GitHub sounds very interesting !
How GitHub Conquered Google, Microsoft, and Everyone Else
81–90 of 90 posts
Re: How GitHub Conquered Google, Microsoft, and Everyone Else
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for mentioning GitLab this_user. I would be happy to answer any questions about GitLab.
Just a quick question: why are the git-annex and branch protection available only in EE SKU?
Branch protection is also available in the open source GitLab CE. We made git-annex an enterprise feature because it is one of the few things that came up more from larger organizations, smaller ones tend to use a shared Dropbox.
Re: How GitHub Conquered Google, Microsoft, and Everyone Else
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it actually a good business model, though? My understanding is GitHub is not profitable, and relies on VC funding to keep operating. At this point it seems like it will never be profitable unless they find some other significant source of income (as there's no reason to believe that there's hordes of companies out there just waiting to start paying GitHub for private repos). What's going to happen when the VC fund…
I think it's a hard business model that's for sure. Most people here think that Freemium works because you have Open Source developers who have 'day jobs' which means they'll be more likely to buy the private services. That's a bit of a stretch because it's mostly development managers who choose the development tools at any reasonable size company and they have a lot of other concerns. There's also a scaling issue in…
I general, I agree with you. But I am concerned about their long-term profitability. Assuming that what I've been told is correct and they are relying on VC funding to operate, what happens when it dries up? There are indeed revenue opportunities with large partners, but who knows if that will ever actually pan out? I'm also a little skeptical about their ability to work with a large partner. I was told recently by an employee at a large tech firm (please forgive my vagueness) that said tech firm looked into using GitHub internally. But GitHub Enterprise was not suitable (it doesn't scale), and GitHub was hostile to the idea of providing a solution that did scale. This technology company needed a solution like the one that github.com uses (since that obviously scales) except completely in-house (like GutHub Enterprise). And they probably would have paid a rather absurd amount of money for it. But GitHub said no.
I'm relating this story because it feels to me like GitHub's culture is such that they can't "play ball" with large companies that need custom solutions. Enterprise may be a fine product but it apparently is only suitable for small-to-medium businesses (I gather that it basically can only run on one server and so can't scale for a large deployment, though I haven't personally investigated the matter).
My fear is that, assuming they are relying on VC funding to operate, in 5 years they'll run out of money and start shopping around for some large company to acquire them.
Addendum: I really hope I'm wrong and that they are profitable. I want GitHub to stick around for a long time. Who knows, maybe they only took VC funding because they thought it was worth giving up a portion of the company in order to afford swanky new offices?
Re: How GitHub Conquered Google, Microsoft, and Everyone Else
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Never say never, but I don't see the git killer anywhere on the horizon. Look at how hard it was for git to beat out svn, and that was with the advantage of svn being built on an irredeemably broken repository design that no objective engineer could ever put on the same playing field with git, hg, etc. Nevertheless there was a definite period of flame wars where large groups clung to svn religiously until they were d…
You could be right... but I can remember when CVS was a huge improvement... and then when SVN was the bomb... sometimes it seems like the only thing that stays the same is the fact that everything changes.
Those were incremental improvements over a bad design. I recall that Linus specifically said that when he looked at CVS it was inferior to emailing tarballs and patches. Having worked with CVS for 3 years, and then SVN for 5 years before trying git, I am inclined to agree. Those systems were easy enough to start with, but I never felt that I grokked them even after years of use. Their quirks did not make logical sense, they were just implications of nonsensical internals.
It's possible that git also is fundamentally flawed in a way that some genius will reveal down the line, but I'm just sticking my neck out my neck like so many futurists before me and say that I don't see it as likely.
Re: How GitHub Conquered Google, Microsoft, and Everyone Else
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Never say never, but I don't see the git killer anywhere on the horizon. Look at how hard it was for git to beat out svn, and that was with the advantage of svn being built on an irredeemably broken repository design that no objective engineer could ever put on the same playing field with git, hg, etc. Nevertheless there was a definite period of flame wars where large groups clung to svn religiously until they were d…
> I actually think that whatever kills GitHub will not be the same thing that kills git. While GitHub has obviously spent enormous resources around hosting git repos there is nothing tying them to git as an SCM. If for some reason Mecurial or something brand new becomes the new hotness GitHub would be able to accommodate. Their business strength is around the community and users, who they seem to keep happy.
Let me also add explicitly that I think GitHub is more likely to be killed (or at least marginalized) than git.
Re: How GitHub Conquered Google, Microsoft, and Everyone Else
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just a quick question: why are the git-annex and branch protection available only in EE SKU?
Branch protection is also available in the open source GitLab CE. We made git-annex an enterprise feature because it is one of the few things that came up more from larger organizations, smaller ones tend to use a shared Dropbox.
Oops, sorry for confusion, I've meant to ask about the Rebase merge requests before merge feature, not branch protection.
Re: How GitHub Conquered Google, Microsoft, and Everyone Else
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Branch protection is also available in the open source GitLab CE. We made git-annex an enterprise feature because it is one of the few things that came up more from larger organizations, smaller ones tend to use a shared Dropbox.
Oops, sorry for confusion, I've meant to ask about the Rebase merge requests before merge feature, not branch protection.
We're pretty comfortable with rebase before merge being part of EE only. Someone suggested making an option to select the type of merge you want (ff, no-ff, log, rebase or squash). If someone would submit a good implementation of that and reference this comment we can open source everything. Edit: removed the work probably to make this a firm promise.
Re: How GitHub Conquered Google, Microsoft, and Everyone Else
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
That model of Bitbucket came up AFTER Github established itself.
True, and I also find it BETTER. It actually came when Atlassian bought out BitBucket[1]. I personally believe GitHub success is founded on git "winning" the DVCS wars, but I won't downplay the fact that they contributed to this. [1]: http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/29/atlassian-buys-mercurial-pr...
I think GitHub's role in the DVCS war is huge. Git got an early lead thanks to Linus Torvalds, but it was GitHub that let it ultimately steamroller Mercurial and the also-rans. GitHub was the war-winner because of Metcalfe's law - as soon as it had a 40% advantage in numbers, it had a two-fold advantage in value, and from there there was no going back from there.
Re: How GitHub Conquered Google, Microsoft, and Everyone Else
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just a quick question: why are the git-annex and branch protection available only in EE SKU?
Branch protection is also available in the open source GitLab CE. We made git-annex an enterprise feature because it is one of the few things that came up more from larger organizations, smaller ones tend to use a shared Dropbox.
Anecdote: I am an independent game developer who views git-annex as unproven, but who would also love to get away from Perforce. However, Perforce is free for up to 20 users, and right now my side project has one other person working on it - $400 for a year of GitLab is a non-starter.
More generally, I am curious how many of the "larger organizations" to which you refer in this context (clients interested in git-annex) are in the games industry, and how seriously interested your company is in trying to cater to that industry's needs? (Lots of game engines enjoy built-in first class support for Perforce due to how established it is in that vertical.)
Re: How GitHub Conquered Google, Microsoft, and Everyone Else
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
Branch protection is also available in the open source GitLab CE. We made git-annex an enterprise feature because it is one of the few things that came up more from larger organizations, smaller ones tend to use a shared Dropbox.
Anecdote: I am an independent game developer who views git-annex as unproven, but who would also love to get away from Perforce. However, Perforce is free for up to 20 users, and right now my side project has one other person working on it - $400 for a year of GitLab is a non-starter. More generally, I am curious how many of the "larger organizations" to which you refer in this context (clients interested in git-anne…
Some of the larger organizations interested in git-annex in GitLab are in the game industry but most are not.