GitHub major issues - repos have "lost" commits and site is erroring • Hacker News Board

Re: GitHub major issues - repos have "lost" commits and site is erroring

#71

Post by jshen » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 4:57 PM UTC

roel_v wrote: post #53

jshen wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The beauty os a dvcs is that I have a full copy on my machine as well. But seriously, if you use git over ssh there is no sys admin work other than running apt-get upgrade

Maybe for a few months. When you run a server for 2 or 3 years the distro goes out of support, software upgrades are getting behind, before you know it you are compiling patches from source, ... I've done this several times over the last 5 years and am now finally moving everything to specialized hosting services. Just hosting a web site, photo repo, mail and svn on a machine (vps) is enough to make it a serious hass…

easy.

1) get a distro with 5 years support.

2) when it's out of date, buy a new $20/month vps, install git and ssh. Move your repo and turn off the old server. This might take 2 hours, every 5 years. Not a big deal.

Re: GitHub major issues - repos have "lost" commits and site is erroring

#72

Post by dedward » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 5:11 PM UTC

baddox wrote: post #26

jameskilton wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure how this is relevant. Github isn't hosted on any cloud. http://www.anchor.com.au/blog/2009/09/github-designing-succe...

Well, every resource is locally on some physical machine somewhere . I think his point is that Github is often treated by its users as a "local" resource, in that it takes the place of what would otherwise be a local server running a Git front end or repository. Now, Github probably wouldn't encourage total reliance on their service. Git is fundamentally distributed, so this doesn't have to be a problem. Still, the G…

This echoes my thoughts all along.

For open-projects, it's a FANTASTIC platform... no doubt about it.

For a corporate closed project, I honestly would not use github - not because of any feature or lack of them, but because it's a hosted service. I want control over where my code sits, period - if only for the same reason as most hosted services - a subpoena or similar court order can be served against the provider with no notification to the owner of the data. This is the #1 reason one should be careful basing one's business on hosted services.

Re: GitHub major issues - repos have "lost" commits and site is erroring

#73

Post by dedward » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 5:13 PM UTC

roel_v wrote: post #64

deno wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe for a few months. When you run a server for 2 or 3 years the distro goes out of support, software upgrades are getting behind, before you know it you are compiling patches from source, ... You can get 5 years security updates support with Ubuntu Server LTS and you can set up safe unattended updates[1] with email notification if anything ever requires your attention. If you set your backups right as well, you…

"...it shouldn't be that difficult" Famous last words... I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm just saying that my experience has been different. Another example, I used to have my own installation for our websites and bug tracking and time sheet management software, on a locally-hosted machine with apache and mysql and a bunch of other software. The number of hours I've spend migrating data between versions, tweaking…

Absolutely a matter of scale - it depends on the app, the audience, your budget, your workflow....

A one-man operation doing sysadmin, development, everything? I'd be looking for hosted solutions too for my clients - it makes my life easier.

But as a company, with a development and operations staff? I'd be wary.

Re: GitHub major issues - repos have "lost" commits and site is erroring

#74

Post by tptacek » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 6:07 PM UTC

icefox wrote: post #67

antirez wrote: post #52

Suggestion for creating a startup: For private repositories gitolite is really awesome, but I think there should be a company about it. What I mean is that github or some other company should offer hosted gitolite instances, in the following form: You pay something like price_of_small_linode_instace+price_of_service, to get: A virtual machine with gitolite up and running, with a good web interface and online document…

What do people really think of this idea? Would you buy it? I have written a web interface for managing git repos called GitHaven (my personal home install is here: http://git.meyerhome.net:8080/ ). It has the usual goodies, private/public repos etc. I have some friend's companies that run it in the cloud already. Do you think it would actually make money i.e. Would you be willing to join me in a startup on it (in bo…

Probably not. Github is on a path to become the market leader, has a critical mass of customers, and has a business model that harnesses those customers to benefit from network effects. This idea is akin to building a business offering private white-label Stack Overflow clones. Key point: the actual software is not what makes Stack Overflow and Github valuable.

