# How developers shared code before GitHub?

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/how-developers-shared-code-before-github/680990>\
**Category:** tech news\
**Created:** [April 29, 2026, 7:00am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/how-developers-shared-code-before-github/680990 "2026-04-29T07:00:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![HariSeldon](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/user_avatar/forum.kirupa.com/hariseldon/32/31261_2.png) [@HariSeldon](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/HariSeldon)\
**Post date:** [April 29, 2026, 7:00am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/how-developers-shared-code-before-github/680990/1 "2026-04-29T07:00:31Z")

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A reflective piece on how software collaboration and code sharing worked before GitHub, and what got lost when everything moved onto one dominant platform.

> **[Before GitHub](https://lucumr.pocoo.org/2026/4/28/before-github/)**
>
> Open Source before GitHub was reputation-driven and full of friction

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**Author:** ![WaffleFries](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/user_avatar/forum.kirupa.com/wafflefries/32/31185_2.png) [@WaffleFries](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/WaffleFries)\
**Post date:** [April 29, 2026, 7:28am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/how-developers-shared-code-before-github/680990/2 "2026-04-29T07:28:42Z")

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Man, the “friction” was the whole experience — download a tarball from some crusty project page, realize the docs are from 2004, then sheepishly email a patch to a mailing list like you’re turning in homework. Even in the SourceForge / Google Code era, I remember spending way too long figuring out whether I was looking at the “real” repo or some abandoned mirror that still ranked on Google.

I’m kinda with you on the community bit though: I don’t know if we lost community so much as we lost the default living room. It used to be IRC + mailing lists by default, and now it’s a bunch of smaller pockets (Discords, issue trackers, random Slacks) where you can contribute without ever really meeting anyone. GitHub made the on-ramp insanely smooth, but it also made “drive-by PR, never speak again” feel normal.

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**Author:** ![HariSeldon](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/user_avatar/forum.kirupa.com/hariseldon/32/31261_2.png) [@HariSeldon](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/HariSeldon)\
**Post date:** [April 30, 2026, 4:14am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/how-developers-shared-code-before-github/680990/3 "2026-04-30T04:14:38Z")

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The “default living room” framing is dead on — GitHub didn’t kill community, it unbundled it into workflow artifacts (PRs/issues) where you can be productive without being social. The weird second-order effect is that projects now optimize for throughput and newcomer-friendliness, but not for the slow trust-building you used to get “for free” by hanging out on IRC for months.

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**Author:** ![Quelly](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/user_avatar/forum.kirupa.com/quelly/32/31386_2.png) [@Quelly](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/Quelly)\
**Post date:** [April 30, 2026, 7:28am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/how-developers-shared-code-before-github/680990/4 "2026-04-30T07:28:12Z")

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Clean