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Github (GH) is a proprietary developer platform that allows developers to create, store, manage, and share their code. It uses Git to provide distributed version control and GH itself provides access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continuous integration, and wikis for every project. Headquartered in California, GH has been a subsidiary of Microsoft since 2018.
| Basic information | |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2008-02-08 |
| Legal Structure | Subsidiary |
| Industry | Developer platform |
| Also known as | |
| Official website | https://www.github.com |
Consumer impact summary
edit- Privacy: GH is owned by Microsoft, raising questions about data usage. GH has recently engaged in aggressive Copilot integration.[1] Many projects such as the Gentoo Linux project, have left GH due to the privacy and security concerns associated with AI.[2][3][4]
- Transparency: While some tools like the
ghCLI are open-source,[5] the platform itself is closed-source. - Market control: GH is the platform that hosts the most important repositories in the world.[citation needed - or is it? (2026-05-11)] It's the standard-de-facto for hosting and managing source-code, often overshadowing platforms such as Codeberg and GitLab.
- Reliability: ever since Microsoft acquired it, GH's uptime has degraded.[6][7] Projects such as Ghostty have left GH because of this.[8] There have been multiple incidents (elaborated in the next section), such as Git-history corruption and security vulnerabilities. GH has apologized and they plan to improve the situation.[9]
Incidents
editRestricting accounts of "foreign" users (2019)
editDue to trade sanctions from U.S.A., GH began restricting and even suspending accounts of any user who logged in from an affected country.[10]
Questions about data usage (2024-present)
editGH does not specifically tell you the data usage for AI with private repositories. This means that it might be using your data to train AI models by Microsoft like Copilot.[11] Previously, Copilot exposed vital private repositories from big companies, raising even more concerns.[12]
This is a list of all consumer-protection incidents this company is involved in. Any incidents not mentioned here can be found in the GitHub category.
Planned fees for self-hosted Action runners (2025-present)
editIn December 2025, GH announced a new $0.002 per minute "cloud platform charge" for developers using self-hosted GH Actions runners on private repositories. It was due to take effect on March 1 2026, but seems to be postponed indefinitely. [13]
Whitelisting of email domains on new accounts
edit
When creating a new account on the platform, GH restricts the use of emails from certain domains, such as to disallow the usage of email aliases. Which a user might use to preserve their privacy.
Buggy merge queue (2026, April)
editOn April 23, 2026, pull-requests (PRs) merged via merge-queue using the squash merge method produced incorrect merge commits when the merge group contained more than one PR. In affected cases, changes from previously merged PRs and prior commits were inadvertently reverted by subsequent merges.[14][15]
RCE via git push
edit
A remote code execution vulnerability was found that allowed abusing git push commands to read and write data to any repository hosted by GH, including private ones.[16] GH fixed this bug quickly after it was reported to them.
Products
edit
- Enterprise
- Copilot
External links
editReferences
edit- ↑ "GitHub Copilot". Archived from the original on 2026-03-26.
- ↑ Rudra, Sourav (17 Feb 2026). "Gentoo Takes the First Step to Ditch Microsoft Copilot-Infested GitHub". Archived from the original on 2026-03-26.
- ↑ Whittaker, George (19 Feb 2026). "Gentoo Charts a New Path: Moving Away from GitHub Toward Codeberg". Archived from the original on 2026-03-26.
- ↑ Kelley, Andrew (2025-11-26). "Migrating from GitHub to Codeberg". ⚡ Zig Programming Language. Archived from the original on 2026-03-03. Retrieved 2026-03-16.
- ↑ "GitHub's official command line tool (source Git repository)". GitHub. 3 Oct 2019. Archived from the original on 28 Jan 2026. Retrieved 16 Sep 2025.
- ↑ damrnelson. "GitHub's Historic Uptime". GitHub.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ↑ "GitHub Uptime". GitHub Status.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ↑ Hashimoto, Mitchell (28 Apr 2026). "Ghostty Is Leaving GitHub". Archived from the original on 2026-04-28.
- ↑ Fedorov, Vlad. "An update on GitHub availability". GitHub Blog. Archived from the original on 2026-04-28.
- ↑ tkashkin. "Project status". GitHub. Archived from the original on 2026-05-22.
- ↑ PeterH-euris. "What specific data exactly will be send to Copilot?". GitHub. Archived from the original on 2025-05-12. Retrieved 7 September 2025.
- ↑ Jonathan, Antonio (28 Feb 2025). "Copilot AI Exposes Private GitHub Code From Top Companies". Digital Chew. Archived from the original on 2025-04-26.
- ↑ "Coming soon: simpler pricing and a better experience for GitHub Actions". GitHub. 16 Dec 2025. Archived from the original on 25 Mar 2026.
- ↑ "Incident with Pull Requests". GitHub Status. 23 Apr 2026. Archived from the original on 2026-05-08.
- ↑ Vendola, Phil (24 Apr 2026). "What Happens If a Merge Queue Builds on the Wrong Commit". Trunk. Archived from the original on 2026-05-10.
- ↑ Tzadik, Sagi (28 Apr 2026). "Securing GitHub: Wiz Research uncovers Remote Code Execution in GitHub.com and GitHub Enterprise Server (CVE-2026-3854)". WIZ. Archived from the original on 2026-05-19.