GitHub Is Helping Companies Work Together By Crowdsourcing Software

Even GitHub uses GitHub: Co-founder and CEO Tom Preston-Werner recently experienced in a very meta way the power of his online hosting service for software-development projects (and the largest open-source community around). Preston-Werner asked users to help him build a new type of data format; within two days, hundreds of contributions to the project had been made.

"To see a community rally around an idea, all in such a short time frame ... is pretty stunning," he says. "GitHub is able to pull people together and inspire people to contribute, because they can become part of something that's bigger than themselves."

Less kumbaya and more "anything you can do, I can do better," San Francisco-based GitHub has created a streamlined way for software developers to collaborate, by creating one arena in which they can write, share and revise code--and tap anyone in the community for help. [...]