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Give up GitHub: The time has come

sfconservancy.org

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Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#101

Post by sneak »

travisgriggs wrote: post #5

> For its part, Git was designed specifically to make software development distributed without a centralized site. Just yesterday I had to explain the basic premise/history of Git to a young intern. I had asked him if he was using Git to manage his little pet project the company gave him to play with. “No”, he replied, he didn’t know what the company’s policy was to posting code in public on GitHub. As I explained to…

This isn't a git-specific issue. People generally conflate local software and network services that are similarly named.

A good example is the f/oss community confusing the terms for the Signal.org API and the GPL-published Signal client software.

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#102

Post by dijit »

spencerchubb wrote: post #69
itslennysfault wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to teach a coding bootcamp. I had over 100 students over about 2 years, and ran into this constantly despite my best effort to explain that git != github from day one. We even did an exercise where we just used git locally first and then later (on a different day) showed how you can push to github. It didn't seem to matter. People just decided that git = github and couldn't let go of that.

git --> github porn --> pornhub best explanation of github for noobs

That's actually an excellent way of explaining it.

Though it's frustrating that it's pornhub specifically, because referencing pornography can be awkward or impractical in workplace contexts.

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#103

Post by brundolf »

masklinn wrote: post #94
brundolf wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's fair to frame this as specific to GitHub, or even as a thing to wring hands over. New devs - especially those coming from bootcamps (I say this without judgement) - mostly start with practical skills. Industry-standard ways to just get things done. That's how you get a job, that's how you get off the ground. This goes beyond source-control; languages/frameworks, tooling, etc. You enter the territor…

> New devs - especially those coming from bootcamps (I say this without judgement) - mostly start with practical skills. I wouldn't say that it's "especially those coming from bootcamps". Those coming from uni are no better IME.

Depends on the uni. Mine focused on fundamentals, almost to a fault; we learned algorithmic complexity and relational normal-forms but never touched eg. JavaScript, Python, or - ironically - git. Practical skills were very much not the entrypoint; I had to learn most of that myself.

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#104

Post by remram »

NoGravitas wrote: post #47

I publish my public FOSS work on a self-hosted Gitea. I don't allow account creation, and people can send me pull requests by email. That said, I think one thing (other than interface and brand loyalty) that keeps FOSS projects on GitHub is network effects. You can reasonably expect to search it and find the projects you're looking for, and your account lets you use the issue tracker and pull requests on other projec…

Gitea (and a few others) are working on federation for pull requests, which would allow someone to fork your project to their own server, and send a pull request offering you to merge from their server into yours.

It also builds on top of ActivityPub which is supposed to allow federation with the greater ActivityPub ecosystem ("fediverse"). I guess this would allow people to like or comment your issue or pull request from Mastodon and those other platforms.

I am not that excited about that last part, but federating pull requests sounds like a killer feature and a necessary step for a chance to topple GitHub. If hosting my own forge means I have to either get patches over email or let people register so they can create their own fork here, it's a non-starter for many.

edit: here is Gitea's issue: https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/issues/18240

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#105

Post by u801e »

dcz_self wrote: post #86
NoGravitas wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally the ones I don't mind losing. If anyone can't figure out how to send a git pull request or patchset by email, I'm happy for them to email me with questions on how to, which I will answer as best I can.

I can figure out how to send you a patch set via email (see my Linux kernel contributions), but if I can avoid doing that, sure as heck I will. Your project must be really important to me, or I have to get paid. As for the reason, it's simple: the process of submitting patches sucks. I wrote about it: https://dcz_self.gitlab.io/posts/git-botch-email

Based on your first example of running git send-email without providing it any patch files or revision list, you appear to be making the assumption that someone doesn't bother reading the documentation before using the tool.

This would be like someone trying out make the first time and not realizing why it isn't working becaue they didn't realize they need literal tab characters in the make file for the rules to work. But if they don't read the documentation, there's no way they would know that.

The real problem is people trying to figure out how tools work by experimentation as opposed to reading documentation. If someone reads the documentation of git send-email and the project's contrib document contains the preferred settings for that utility, then submitting patches should not be an issue.

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#106

Post by u801e »

NoGravitas wrote: post #63
cybrox wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people can send me pull requests by email. Great, you already lost half of them.

Generally the ones I don't mind losing. If anyone can't figure out how to send a git pull request or patchset by email, I'm happy for them to email me with questions on how to, which I will answer as best I can.

Drew DeVault created this[1] to help people start using git send-email. I'm not sure if it works for the purpose of contributing to your project, but it may save you from having to explain the same thing repeatedly :)

[1] https://git-send-email.io/

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#107

Post by remram »

mhfs wrote: post #23
johnnypangs wrote: post #15

What are peoples opinions on gitlab? It wasn’t mentioned in this article, I’m wondering if it was a willful omission.

It's mentioned a couple of times in the article as well as in https://sfconservancy.org/GiveUpGitHub/

Why does that page exist and why is it linked from the article, given that https://giveupgithub.org also exists?

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#108

Post by ladberg »

masklinn wrote: post #94
brundolf wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's fair to frame this as specific to GitHub, or even as a thing to wring hands over. New devs - especially those coming from bootcamps (I say this without judgement) - mostly start with practical skills. Industry-standard ways to just get things done. That's how you get a job, that's how you get off the ground. This goes beyond source-control; languages/frameworks, tooling, etc. You enter the territor…

> New devs - especially those coming from bootcamps (I say this without judgement) - mostly start with practical skills. I wouldn't say that it's "especially those coming from bootcamps". Those coming from uni are no better IME.

Not sure I'd agree, every CS student at my school had to take a class where one of the projects was implementing a mini version of git from scratch. And even before that class there was at least one lecture dedicated to git in the intro class.

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#109

Post by dcz_self »

u801e wrote: post #105
dcz_self wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can figure out how to send you a patch set via email (see my Linux kernel contributions), but if I can avoid doing that, sure as heck I will. Your project must be really important to me, or I have to get paid. As for the reason, it's simple: the process of submitting patches sucks. I wrote about it: https://dcz_self.gitlab.io/posts/git-botch-email

Based on your first example of running git send-email without providing it any patch files or revision list, you appear to be making the assumption that someone doesn't bother reading the documentation before using the tool. This would be like someone trying out make the first time and not realizing why it isn't working becaue they didn't realize they need literal tab characters in the make file for the rules to work…

That's a valid observation of one of the reasons I won't use git-send-email.

I have limited mental resources, and given the choice between a tool where I have to spend half an hour before I can begin using it, and a tool which will guide me, I'll always choose the latter. After I'm done, I can even forget I ever used the latter tool! It's a boon for one-offs.

Keep reading, there's more criticism on other aspects of the tool.

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#110

Post by UglyToad »

Where does this end? You write a license that your GPL code can only be re-hosted on non-GitHub hosts? git still exists, if I'm unhappy with GitHub I can just add a new origin (sourcehut, gitea, gitlab, self-hosting, etc) and push there.

But I'm perfectly happy with GitHub and I'm fine if their ML thingy makes money off my code, I get free actions runners, a nice UI, pull-requests, etc, into the bargain, not bad.

Like knock yourself out working out if the "monkey selfie" Supreme Court case law applies to copilot or not, what jurisdictions it covers, etc. But I don't care, sorry, I'm not interested.

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