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New tools for open source maintainers

blog.github.com

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Re: New tools for open source maintainers

#11

Post by Gaelan »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #3

Minimized comments (hot take): A fancy new feature for AMP developers to ignore serious security and openness concerns about AMP. Namespace retirement: Agreed with Nullability, just disable username reuse, it causes a lot more oddities than just cloning projects from unknown sources, old comments link to incorrect users and the like, it's awful. Accidental PR protection: So this won't affect anyone, if I read it corr…

Maintainers were always able to delete comments. Minimization doesn’t do anything worse that what was already possible.

Re: New tools for open source maintainers

#12

Post by kazinator »

I get all this by not using github.

Minimized comments: I run the mailing list and can enable moderation at any time.

Retire namespace: I control the web server and so every aspect of the URL after the domain name.

Unwanted pull requests: no different from unwanted anything else.

Re: New tools for open source maintainers

#13

Post by codetrotter »

kazinator wrote: post #12

I get all this by not using github. Minimized comments: I run the mailing list and can enable moderation at any time. Retire namespace: I control the web server and so every aspect of the URL after the domain name. Unwanted pull requests: no different from unwanted anything else.

As someone that frequently makes small issue reports and occasional pull requests I am incredibly glad that people are using GitHub. As a contributor it makes things much simpler that all projects use one system instead of everyone inventing their own that works in different ways.

Furthermore GitHub is great for quickly looking over a project when trying to determine if it suits my needs and for getting an impression of how complete it is, how maintained it is and what the code is organized like.

I love GitHub, it is the single best thing that happened in software development for a long while.

GH is not perfect, but it is awesome nonetheless.

Re: New tools for open source maintainers

#14

Post by reificator »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #9
dfabulich wrote: post #7

The main thing I want to hide in minimized comments are "+1 fix this plz!" comments on bugs, comments that add nothing above and beyond a thumbs-up reaction. The "reasons" Github offers for minimizing comments are: Spam, Abuse, Off Topic, Outdated, and Resolved. "+1" isn't exactly any of those. (I guess they're kinda "Spam" but they're not unsolicited commercial messages.)

Maybe the missing feature here is that GitHub should "just" automatically minimize +1 comments. Or even better, delete them without sending a notification to maintainers/watchers, and automagically have the user who posted it add a thumbs up to the original issue. (Personally, I would consider them spam.)

I think they were valuable back when you couldn't react to a specific comment.

I also think they're still valuable when you have Github and another VCS host, where one mirrors the other automatically.

Re: New tools for open source maintainers

#15

Post by joshfriend »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #9
dfabulich wrote: post #7

The main thing I want to hide in minimized comments are "+1 fix this plz!" comments on bugs, comments that add nothing above and beyond a thumbs-up reaction. The "reasons" Github offers for minimizing comments are: Spam, Abuse, Off Topic, Outdated, and Resolved. "+1" isn't exactly any of those. (I guess they're kinda "Spam" but they're not unsolicited commercial messages.)

Maybe the missing feature here is that GitHub should "just" automatically minimize +1 comments. Or even better, delete them without sending a notification to maintainers/watchers, and automagically have the user who posted it add a thumbs up to the original issue. (Personally, I would consider them spam.)

> automagically have the user who posted it add a thumbs up to the original issue.

I was astonished that they didn't do this when they introduced the emoji reactions feature.

Re: New tools for open source maintainers

#16

Post by reificator »

codetrotter wrote: post #13
kazinator wrote: post #12

I get all this by not using github. Minimized comments: I run the mailing list and can enable moderation at any time. Retire namespace: I control the web server and so every aspect of the URL after the domain name. Unwanted pull requests: no different from unwanted anything else.

As someone that frequently makes small issue reports and occasional pull requests I am incredibly glad that people are using GitHub. As a contributor it makes things much simpler that all projects use one system instead of everyone inventing their own that works in different ways. Furthermore GitHub is great for quickly looking over a project when trying to determine if it suits my needs and for getting an impression…

Furthermore the serious concern with a VCS hosting monopoly is portability, but as long as Github uses git, portability is a non issue.

Cloned the repository? You can now declare yourself the canonical source for that repo instead of Github, host it from your own machine, and let others pull directly from you. Not that you'd usually want to do that, but it's available as an option if you do.

