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GitHub has alternatives, but no replacement

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Re: GitHub has alternatives, but no replacement

#21

Post by tombert »

thataccount wrote: post #11

Github is not something that should be replaced. Rather, a different kind of model needs to exist. Before Git, there were things like Subversion, for instance. All of that slowed way down after Git showed up to the party because people liked the fact Git was "easier to use" and eventually networking effects. When Microsoft purchased Git, the death knell had all ready sounded, but nobody was listening.

How would subversion fix this problem exactly? It would still be a centralized forge that Microsoft could still control/ruin. In fact, more centralized than Git, which itself was designed to be decentralized (though admittedly most people don't use it that way).

Microsoft didn't purchase "Git", they purchased Github, the largest forge for Git. Git will continue to exist no matter what Microsoft does.

Also, I have absolutely no desire to ever, ever go back to SVN. When I was a junior engineer in my first software job, every Friday I would have to do The Merge, which would usually take most of the day because it would be spent solving all the merge conflicts. When I discovered the git-svn thing, it was like manna from heaven since it made a 4+ hour job take around ~45 minutes.

Re: GitHub has alternatives, but no replacement

#22

Post by FpUser »

t1234s wrote: post #14

If your a small company developing something closed source is there any reason to use GitHub over just setting up a git infrastructure on your private server?

This is what I do. If however I wanted to do some open source I would definitely copy releases to GitHub as well

Re: GitHub has alternatives, but no replacement

#23

Post by no_wizard »

hungryhobbit wrote: post #16

This guy is defining himself into a corner: >GitLab is capable, but it feels incredibly corporate, even more so than GitHub.3 Nor have I found it as good as GitHub at helping people stumble across projects and developers. So it's not enough for an alternative to do everything you want ... it ALSO has to look "not incredibly corporate", and it has to bring millions of users to your project. Otherwise it's not viable.

It’s really another way of saying: it needs to meet GitHub’s current utility and functions today.

And one of them is ease of discovery. GitHub make’s it really easy to do that. Same with contribution.

As far as looks go? That’s more subjective.

But the discovery and contributions piece is easy to prove, just look at how much traction a project gets when it’s hosted there versus elsewhere. Even really large projects that has many contributors have moved there like WebKit

Re: GitHub has alternatives, but no replacement

#24

Post by alerighi »

t1234s wrote: post #14

If your a small company developing something closed source is there any reason to use GitHub over just setting up a git infrastructure on your private server?

Only reason that I see is that is free to use, why other alternatives are either paid or you needs to be hosted (and thus you need to pay the cost of a server and the work to maintain it).

Re: GitHub has alternatives, but no replacement

#26

Post by hungryhobbit »

hungryhobbit wrote: post #19
t1234s wrote: post #14

If your a small company developing something closed source is there any reason to use GitHub over just setting up a git infrastructure on your private server?

Convenience.

To be a little less flippant, small companies don't have an IT department to setup and maintain a git server ... and more. GitHib is also an issue tracker. It's also a (minimal) static webhost. And it's also a way to run actions on your builds.

All that isn't trivial to setup or maintain, so small folks especially will often find it cheaper and faster to pay M$ for all that.

Re: GitHub has alternatives, but no replacement

#27

Post by manlymuppet »

I think people trying to move off GitHub are being over righteous.

There are far worse companies than GitHub. People acting like this company is the Nazi regime are being ridiculous. GitHub (like most of tech) is rather progressive, and trivial differences in perspective should not be taken so seriously.

Of course, you can choose whichever service you'd like, for whatever reason you'd like, but acting like allies that agree with you on almost everything are enemies is no way to make progress. This is something that should not be high on the list of priorities.

Re: GitHub has alternatives, but no replacement

#28

Post by tombert »

I hadn't ever used the email-based pull request until I started using Sourcehut, but ever since I did I've honestly grown to prefer it. People shouldn't require an account at a for-profit company to make contributions to FOSS.

Sourcehut is pretty niche but I like it a lot, and I don't really mind paying for things relative to the value they provide me.

Re: GitHub has alternatives, but no replacement

#29

Post by TruthRevealed »

tombert wrote: post #28

I hadn't ever used the email-based pull request until I started using Sourcehut, but ever since I did I've honestly grown to prefer it. People shouldn't require an account at a for-profit company to make contributions to FOSS. Sourcehut is pretty niche but I like it a lot, and I don't really mind paying for things relative to the value they provide me.

[flagged]

Re: GitHub has alternatives, but no replacement

#30

Post by dietr1ch »

hungryhobbit wrote: post #16

This guy is defining himself into a corner: >GitLab is capable, but it feels incredibly corporate, even more so than GitHub.3 Nor have I found it as good as GitHub at helping people stumble across projects and developers. So it's not enough for an alternative to do everything you want ... it ALSO has to look "not incredibly corporate", and it has to bring millions of users to your project. Otherwise it's not viable.

found the vanilla dvorak user (?)
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