Simpler reaction: Github:FI is already priced at a rounding error for the kinds of companies from which most of the revenue in this space will originate.

Re: GitHub major issues - repos have "lost" commits and site is erroring

#75

Post by icefox » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 6:23 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #74

icefox wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do people really think of this idea? Would you buy it? I have written a web interface for managing git repos called GitHaven (my personal home install is here: http://git.meyerhome.net:8080/ ). It has the usual goodies, private/public repos etc. I have some friend's companies that run it in the cloud already. Do you think it would actually make money i.e. Would you be willing to join me in a startup on it (in bo…

Probably not. Github is on a path to become the market leader, has a critical mass of customers, and has a business model that harnesses those customers to benefit from network effects. This idea is akin to building a business offering private white-label Stack Overflow clones. Key point: the actual software is not what makes Stack Overflow and Github valuable. Simpler reaction: Github:FI is already priced at a round…

From the research I have done there are three major types of git server buyers:

1) We are so small that we don't even think twice and buy some private repos on GitHub. (i.e. no market there)

2) We are so big that we can't possibly even fathom the idea of having our code on someone else's server so GitHub.com is out of the question. Sadly GitHub:Fi is per/user and because we are really big that means we have lots of devs so it is too expensive in most cases. (i.e. enterprise sale yuck)

3) For medium sized companies that either have some devs (more then 5) or a ton of repos or large repos they want an alternative to github. Many are slapping up gitolite which while good is a far cry from github.

Like I mentioned I already have found companies that want this solution and they are using GitHaven. The real question is if this market is too small or should I just move on to another project, open source GitHaven and let everyone (who wants to) slap it up as a frontend to their existing gitolite installs?

Re: GitHub major issues - repos have "lost" commits and site is erroring

#76

Post by roel_v » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 6:58 PM UTC

dedward wrote: post #73

roel_v wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...it shouldn't be that difficult" Famous last words... I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm just saying that my experience has been different. Another example, I used to have my own installation for our websites and bug tracking and time sheet management software, on a locally-hosted machine with apache and mysql and a bunch of other software. The number of hours I've spend migrating data between versions, tweaking…

Absolutely a matter of scale - it depends on the app, the audience, your budget, your workflow.... A one-man operation doing sysadmin, development, everything? I'd be looking for hosted solutions too for my clients - it makes my life easier. But as a company, with a development and operations staff? I'd be wary.

Sure, but I figured we were talking about small organizations. One-man shop to maybe 10 people or so, or even more, anything too small to have a dedicated sysadmin.

Re: GitHub major issues - repos have "lost" commits and site is erroring

#77

Post by rodjek » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 6:58 PM UTC

deno wrote: post #63

roel_v wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe for a few months. When you run a server for 2 or 3 years the distro goes out of support, software upgrades are getting behind, before you know it you are compiling patches from source, ... I've done this several times over the last 5 years and am now finally moving everything to specialized hosting services. Just hosting a web site, photo repo, mail and svn on a machine (vps) is enough to make it a serious hass…

> Maybe for a few months. When you run a server for 2 or 3 years the distro goes out of support, software upgrades are getting behind, before you know it you are compiling patches from source, ... You can get 5 years security updates support with Ubuntu Server LTS and you can set up safe unattended updates[1] with email notification if anything ever requires your attention. If you set your backups right as well, you…

Sorry, but there is no such thing as "safe unattended updates" when you have anything more complex than your home desktop box. There's way too much that can and will go wrong to be that naive.

Re: GitHub major issues - repos have "lost" commits and site is erroring

#78

Post by tptacek » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 7:05 PM UTC

icefox wrote: post #75

tptacek wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not. Github is on a path to become the market leader, has a critical mass of customers, and has a business model that harnesses those customers to benefit from network effects. This idea is akin to building a business offering private white-label Stack Overflow clones. Key point: the actual software is not what makes Stack Overflow and Github valuable. Simpler reaction: Github:FI is already priced at a round…

From the research I have done there are three major types of git server buyers: 1) We are so small that we don't even think twice and buy some private repos on GitHub. (i.e. no market there) 2) We are so big that we can't possibly even fathom the idea of having our code on someone else's server so GitHub.com is out of the question. Sadly GitHub:Fi is per/user and because we are really big that means we have lots of d…

Most products targeted at developers are per-seat priced (or have pricing derived from per-seat pricing); it's how you do value pricing when value scales with the number of developers. Look at how Atlassian does it; that's still effectively per-seat licensing (it requires prospects to think about how many devs they'll have).

