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Tell HN: GitHub will delete your private repo if you lose access to the original

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11–20 of 294 posts

Re: Tell HN: GitHub will delete your private repo if you lose access to the original

#11
post #7

I think this is under the assumption of "employee has a private fork of the company repo, then leaves, employee should not keep the fork" So when "removed as a collaborator" which apparently includes the original being deleted, you lose access to the main repo and all forks, even yours. As if leaving a company.

What's the point? You can always clone locally and push to a new repo without forking on GitHub. Repos will be unlinked and history will be intact.

Re: Tell HN: GitHub will delete your private repo if you lose access to the original

#12
post #6

This is documented at: https://docs.github.com/en/pull-requests/collaborating-with-...

“But the plans were on display…”

“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”

“That’s the display department.”

“With a flashlight.”

“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”

“So had the stairs.”

“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”

― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Re: Tell HN: GitHub will delete your private repo if you lose access to the original

#13
I have a number of git repos that the original developers deleted - because I sync’d them to a usb stick with gitea. I think that is how you have to do it - never entrust a service, especially a free one, with your only copy of anything you value.

If the YouTube algorithm nukes your account and all your videos, you should be ready to upload them to a new account. Same with anything else digital.

My current is standard is one copy in AWS S3 which is super reliable but too pricy for daily use, and one copy in Cloudflare R2 or Backblaze B2 which might or might not be reliable (time will tell) but is hella cheap for daily use.

Re: Tell HN: GitHub will delete your private repo if you lose access to the original

#14
post #6

This is documented at: https://docs.github.com/en/pull-requests/collaborating-with-...

That's why I usually don't use the official "fork" feature, but clone and push the repository manually instead. I would like to keep the fork network connection on Github, but I don't want to see my fork deleted because of an error, malice or simply lack of knowledge.

Re: Tell HN: GitHub will delete your private repo if you lose access to the original

#15
I have to assume that the original repository was private when you forked it. If it was public, and then made private, then this should not happen.

If the original code was "open source", then why exactly was it in a private repository? Putting "MIT licensed open source" into a private repository is not publishing that source code for the world to use.

It sounds like nothing weird happened here other than this company thinking a private repository was "publishing it as open source".

Re: Tell HN: GitHub will delete your private repo if you lose access to the original

#17
Pretty bizarre behaviour given how easy it is to get around this. Instead of forking, just

git remote set-url origin

The new remote can even still be on GitHub. So what’s the point? Anyone relying on this to retroactively remove access to source code has a false sense of security.

Re: Tell HN: GitHub will delete your private repo if you lose access to the original

#18

I have a number of git repos that the original developers deleted - because I sync’d them to a usb stick with gitea. I think that is how you have to do it - never entrust a service, especially a free one, with your only copy of anything you value. If the YouTube algorithm nukes your account and all your videos, you should be ready to upload them to a new account. Same with anything else digital. My current is standar…

> If the YouTube algorithm nukes your account and all your videos, you should be ready to upload them to a new account. Same with anything else digital.

Do you know if this is a common occurrence?

Also, I'm only a YouTube viewer and am not familiar with all the creator tools, problems, communities, etc. But would a creator really re-upload all their back-catalog if deleted? Just to try to get back to views and things?

Re: Tell HN: GitHub will delete your private repo if you lose access to the original

#19
post #6

This is documented at: https://docs.github.com/en/pull-requests/collaborating-with-...

That's why I usually don't use the official "fork" feature, but clone and push the repository manually instead. I would like to keep the fork network connection on Github, but I don't want to see my fork deleted because of an error, malice or simply lack of knowledge.

It will only be deleted if the repo you fork from is a private repository. The documentation [1] covers the other scenarios, in all of which you keep your copy of the code (including when the public repository is made private later).

[1] https://docs.github.com/en/pull-requests/collaborating-with-...

Re: Tell HN: GitHub will delete your private repo if you lose access to the original

#20

I have to assume that the original repository was private when you forked it. If it was public, and then made private, then this should not happen. If the original code was "open source", then why exactly was it in a private repository? Putting "MIT licensed open source" into a private repository is not publishing that source code for the world to use. It sounds like nothing weird happened here other than this compan…

It would have had to be privately forked. If you change your repository from public to private, GitHub detaches the forks and leaves them public, so a repo owner can't just delete someone's public fork.
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