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Bidding farewell to Google Code

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Re: Bidding farewell to Google Code

#271

Post by bbcbasic »

jdmichal wrote: post #45
gtaylor wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They kind of get a bad rap for this because of how large and visible they are. The funny thing is that many of the people here on HN have worked on projects that had very finite lifetimes as well, often closing them down for some of the same reasons. Someone has to invest the time and money to keep services running, even if only limping along. Google likes to experiment and test the waters. It's part of why they've b…

I also find a certain level of humor in the oft-espoused "release and pivot" ideology, accompanied with the pleas for mercy found in these Google product shutdown threads. What is different? Why is Google not supposed to release and pivot like everyone else?

I think it is because of the side effect (can it be called an externalized cost?) to developers wanting to use existing open source code and not being able to find it. Google code is used by a lot of people.

Whereas an early start-up with 100 users selling a product with not much lock-in can pivot without too much side effect. The users know they are dealing with a start-up and may expect it.

Re: Bidding farewell to Google Code

#272

Post by rwallace »

comex wrote: post #171

Ugh. No, not that Google Code is shutting down, per se. The alternatives are better and for active projects there is plenty of time to migrate. What I object to is that the site will only be preserved in read-only mode for 5 months, despite its popularity and the resulting large number of deep links into it on the Web. Why not forever? git, hg, and I believe svn can all provide read-only access (with some bandwidth o…

I think, when people give you something of value for free, it's not okay to respond with "But you should have given me more!" If that's not obvious to you, think of it in game theory terms: you're basically responding to cooperation with defection.

The proper response to something like this shutting down is "It's a pity it has to end, but thank you for running the service all those years."

Re: Bidding farewell to Google Code

#273

Post by rwallace »

cdibona wrote: post #2

Hi everyone. I wanted to let you know (and I know this isn't a huge surprise) that we will be shutting down the Google Code project hosting system over the next year. Wired did a nice story about Github that touches on the shutdown: http://www.wired.com/2015/03/github-conquered-google-microso... I'll be hanging around answering questions, but the short form of 'why' is that it just isn't used much anymore, ourselves…

As someone who used Google Code a while back (and did indeed end up moving to Github): it's a pity it had to end, but thank you for hosting it while it lasted. In its day, it was a service of unequaled quality.

Re: Bidding farewell to Google Code

#274

Post by ocdtrekkie »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #263
enjo wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On what planet is shutting down a service, with months and months of notice, evil? I get it, we all hate Google on HN (for reasons unclear to me) but this is ridiculous. If these projects are truly important than donate some time and move them over yourself. To demand that google invest time and resources into the migration of these migrations or to keeping this running forever is just silly. Hell tools like https://…

In actuality, I've found most HN users seem to love Google. To the extent that almost any criticism of Google gets downvoted to death.

Case in point, this comment just dropped three points. ;)

Re: Bidding farewell to Google Code

#275

Post by sytse »

boundlessdreamz wrote: post #218
sytse wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No problem, it is not that obvious, any suggestions how to make it more findable without messing up the other options are welcome.

I think that's because you are promoting the Gitlab Enterprise edition. It is very easy to miss the third blurb which promotes the free repos. Compare this to bitbucket.org front page (Free private repos are upfront). Github.com frontpage is not as clear but they don't need to I think what Gitlab.com needs is a template like this - Free Private Repos - Host it on Gitlab.com - Need to host it on your servers? Get our…

Thanks for the great feedback!

I've changed the homepage according to your feedback in https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/commit/3a09175f...

https://about.gitlab.com/gitlab-com/ mentions that it runs the enterprise edition in the middle box

The pricing page is a hard one, we'll look into that.

Any idea how we can make the three blurbs on the homepage feel more like different products?

Re: Bidding farewell to Google Code

#276

Post by zmmmmm »

This makes me question: how important does Google see developers as being as part of their ecosystem?

I mean, I understand all the rational logic of what they are saying. Sure, there are other services etc etc, the world will keep turning. But doesn't Google see any kind of benefit from having developers using their service? In terms of mind share, having developers think positively about Google, having them regularly come to and work with a Google service? Even in purely commercial terms, it would be something that Google could leverage to expose developers to their cloud services and other platforms. Traditionally, staying close to developers in any way they can is something platform companies strive to do.

But it seems like Google doesn't see any value in any of that. So my basic question is, does Google still care about developers? Or have they simply moved on as a company?

Re: Bidding farewell to Google Code

#277

Post by sytse »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #227
sytse wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is mentioned there but pretty low on the page, "Sign up for our free GitLab.com service if you want to use GitLab without installing it.". What do you think?

Ah I saw that but didn't know what it meant. Personally I like boundlessdreamz's idea :)

Me too! I've incorporated some of his idea's in https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/commit/3a09175f...

Re: Bidding farewell to Google Code

#278

Post by oldmanjay »

jayvanguard wrote: post #264
enjo wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On what planet is shutting down a service, with months and months of notice, evil? I get it, we all hate Google on HN (for reasons unclear to me) but this is ridiculous. If these projects are truly important than donate some time and move them over yourself. To demand that google invest time and resources into the migration of these migrations or to keeping this running forever is just silly. Hell tools like https://…

> On what planet is shutting down a service, with months and months of notice, evil? The current planet? Open source projects have a lifetime of years so five months is not that long in the scheme of things. People put there code on there and participated (providing Google content that they were able to use and drive traffic) with the expectation that it would be there for the long term.

This is a rather watery definition of evil. It is fairly close to saying a restaurant is evil for not keeping a menu item you like.

Re: Bidding farewell to Google Code

#279

Post by jfoster »

rwallace wrote: post #272
comex wrote: post #171

Ugh. No, not that Google Code is shutting down, per se. The alternatives are better and for active projects there is plenty of time to migrate. What I object to is that the site will only be preserved in read-only mode for 5 months, despite its popularity and the resulting large number of deep links into it on the Web. Why not forever? git, hg, and I believe svn can all provide read-only access (with some bandwidth o…

I think, when people give you something of value for free, it's not okay to respond with "But you should have given me more!" If that's not obvious to you, think of it in game theory terms: you're basically responding to cooperation with defection. The proper response to something like this shutting down is "It's a pity it has to end, but thank you for running the service all those years."

Can you explain the game theory behind that? I would've expected that, in this case (where the worst case for a user is what will currently happen), responding with a request for more rather than cooperation is actually the rational behaviour.

Re: Bidding farewell to Google Code

#280

Post by hasenj »

sytse wrote: post #57

Hi Chris, GitLab CEO here. What do you think about mentioning Gitlab.com as an alternative for people to move to? It has unlimited (private) projects and unlimited collaborators. It is based the open source GitLab project.

Bitbucket also has free private repos
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