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Think Twice Before Downgrading to a Free GitHub Account

blog.jaredsinclair.com

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Re: Think Twice Before Downgrading to a Free GitHub Account

#71

Post by Tenhundfeld »

dustinmoris wrote: post #41

Did someone really just write a blog post on not downgrading an account without knowing what you're doing? Yes, you should not do that. You also shouldn't buy something without knowing what you're paying for, shouldn't vote for something you don't know what it is, you shouldn't eat stuff which might be poisonous but don't know for sure, you shouldn't cross a street without looking, gosh you certainly shouldn't drive…

The OP clearly says, "It’s my fault for not reading the fine print more carefully."

They then further go on to say, "... when upgrading back to a Pro account, any branch protection rules you had before were permanently deleted when you downgraded to the free tier. They will all have to be recreated from scratch."

That is useful information, to me. People write blog posts about all types of things that are obvious to some and useful to others. Why be so nasty about this short post that seems to be useful to a lot of people? I guess that's 2019 for ya.

It's easy to ask snarky questions. That doesn't mean it's helpful or witty.

Re: Think Twice Before Downgrading to a Free GitHub Account

#72

Post by tootie »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #36
SeriousM wrote: post #33

Gitlab has private repos for free and the service is imho on par with github

As does BitBucket which I prefer just because it matches what I use at work. I also keep a GitLab for backup type reasons.

GitHub is way behind those two is is coasting on their strength in open source hosting.

Re: Think Twice Before Downgrading to a Free GitHub Account

#73

Post by jayeshsalvi »

There is a more serious impact of downgrading if you were hosting a static website from a private repository on github with a pro account. Apparently that's not supported with free account. My personal website went down as soon as I downgraded to free. I didn't mind making the repo public, so it was an easy fix, but may not be same for others.

Re: Think Twice Before Downgrading to a Free GitHub Account

#74

Post by xtracto »

wikwocket wrote: post #6

For what it's worth, protected branches are pretty clearly listed as a "Github Pro" feature in their pricing page. I agree that it'd be nice if they warned you about features you're using that will be turned off, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that people requesting downgrades understand which features are in which plan. Maybe this could be suggested to GitHub's Paperclips project, to avoid future conf…

Interesting, protected branches come free in GitLab. I never used Github to host my serious repos (I was using Bitbucket as soon as they started providing Git in addition to Hg).

I would suppose that as time passes by, Microsoft will improve the free offering avaialable on their service.

Re: Think Twice Before Downgrading to a Free GitHub Account

#75

Post by MarHoff »

dustinmoris wrote: post #41

Did someone really just write a blog post on not downgrading an account without knowing what you're doing? Yes, you should not do that. You also shouldn't buy something without knowing what you're paying for, shouldn't vote for something you don't know what it is, you shouldn't eat stuff which might be poisonous but don't know for sure, you shouldn't cross a street without looking, gosh you certainly shouldn't drive…

But isn't that a new behavior? Before I subscribed 1-2 year ago I read small characters pretty carefully, and in my memories in such case the behavior was to lock the previously private repo in a read-only state. Switching back to pro would then have restored full functionalities and setting on theses privates repos.

Automatically making it public seems like a new behavior, could someone confirm/infirm my memories?

Re: Think Twice Before Downgrading to a Free GitHub Account

#76

Post by collinvandyck76 »

dustinmoris wrote: post #41

Did someone really just write a blog post on not downgrading an account without knowing what you're doing? Yes, you should not do that. You also shouldn't buy something without knowing what you're paying for, shouldn't vote for something you don't know what it is, you shouldn't eat stuff which might be poisonous but don't know for sure, you shouldn't cross a street without looking, gosh you certainly shouldn't drive…

my guess is that the righteous anger you felt while writing this post will be converted to regret down the road, possibly years later.

