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Give up GitHub: The time has come

sfconservancy.org

421–430 of 585 posts

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#421

> If it is, as you claim, permissible to train the model (and allow users to generate code based on that model) on any code whatsoever and not be bound by any licensing terms, why did you choose to only train Copilot's model on FOSS? For example, why are your Microsoft Windows and Office codebases not in your training set? This is my favorite question about Copilot ever.

I want to know what stuff you guys are putting in public GitHub FOSS repos that you don't want replicated in any way... I also want to know why people think their code is so special that no one else could have ever come up with it independently. Each and every opponent of Copilot is the best developer ever, I guess? That said, I don't understand the choice to use GPL for any reason, so maybe I'm not equipped to under…

of course that’s freedom. if you say to me “you can’t choose to share your code” you are quite literally taking away my freedom.

either code is owned by its licensors or it isn’t.

> I also want to know why people think their code is so special that no one else could have ever come up with it independently.

I’ve never heard anyone argue this in the real world, ever —and i’ve been involved in this space for years.

If someone doesn’t want our code, then they can go ahead and write their own from scratch. We’re certainly not stopping them.

many people do seem upset at us that we’re sharing code, tho. particularly that group who primarily make their fortunes from other people’s work.

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way is Windows “awful”? I can think of annoyances but awful? Come on.

You haven't had root admin on Windows since Windows 7. The telemetry makes this clear. Reboots and updates even more so. The UI lag and stealing of focus ("oh, you're typing a document... too bad, I want to launch a new Explorer window that will immediately steal focus") make it clear that the computer is in charge and will probably listen to your requests, but on the timeline it chooses.

FWIW I have work that's kind of bound to using Windows but I always run this on a fresh install and it is definitely helpful:

https://github.com/n1snt/Windows-Decrapifier

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#423

I find it very strange that the same HN crowd that loves open source and wouldn't touch anything proprietary with a 10 foot pole has so many reservations against moving off of GitHub. I am not generalizing here, just surprised. According to what I have seen in my short experience, HN should have ditched GitHub long since. Anyway... I have always been curious as to why the largest hosting for OSS isn't open source its…

As a strong Free Software supporter on HN that uses Github I'll take a shot. I use Github to publicly host my projects. I use github as I want them as public as possible and that is where all the people are.. I.E. it has the lowest friction for others. The tradeoff is a bit of extra work on yourself to make sure you keep the 'git' part of your repo the central thing. Use the hosting as extras appropriately, but don't…

Hosting your projects on Github is not an issue. The issue is hosting your projects only on Github, or depending on it for anything other than visibility.

I have my own gitea for private projects, but the open source one I host primarily on Gitlab. It's where I set up the CI, it's where I have pages, docs, etc. I do have a mirror on Github, but on the "Contributing" section from the README I make it clear where I prefer to receive PRs.

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what 0-clause BSD is. The Boost license is: Boost Software License - Version 1.0 - August 17th, 2003 Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person or organization obtaining a copy of the software and accompanying documentation covered by this license (the "Software") to use, reproduce, display, distribute, execute, and transmit the Software, and to prepare derivative works of the Software,…

0-clause BSD goes even further, and completely omits the attribution requirement: Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any purpose with or without fee is hereby granted. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPEC…

Ah, so boost is somewhere between zero and one clause BSD.

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's like any social network. It grows in value with how many people use it. Yes, you can host your own public git repo or even your own gitlab, but then there's a barrier of entry to contribute to your code, and it's a lot harder for others to discover it. disclosure: I work for github

> barrier of entry to contribute to your code What barrier, may I ask ? > it's a lot harder for others to discover it. The vast majority of stars I got was from a HN submission, not from organic discovery through GH search.

Familiarity with the UX and conventions on that platform. Almost everyone knows how to make a PR against a GitHub repo. But some random other code hosting site? It would be a lot less familiar, and people would have to spend time making an account and figuring out how to contribute.

Even low barriers of entry can cause a big drop in user engagement.

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#426
post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience has also been that Windows 11 is buggy (haven't been using it for a while because it can't even reliably connect to the internet). But also in my limited experience (just one install on a single machine in ~2020, used for a few months): Ubuntu is just as bad or even worse.

Your experience its quite limited and you probably need to know how to properly update ubuntu since most of the issues I've found with it (since I started using it ~12 years ago) are usually issues caused by lack of drivers (which gets solved in 15 minutes once you know where to click) once those are solved it is sturdy and you can keep it runing for several months without having to restart it or it becoming unusably…

This comment is funny to me because it was up to date and the particular issue wasn’t driver related: it was specifically that after not touching it at all for a couple months each subsequent time I logged in it would randomly lock up, took about 15min to boot.

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to know what stuff you guys are putting in public GitHub FOSS repos that you don't want replicated in any way... I also want to know why people think their code is so special that no one else could have ever come up with it independently. Each and every opponent of Copilot is the best developer ever, I guess? That said, I don't understand the choice to use GPL for any reason, so maybe I'm not equipped to under…

>I want to know what stuff you guys are putting in public GitHub FOSS repos that you don't want replicated in any way... Nobody has claimed that they want this. People just want derived work to adhere to the license they chose for their project. >I also want to know why people think their code is so special that no one else could have ever come up with it independently. Each and every opponent of Copilot is the best…

At one point does AI recreating patterns it has seen from reading source code count as a derived work? What if a human learns to code by reading only GPLed code, does all the code they write fall under GPL as a derived work now?

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#428

> If it is, as you claim, permissible to train the model (and allow users to generate code based on that model) on any code whatsoever and not be bound by any licensing terms, why did you choose to only train Copilot's model on FOSS? For example, why are your Microsoft Windows and Office codebases not in your training set? This is my favorite question about Copilot ever.

I want to know what stuff you guys are putting in public GitHub FOSS repos that you don't want replicated in any way... I also want to know why people think their code is so special that no one else could have ever come up with it independently. Each and every opponent of Copilot is the best developer ever, I guess? That said, I don't understand the choice to use GPL for any reason, so maybe I'm not equipped to under…

This is a very "american" definition of freedom, which is basically, just let me do what I want.

GPL uses a different definition of freedom, which I prefer. They look at consequences of restrictions / permissions, and their implication on freedom (not just for me, but for everyone). So some restrictions can lead to actually more freedom, while some permissions can actually decrease freedom.

This is similar to gun-control. While it reduces freedom for gun owners, it allows everyone to be more free of hanging out anywhere they want without being afraid of being shot. Similar arguments can be made for vaccine mandates.

So GPL restricts usage of software because in the long term it gives back power to users, which will be more free.

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#429
post #216
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a whole, you are absolutely correct. But 99% of your daily interactions with Git come down to a handful of commands. Hell, print out a cheat sheet and tape it to your desk for the first few months of using it and you will be more than fine.

Until you make the slightest mistake and your work area gets into a state not covered by the cheat sheet. But of course, the standard recommendation seems to be just to remove the work area and check it out again :p

I’ve used git for 15 years or so. I use the same 5 commands. I haven’t run into a situation like you describe where I lose everything.

Worst case scenario is that I lose a check in, but even that is rare as I can just copy over, start with a fresh clone, and reapply. I don’t think there’s a significant danger of messing up a project. And again, this is just basic developer capabilities and developers should be familiar with a vcs enough.

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