If Github closed down tomorrow, we'd lose a lot of code. If Github announced that in one year they were going to close down, then we'd only lose private repositories that no one bothered to clone.

There is the issue of, well, issues. And pull requests and wikis and all that.

But wikis are, as far as I know, just git repos themselves, so that's not too bad.

Issues and pull requests and all of that sort of data probably has to be pulled out through the API into some format that's hopefully useful in other places. Could easily lose a lot of work here if Github went poof.

Not that I think they will or that I want them to, just something that's important to consider when a service becomes a monopoly becomes critical infrastructure.

Re: New tools for open source maintainers

#17

Post by craftyguy »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #9
dfabulich wrote: post #7

The main thing I want to hide in minimized comments are "+1 fix this plz!" comments on bugs, comments that add nothing above and beyond a thumbs-up reaction. The "reasons" Github offers for minimizing comments are: Spam, Abuse, Off Topic, Outdated, and Resolved. "+1" isn't exactly any of those. (I guess they're kinda "Spam" but they're not unsolicited commercial messages.)

Maybe the missing feature here is that GitHub should "just" automatically minimize +1 comments. Or even better, delete them without sending a notification to maintainers/watchers, and automagically have the user who posted it add a thumbs up to the original issue. (Personally, I would consider them spam.)

> Or even better

Well then the user would learn nothing. A better solution would be to notify them that this is wrong, delete their comment, and then prevent them from commenting on github.com for a period of time (1 hour? or more?)

Re: New tools for open source maintainers

#18

Post by kazinator »

codetrotter wrote: post #13
kazinator wrote: post #12

I get all this by not using github. Minimized comments: I run the mailing list and can enable moderation at any time. Retire namespace: I control the web server and so every aspect of the URL after the domain name. Unwanted pull requests: no different from unwanted anything else.

As someone that frequently makes small issue reports and occasional pull requests I am incredibly glad that people are using GitHub. As a contributor it makes things much simpler that all projects use one system instead of everyone inventing their own that works in different ways. Furthermore GitHub is great for quickly looking over a project when trying to determine if it suits my needs and for getting an impression…

I didn't invent git, cgit or e-mail, all of which predate Github.

Github imposes a Terms of Service; I don't have to agree to any Terms of Service to use my own site. I am the Terms of Service.

There is all sorts of cruft in the ToS. Here is something I just spotted: "GitHub does not target our Service to children under 13, and we do not permit any Users under 13 on our Service." If a good programmer has produced a good patch, I want it, whether they are twelve or 92; and they are welcome to post it to a mailing list or send it to me directly. GH have to have this kind of rule because they can't 100% control what goes on their site, 24/7. (Really, if they were smart, they would make that 18.)

Another: If you believe that content on our website violates your copyright, please contact us in accordance with our Digital Millennium Copyright Act Policy. No spectre of DMCA hanging over my own site.

Abuse or excessively frequent requests to GitHub via the API may result in the temporary or permanent suspension of your account's access to the API. I can hammer my own server with as many requests as I want.

GitHub has the right to suspend or terminate your access to all or any part of the Website at any time, with or without cause, with or without notice, effective immediately. GitHub reserves the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason at any time. No comment required. Today, you have a bustling project; tomorrow it's gone.

Re: New tools for open source maintainers

#19

Post by fake-name »

kazinator wrote: post #12

I get all this by not using github. Minimized comments: I run the mailing list and can enable moderation at any time. Retire namespace: I control the web server and so every aspect of the URL after the domain name. Unwanted pull requests: no different from unwanted anything else.

Downside: Holy shit fuck mailing lists. They're terrible.

Major downside: You miss a huge percentage of possible contributors.

Re: New tools for open source maintainers

#20

Post by quiq »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #3

Minimized comments (hot take): A fancy new feature for AMP developers to ignore serious security and openness concerns about AMP. Namespace retirement: Agreed with Nullability, just disable username reuse, it causes a lot more oddities than just cloning projects from unknown sources, old comments link to incorrect users and the like, it's awful. Accidental PR protection: So this won't affect anyone, if I read it corr…

I'm really hoping they're only blocking PR's from non-collaborators if the PR description is empty. Requiring someone to be a collaborator on a repository to open a PR is a step backwards to me. It's really nice to notice a trivial fix like a typo when browsing the code, fix it in the integrated editor and hit PR right there. I could see having the option to disable PRs useful, but removing the functionality entirely
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