Re: Think Twice Before Downgrading to a Free GitHub Account

#77

Post by dustinmoris »

Tenhundfeld wrote: post #71
dustinmoris wrote: post #41

Did someone really just write a blog post on not downgrading an account without knowing what you're doing? Yes, you should not do that. You also shouldn't buy something without knowing what you're paying for, shouldn't vote for something you don't know what it is, you shouldn't eat stuff which might be poisonous but don't know for sure, you shouldn't cross a street without looking, gosh you certainly shouldn't drive…

The OP clearly says, "It’s my fault for not reading the fine print more carefully." They then further go on to say, "... when upgrading back to a Pro account, any branch protection rules you had before were permanently deleted when you downgraded to the free tier. They will all have to be recreated from scratch." That is useful information, to me. People write blog posts about all types of things that are obvious to…

I admit that my rather sarcastic comment was a bit snarky. I am genuinely surprised though that people find this newsworthy. It's pretty obvious that if you're going to downgrade anything you'll lose something, no? I also find it very surprising that the OP was so astound that the lost triggers had to be re-configured if he was to upgrade again. Maybe it's just me, but this really felt pretty standard and extremely obvious, which is maybe why I wrote this rather snarky comment. Still wrong of me, so I take that feedback.

Re: Think Twice Before Downgrading to a Free GitHub Account

#78

Post by dsumenkovic »

xtracto wrote: post #74
wikwocket wrote: post #6

For what it's worth, protected branches are pretty clearly listed as a "Github Pro" feature in their pricing page. I agree that it'd be nice if they warned you about features you're using that will be turned off, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that people requesting downgrades understand which features are in which plan. Maybe this could be suggested to GitHub's Paperclips project, to avoid future conf…

Interesting, protected branches come free in GitLab. I never used Github to host my serious repos (I was using Bitbucket as soon as they started providing Git in addition to Hg). I would suppose that as time passes by, Microsoft will improve the free offering avaialable on their service.

Here's the link if anyone wants more details https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/protected_branches.h.... It's available in both Core and Free tiers.

Re: Think Twice Before Downgrading to a Free GitHub Account

#79

Post by barry-cotter »

dragonwriter wrote: post #70
barry-cotter wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it isn’t. The hope is that the ignorance averages out and the informed and motivated voters are the decisive factors. In practice democracy works better than if that model was correct because while voters have preferences that they will happily profess that reliably lead to bad outcomes they reliably vote out parties that are in power when things go badly. Politicians have an incentive to do things that will get…

> they reliably vote out parties that are in power when things go badly. That's not at all the case, and even to the extent it is it is frustrated in separation of powers systems like the US, where the faction voted out will often be the one least responsible for the problems, since three are multiple factions in power at any given time a day the ignorance leads to blaming the wrong one.

What I wrote was too strong, you’re right. If there’s a huge fuckup the part[y|ies] in power are very likely to be voted out, the smaller the mess the less likely they are to be voted out, and that’s complicated by the tendency to want to throw the bums out when the incumbent government has been in power a long time. I agree entirely that fixed legislative terms and term limits are stupid ideas, along with separating the legislature and the executive. Parliamentary systems are better than presidential ones.

Re: Think Twice Before Downgrading to a Free GitHub Account

#80

Post by Tenhundfeld »

dustinmoris wrote: post #77
Tenhundfeld wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The OP clearly says, "It’s my fault for not reading the fine print more carefully." They then further go on to say, "... when upgrading back to a Pro account, any branch protection rules you had before were permanently deleted when you downgraded to the free tier. They will all have to be recreated from scratch." That is useful information, to me. People write blog posts about all types of things that are obvious to…

I admit that my rather sarcastic comment was a bit snarky. I am genuinely surprised though that people find this newsworthy. It's pretty obvious that if you're going to downgrade anything you'll lose something, no? I also find it very surprising that the OP was so astound that the lost triggers had to be re-configured if he was to upgrade again. Maybe it's just me, but this really felt pretty standard and extremely o…

Amazing. I expected you to double-down and reply aggressively defensive, but that was a sincere, thoughtful reply. Thank you. Maybe 2019 isn't so bad after all. ;)

And I agree it's a fairly obvious risk if you stop and think about it, but it's not necessarily true that losing access to a feature, which is a reversible state, also permanently deletes all configuration data associated with that feature.

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