSS/JS framework that they use to build all their client sites/apps with. They have spent years making it awesome. It's a major part of the material goods that they hand over at the delivery of a project. After it being opened up on Gitub, they've seen lots of great feedback, bug fixes and enhancements. I'd also bet they've seen an increase in new clients. What they wrote is awesome and now they are known to many more potential customers as being the people who know what they are doing.
Awesome Git bindings to Ruby are critical to the functionality of Github, but a vibrant Git ecosystem is essential to its success. Business value trumps technical implementation.
In fact, Tom also mentions the libgit2 library that Github is working on, and may even replace some of what they use Grit for today.
Another point: Zurb recently open-sourced their CSS/JS framework that they use to build all their client sites/apps with. They have spent years making it awesome. It's a major part of the material goods that they hand over at the delivery of a project. After it being opened up on Gitub, they've seen lots of great feedback, bug fixes and enhancements. I'd also bet they've seen an increase in new clients. What they wrote is awesome and now they are known to many more potential customers as being the people who know what they are doing.
Business value trumps technical implementation.