uh, did you read what the OP wrote? he said a long since disused account. i.e. how long a grace period do you desire they have?
github's general policy is that if an account has been dormant for a year (which might mean not just means commits, but also fetches from it) its can be recycled. This is because they dont want to enable username squatting.
github's general policy is that if an account has been dormant for a year (which might mean not just means commits, but also fetches from it) its can be recycled. This is because they dont want to enable username squatting.