You can try to avoid these schemes, but you have to do it and not go out of business.

Re: GitHub major issues - repos have "lost" commits and site is erroring

#79

Post by sdesol » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 8:25 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #78

icefox wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the research I have done there are three major types of git server buyers: 1) We are so small that we don't even think twice and buy some private repos on GitHub. (i.e. no market there) 2) We are so big that we can't possibly even fathom the idea of having our code on someone else's server so GitHub.com is out of the question. Sadly GitHub:Fi is per/user and because we are really big that means we have lots of d…

Most products targeted at developers are per-seat priced (or have pricing derived from per-seat pricing); it's how you do value pricing when value scales with the number of developers. Look at how Atlassian does it; that's still effectively per-seat licensing (it requires prospects to think about how many devs they'll have). You can try to avoid these schemes, but you have to do it and not go out of business.

Yeah the per-seat point is really a moot point when it comes to enterprise. ClearCase is $4000 a license and a lot and I mean a lot of large companies use it. I know of a company that is currently spending $2.5 million a year on ClearCase licenses and they really want to get off it but ClearCase is so entrenched/integrated into their work flow that this is not a trivial task. Github is not going to solve this problem for them.

The problem with Github:Fi is the value proposition is extremely weak when it comes to meeting enterprise needs.

- They have an issue tracker that doesn't support custom fields. This is critical for companies with 500+ developers and/or very diverse product lines.

- They have a wiki but you can get confluence for $12,000 for the entire company which is more feature rich. It has decent searching.

- They have blogging but this is of no value in the enterprise world. The majority of employees really don't have the time or care about blogging internally.

- They have Gist which offers no real value for the same reason why blogging isn't that big of a deal.

When it's all over, their only strong value proposition for the enterprise world is their intuitive push and pull interface. But the problem with this is they are competing directly with free solutions like:

- gitorious

- gitolite + internal web interface

- gerrit

I'm obviously speculating here, but based on how their pricing model changed:

old: 1000 per user (initial purchase) + 200 something a year per user subscription cost

new: 250 per user if less than 25 users and 200 per user if more than 25 users

I think they realized they over estimated their value proposition initially. If Github wants to seriously break into the enterprise world, they are either going to have to lower their per seat cost and/or strengthen their value proposition.

Re: GitHub major issues - repos have "lost" commits and site is erroring

#80

Post by ekidd » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 8:32 PM UTC

saurik wrote: post #68

ekidd wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's always sysadmin work. 1) You need to keep current on your security patches. 2) You need to upgrade your OS when it reaches end-of-life. 3) You need to make backups, and more importantly, verify that those backups will actually restore. (For git, this is most critical if you have a large team and dozens of repos.) You can ignore a server for years, but eventually you'll get compromised or loose a hard drive. (…

I'd say "most developers" already have a box running some kind of website where they are doing this anyway, but even if you disagree I think you have to be willing to cede "many", especially given how many people who use GitHub are currently doing Ruby on Rails or node.js work. I'd even go so far as to say that those that currently aren't /should/, as the experience being a sysadmin is important when understanding ho…

Part of me is wondering if many of the more controversial discussions on this site are between people who have sysadmin experience (and considered it valuable) and people who don't.

I've done a fair bit of sysadmin work over the years, mostly in self-defense, because I want fewer crises when a critical development server eats itself.

Lots of people can figure out how to install Ubuntu, or rent a Linode. But if they don't master upgrades, patches and backups, they'll eventually end up paying a real sysadmin a lot of money at the worst possible moment.