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The black market in GitHub stars

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Re: The black market in GitHub stars

#2
I beg to differ on the concept that github became popular because it integrated social media features.

I would assert that github became popular because it offered free online git repo hosting.

The social media stuff was only long after the fact, and accelerated under M$ ownership.

An old adage was: Every s/w evolves until it becomes an email client

The modern version is: Every s/w evolves until it becomes facebook...

Companies look at what's "popular" and try to make their products into that.

This is a significant contributor to s/w failing to perform its "primary" function...

Re: The black market in GitHub stars

#3
post #2

I beg to differ on the concept that github became popular because it integrated social media features. I would assert that github became popular because it offered free online git repo hosting. The social media stuff was only long after the fact, and accelerated under M$ ownership. An old adage was: Every s/w evolves until it becomes an email client The modern version is: Every s/w evolves until it becomes facebook..…

> The modern version is: Every s/w evolves until it becomes facebook...

This is primarily due to the SV promotion-driven development culture - where Engineering managers don't do anything but performance reviews while offloading all tech work to tech leads. Then, they force every engineer to magically produce "impact" every 6 months or else...

It sounds great because surely "impact" must be getting produced every 6 months right? Except, all that has happened is that engineers and product managers are spending months figuring out crap (such as github social, badges etc.) or sometimes boosting some BS metrics. The other side effect is that the work culture has become toxic because every developer is pitted against each other.

The outcome? Enshittification of once beloved services. Because the stewards of said services are trapped in a cycle of perverse incentives.

Re: The black market in GitHub stars

#4
post #2

I beg to differ on the concept that github became popular because it integrated social media features. I would assert that github became popular because it offered free online git repo hosting. The social media stuff was only long after the fact, and accelerated under M$ ownership. An old adage was: Every s/w evolves until it becomes an email client The modern version is: Every s/w evolves until it becomes facebook..…

I agree GitHub is not popular because of its minimal and pointless social features. It became popular because Git is good and they nailed the cloud part of source control.

However, social was definitely there as part of the original pitch. The tagline was "social coding" for a long time.

But also if you're buying GitHub stars or worrying about people's contribution squares, you're probably not doing great work.

Re: The black market in GitHub stars

#8

it won't help, when given a github profile most people will go read your actual commits we do not give a darn about stars

A significant number of folks (especially non-professional developers) make a choice on which library/project to use based on the number of GitHub stars. For these people, the more number of stars, the more it means the 'package is good/useful'. You can argue it isn't the best/most effective way but it's quite common.

Re: The black market in GitHub stars

#9
post #2

I beg to differ on the concept that github became popular because it integrated social media features. I would assert that github became popular because it offered free online git repo hosting. The social media stuff was only long after the fact, and accelerated under M$ ownership. An old adage was: Every s/w evolves until it becomes an email client The modern version is: Every s/w evolves until it becomes facebook..…

The only reason I have my projects on Github and not on our self-hosted server, is because of the network effect of users having accounts that makes it easier for them to report bugs and contribute.

Re: The black market in GitHub stars

#10
Is this really a thing or just some local phenomena? I can't remember that the github profile played a role in any hiring committee i've been part of (western europe) as people understood that most of the experienced software developers aren't active open source contributors.
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