Nginx was compelled to move to GitHub [1].
The fact that companies request you to star them on GitHub and the stars can be bought tells you that there is a value in these stars. [2]
Now, some astute reader, who thinks the $1 trillion global advertisement market does not influence them, will also claim that they don't care about GitHub stars.
Well, that's not how the world works.
Fake stars can propel a good project to great.
A lot of people will use GitHub stars as a currency to decide the importance of certain FOSS (or even open-core) projects.
The real lock-in is in GitHub stars [3].
1 - https://blog.nginx.org/blog/nginx-open-source-moves-to-githu...
They didn't move primarily because of stars, they moved because they had been using Mercurial and most developers aren't familiar with it.
What stops a new platform from just mirroring GitHub stars on import or something, actually?
> What stops a new platform from just mirroring GitHub stars on import or something, actually?
So, the source is still GitHub, right?
Which means I have to keep my FOSS project on GitHub to accumulate stars.
I'm thinking like "you had 200 GitHub stars before coming to us so we start you with 200 stars" as a migration process. maybe they wouldn't be as reputable but everyone knows it's gamed anyway, so why not?
> I'm thinking like "you had 200 GitHub stars before coming to us so we start you with 200 stars" as a migration process. maybe they wouldn't be as reputable but everyone knows it's gamed anyway, so why not?
And how will the project accumulate more?
> everyone knows it's gamed anyway, so why not?
Then why do they still have purchase value?
Copy the same way people can star projects to the new platform too, but maybe allow people to buy them directly from you to cut out the middleman. It could be very efficient.
> everyone knows it's gamed anyway, so why not?
Arbitrage. Devs know its gamed. VCs less so.
Simpler answer: TINA (there is no better alternative)