Elena Elisseeva, 123RF
GitHub advertises the Atom text editor as a combination of the best features from vi, Emacs, Sublime, and Textmate with none of the inconveniences. GitHub hopes to attract new users with an editor that is nicely integrated with its own VCS.
Many developers were rather incredulous when GitHub announced Atom [1] in June of 2014. They were asking whether the world really needed yet another editor. The GitHub makers believed that the answer to this question was a definite yes. Although Sublime Text [2] and Textmate [3] are convenient to use, the programs don't leave much room for modification.
Emacs and Vi let the user make many modifications, but they are not so convenient for the beginner. Although not expressly mentioned by the makers, the Atom text editor also has the potential for bringing new users to GitHub, thanks to the good integration with GitHub.
The GitHub makers are acutely aware of how the open source world works. Up to now, they have not taken a wrong turn. Atom has become part of this successful track record. The Vi and Emacs projects work well primarily because they are open source and have a large community. The makers have let it be known that they are in it for the long run with the Atom text editor, which has an MIT license. This does not mean that GitHub won't fork the text editor at some point in order to offer an enterprise version; however, this was not yet the case with Version 1.0, which appeared in June of 2015.
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