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

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

#111
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So you're suggesting GitHub should determine the total "average" license of a private repo and determine if your fork is indeed valid or not, before revoking access. No, I'm not suggesting that. In fact, I didn't say anything about what GitHub should or shouldn't do. My comment related to how licenses work, not how GitHub works or should work. In particular, I was responding to this comment: > It's not your code or…

You mentioned in another post that the company only released a cleaned up version publicly. That cleaned up code which they published is clearly and unambiguously under the MIT license. Any other modifications that were made and not published (including any you made in your fork as an employee) are not automatically licensed as MIT. Your employer holds the copyright to that. They might be fine with those internal cha…

If the private repo had the MIT license in it, then it was licensed with the MIT license, regardless of how widely or publicly the repo was distributed.

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

#112

This destroys the very basic idea of opensource. That the first developer on a project can hand off to someone else to take over the project, and have the project continue past their involvement. Now if the first developer deletes their account or repo everything dies.

This does not affect public repositories, so open source code should be fine.

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

#113
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It probably seems more reasonable to the people who own the repo.

I don't think the people who removed my access had any intention of deleting private repos. It's just somebody cleaning up ex-employee access from GitHub.

As a non employee, how would I access this repo?

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

#114

I completely understand your frustration. It's a dick move to delete your content without (at least) giving you a chance to archive that work. At the same time this situation points up an important issue: if you don't own/control the infrastructure where your data lives, you don't own that data. Full stop. If you host your data "in the cloud" (i.e., on someone else's servers ) then you don't own that data, or at leas…

> At the same time this situation points up an important issue: if you don't own/control the infrastructure where your data lives, you don't own that data. Full stop.

We've known about this for many years!! And yet we for many varied reasons choose to make use of services anyway!! That doesn't mean we shouldn't get to complain about those services and giving people shit for that is really weird!!

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

#115
post #95

GitHub also blocks their built-in fork UI functionality when the original repo's owner uses the site's "block" feature against you, which doesn't align with my expectations. Ironically, anyone affected by this poorly implemented blocking behavior (and thereby copying the full repo instead of forking) would be protected from this bug by the OP.

According to the documentation I remember reading, blocking someone would delete their forks of your repos (including public ones) back then. I believe this is no longer the case.

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

#116

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…

Maybe not on YouTube, but the gunTubers are having issues with YouTube changing their interpretation of the rules and instantly issuing 3 strikes against them for rule violations. And so, it'd be good to have a back catalog to upload to a different service to keep that older material available.

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

#118
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

A few weeks ago, youtube changed their swearword policy. A creator I follow basically had to delete half their channel or risk termination.

They're not banning channels based on swearwords (yet, anyway). They are demonetizing videos with swearing - in the first bit, if too much, maybe other rules, but nobody is getting banned from saying 'shit'.

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

#119

Never use the fork feature on private repos. Instead, clone the repo locally, create a fresh GitHub repo, and push your local clone manually to that. Doing so will protect you from this attack.

Does that limit submitting PRs to the original repo somehow?
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