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As GitHub user I can create an organization. What i don't understand -- Is an organisation independent?

  • Is it a repositories container, that needs a (user) account it belongs to or
  • is it for itself an (organization) account GitHub user (and doesn't need any personal user account)? Is it then correct to say, that an organization is a "featured user" account -- an account with all the features of a personal user account (especially code management, commenting etc.) and some additional functionality?
automatix
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3 Answers3

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The biggest difference between user accounts and organizations is team-based permissions for the repositories owned by the organization.

This means you can have team members under your organization and let them interact more aggressively with your repositories compared to plain contributors.

I'd say the concept of a GitHub organization is pretty independent from a plain GitHub user - they aren't the same thing. See for example how you can convert a user to an organization https://help.github.com/articles/converting-a-user-into-an-organization/

With that being said, organizations have what they call owners. You can have multiple owners (i.e you can invite people to be owner of your organization along with you) but an organization cannot have zero owner.

For example, when you create an organization while logged under your account, the default first owner of the organization you just created is yourself.

Here's a more detailed list about the differences between a user and an organization https://help.github.com/articles/what-s-the-difference-between-user-and-organization-accounts/

Jeremy Allard
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    Thank you for the explanation. But what I'm still not getting is: Is an organization "something, that *belongs* a (user) account" or *is* it a *type of account* (organization account), that doesn't need a user account? Just updated the qustion. – automatix Mar 02 '16 at 10:44
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    updated answer - basically organizations have *owner*. Organizations can have multiple owners but they can't have zero. When you create an organization while logged in with your user account, the default first owner of the organization will be you. Hope that helps. – Jeremy Allard Mar 02 '16 at 11:08
  • Is an organization itself a *user*. I mean, can it do everything a personal account can (plus some special things like teams)? Is it possible to post qomments, create tickets, commit code etc. as *organization itself* or is it only possible for its *members* (personal accounts)? – automatix Mar 02 '16 at 11:41
  • No. For instance, you cannot leave comments as an organization. – John Smith Jan 22 '22 at 23:21
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An organization is not a user, it doesn't have a password and you cannot log into an organization like you can to a personal/user account. But an organization can own repositories, which can be made accessible to actual persons/users who have passwords and can login.

user15623002
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GitHub "Organizations" act like "Users" in some cases. So the confusion is real.

Example, if you fork a repository in GitHub from an Organization instead of from a personal User account, the owners of the repo in the Organization can not only see your fork and any changes but can delete your fork. Not good.

Organization owners of a repository that has been forked have admin permission to forks created in personal user namespaces, including the ability to delete the fork and its branches.

This means that permission inheritance rules change based on not just private or public GitHub repo settings, but on whether you use a personal versus an organizational account. Personal accounts are not truly users that have ownership of their code. Organizations feels like a special type of Administrator to me, with the Organization now overriding all personal permissions over code, if they choose. Unless the person that forked the Organization's code is ALSO an Organization, you risk losing all rights to code changes in your fork.

For this reason, it is best to see Organizations as a higher level subtype of Admin User (not owner) so you understand the permissions assigned to it and the powers it holds over everything under it.

Stokely
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