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Hello, GitHub

natfriedman.github.io

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Re: Hello, GitHub

#91

Post by michielr »

craftyguy wrote: post #69
michielr wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There has been nothing but words up to this point. I get your point, but come on, there have been a lot of 'actions' over the last couple of years. This only detracts from your argument. We've had .NET Core, visual studio code, the improvements on Git, WSL and more.

None of those are meaningful contributions to existing platforms/projects that MS does not own outright. They're throwing code of the wall. MS's contributions to git are very light. Edit: clarify my point.

Which, one could say, is what open source is all about right? Get people or organisations motivated to improve upon code and share this with the rest of the community so they can reap the rewards as well. No one expects anyone to do stuff only for the greater good. The greater good is the best result of open source, but it isn't the motivation.

Re: Hello, GitHub

#92

Post by freedomben »

jason_slack wrote: post #80

I feel a bit better knowing Nat Friedman will be CEO. He does have a history with OSS software projects and also running such companies. I hope that things don't change. I have come to rely on GitHub and I don't want to go investing in another solution.

I agree, and MS also has some pretty good OSS chops these days. But Github itself is closed source. This is something that I think needs to change, or Github needs to disappear. There are good OSS solutions now that we need to make grow.

I also rely a lot on Github and don't want to move, but I'm going to bite the bullet if they don't open up. I don't like the hypocrisy, and I don't want to be an enabler anymore.

Re: Hello, GitHub

#93

Post by pow_pp_-1_v »

A nice, safe introduction.

There's a lot of talk about people leaving github for other platforms. If there are actually doing it, it seems like a short-sighted move. I understand why people who lived through the earlier years of Microsoft are skeptical. Microsoft did a very good job of earning a lot of ill will.

But things have changed. Microsoft's primary focus seems to be is Azure and everything they do needs to be looked through that lens. They need developers of all stripes using Azure. So they will do everything to attract all developers. It's in their business interest.

Re: Hello, GitHub

#94

Post by jstarfish »

e1ven wrote: post #82
PunchTornado wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that I've been hearing that phrase at every interview from every candidate, on a lot of blogposts and presentations. It's a cheap and uncreative way to get under someone's skin.

I suspect you’ve been hearing it a lot because more and more people are starting code while very young. I’m certainly not the best coder in the world, but I was “coding” in Logo (for example) from a very young age. Lots of kids are interested in computers and the barrier to entry is pretty low.

This is accurate, and a sign of the times. My 7yo enjoys programming Lego Mindstorms, and my brother was messing around with redstone circuitry in Minecraft by 8. The barrier of exposure to engineering concepts keeps getting lower.

Re: Hello, GitHub

#95

Post by jameshart »

stblack wrote: post #77
aculver wrote: post #56

Honestly, can you think of a smarter move on the part of Microsoft than making Nat Friedman (a veteran of the Open Source community) CEO of Github? I completely trust this guy to do as good a job as can be done of guiding Github forward as a product and a platform, now that the venture capitalists are no longer in the picture.

I just checked. Nat Friedman hasn't made a public commit on Github since August 2015. And if you care to look deeper, since 2010, not much at all. https://github.com/natfriedman

You have no idea who Nat Friedman is, do you?

Re: Hello, GitHub

#96

Post by cma »

CaliforniaKarl wrote: post #14

+1 for the outreach. They definitely lost control of the announcement, since it got out yesterday. The nice thing about it is, everyone who keeps their Git repo up-to-date (and who has the transfer.fsckobjects setting set to true) has a complete copy of the Git repo. And GitHub provides APIs to pull other stuff. I think the hardest thing to move would be sites on GitHub Pages. So, since I can pull out relatively easi…

What's missing without transfer.fsckobjects ?

Re: Hello, GitHub

#97

Post by braythwayt »

bad_user wrote: post #13

So I’m kind of depressed about this. I loved GitHub enough that I paid for a subscription without needing it and have all of my public work on it and my investment in OSS is quite significant. People saying that it is easy to migrate don’t know what they are talking about. GitHub isn’t just Git hosting, but a social network of open source developers and projects. You can’t migrate stars, issues with comments and the…

  > People saying that it is easy to migrate don’t know what they are
  > talking about. GitHub isn’t just Git hosting, but a social network
  > of open source developers and projects. You can’t migrate stars,
  > issues with comments and the history of PRs, all linked to the
  > profiles of their authors.
Every single for-profit company works their ass off to build a "moat" around their business and to create switching costs, even if they boast that you can "just take your data and leave."

It is not an accident that it is difficult for non-trivial projects to "just leave GitHub." That is by design, it is part of how it grew to become the 800 pound gorilla, and it is part of why Microsoft bought them.

Re: Hello, GitHub

#98

Post by tjoff »

fundamental wrote: post #31
giancarlostoro wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad they're doing this. If anything the only ones misbehaving are the skeptics making claims they'll likely be disproved over. Also has been noted if they had issues with this happening they should of never used GitHub to begin with. I guess devs are religious about git hosting platforms aside from text editors and programming languages.

> if they had issues with this happening they should of never used GitHub to begin with. I think it's reasonable to say that people understood that there were tradeoffs in hosting code on a site like github. Since it had become a popular site, the gains from the network effect outweighed the more theoretical risks, at least for the short term...

Then they should own up to that decision and realize that what they did not only helped github to be so dominant but it also actively worked against viable alternatives.

Choose more carefully next time? Maybe firefox instead of chrome? etc.

Re: Hello, GitHub

#99

Post by briandear »

bad_user wrote: post #13

So I’m kind of depressed about this. I loved GitHub enough that I paid for a subscription without needing it and have all of my public work on it and my investment in OSS is quite significant. People saying that it is easy to migrate don’t know what they are talking about. GitHub isn’t just Git hosting, but a social network of open source developers and projects. You can’t migrate stars, issues with comments and the…

You can self-host Github too. It's called Github Enterprise.

Re: Hello, GitHub

#100

Post by johannes1234321 »

Klathmon wrote: post #64
ericabiz wrote: post #7

I’m going to be a bit contrarian to “the sky is falling” posts on HN and say: I think Microsoft is handling this really well. 1) They’ve acknowledged the skepticism around the acquisition. 2) They’ve expressed their commitment to keep GitHub an independent platform (like they did with LinkedIn.) 3) Nat Friedman, although I was not familiar with him prior to this, seems like an ideal candidate to run GitHub. This, ove…

I agree, my biggest concerns are: 1. What is happening to Atom? I have tried VS code and don't really like it due to the difference in how the 2 systems are designed to work (Atom being more "plugins are king", VSCode being more "kitchen sink included by first-party"). I'd hate to see my favorite editor lose it's major backing. If MS makes a commitment to continue to develop Atom, or they work with someone else to "t…

> Will Facebook/Google/Apple start pulling their code from GitHub?

For these companies who owned GitHub hardly plays a role. They want to attract developers and go wherever the crowds go. If there is mass migration to mercurial-superhost.com they will follow. It's just an outlet.

The question is more relevant for companies and communities who built their infrastructure on it and might worry for good or not so good reasons.

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