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Dear-GitHub: Host Github by itself as an open source project

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Re: Dear-GitHub: Host Github by itself as an open source project

#21

Post by tbrock »

derefr wrote: post #12
tbrock wrote: post #3

Why? It’s free for open source, reasonable for enterprise and private use and I think you could build a better one starting from scratch. GitHub’s success is largely due to the network effect and it’s entrenched status as the canonical code repository. Besides libgit2, aka “the secret sauce”, is already open source. What are you waiting for?

> libgit2, aka “the secret sauce” I would describe GitHub's real "secret sauce" as the issue-tracking, wikis, project boards, and release management parts, that don't get represented in the repo itself. Which is to say, if you wanted to commoditize GitHub (which is basically what "open-sourcing your secret sauce" means), you'd have to create some sort of library that allowed you to treat a git repo + all those other…

I’m not sure. Almost every GitHub competitor does those things better: phabricator, gitlab, etc...

Re: Dear-GitHub: Host Github by itself as an open source project

#22

Post by TAForObvReasons »

whoisjuan wrote: post #9

GitLab is not open source though. They call their approach "open core" which imho is just a marketing gimmick to appear as an open source solution when in fact they are not fully open source.

This is not a fair criticism. There is a truly open source version under an actual good-faith open source MIT license: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/blob/master/LICENSE

GitHub does not have anything remotely close to that.

Re: Dear-GitHub: Host Github by itself as an open source project

#23

Post by derefr »

tbrock wrote: post #21
derefr wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> libgit2, aka “the secret sauce” I would describe GitHub's real "secret sauce" as the issue-tracking, wikis, project boards, and release management parts, that don't get represented in the repo itself. Which is to say, if you wanted to commoditize GitHub (which is basically what "open-sourcing your secret sauce" means), you'd have to create some sort of library that allowed you to treat a git repo + all those other…

I’m not sure. Almost every GitHub competitor does those things better: phabricator, gitlab, etc...

Maybe "secret sauce" is the wrong term. People ended up choosing GitHub purely because of network effects, I think. But those features are the "lock-in" preventing individual projects from easily migrating away.

If Git repos just "had" wikis, issues, etc. inside them, the lock-in wouldn't be there, so people would be switching between Git hosts all the time—and there wouldn't really be much value in a "git host" at all, beyond what just having a Git dir on your own server, plus a native-GUI Git client supporting the wiki/issues/etc. features, would get you.

Re: Dear-GitHub: Host Github by itself as an open source project

#24

Post by whoisjuan »

TAForObvReasons wrote: post #22
whoisjuan wrote: post #9

GitLab is not open source though. They call their approach "open core" which imho is just a marketing gimmick to appear as an open source solution when in fact they are not fully open source.

This is not a fair criticism. There is a truly open source version under an actual good-faith open source MIT license: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/blob/master/LICENSE GitHub does not have anything remotely close to that.

Good point. I'm not criticizing. I'm a very happy GitLab customer and love what they do. But just wanted to point out that they don't call themselves "Open Source" and their business model is not necessarily an open source first kind of business.

Re: Dear-GitHub: Host Github by itself as an open source project

#25

Post by TAForObvReasons »

mehrdadn wrote: post #14
tbrock wrote: post #3

Why? It’s free for open source, reasonable for enterprise and private use and I think you could build a better one starting from scratch. GitHub’s success is largely due to the network effect and it’s entrenched status as the canonical code repository. Besides libgit2, aka “the secret sauce”, is already open source. What are you waiting for?

Exactly. I wonder how people would react to if Microsoft made the GitHub source public (and available for further extension by the community) but didn't grant the license to redistribute/deploy it anywhere else. Would people be content with that, or would they be grabbing more pitchforks and protesting Microsoft's actions as some kind of toxic evil? I'm skeptical that that would make people happy, and if it doesn't,…

> It's to let themselves move off GitHub.

It's more than that. GitLab raised the bar here. Being able to run GitLab CE internally has de-risked the decision to test internally. For the next wave of customers in the space, familiarity with GitHub open source isn't enough.

Re: Dear-GitHub: Host Github by itself as an open source project

#26

Post by whoisjuan »

eropple wrote: post #13
whoisjuan wrote: post #9

GitLab is not open source though. They call their approach "open core" which imho is just a marketing gimmick to appear as an open source solution when in fact they are not fully open source.

I am not a big fan of GitLab-the-company. But GitLab CE is licensed as MIT. You can do with it what you wilt. I have a hunch that your actual complaint is that they too do with it what they wilt, and what they wilt is not "give to you everything they add on top of GitLab for free and forever".

Yes. That's what I meant, but also I don't think that's a bad thing. Building software is hard and expensive. I think is valid to only open source certain parts of your system and reserve the right to monetize other parts and features.

Re: Dear-GitHub: Host Github by itself as an open source project

#27

Post by tbrock »

derefr wrote: post #23
tbrock wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure. Almost every GitHub competitor does those things better: phabricator, gitlab, etc...

Maybe "secret sauce" is the wrong term. People ended up choosing GitHub purely because of network effects, I think. But those features are the "lock-in" preventing individual projects from easily migrating away. If Git repos just "had" wikis, issues, etc. inside them, the lock-in wouldn't be there, so people would be switching between Git hosts all the time—and there wouldn't really be much value in a "git host" at a…

Yeah good point. That’s definitely true.

I think though that 99%+ repos or there have zero issues, pull requests etc.

Re: Dear-GitHub: Host Github by itself as an open source project

#28

Post by dcuthbertson »

derefr wrote: post #19
enturn wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fossil SCM has Integrated Bug Tracking, Wiki, and Technotes. It's not git but is distributed. It's used for sqlite project.

That's cool. I wonder why Git hasn't copied the implementation.

They are completely different. In fossil, commit history is sacred, where git users can rebase, and cherry pick to their hearts content

Re: Dear-GitHub: Host Github by itself as an open source project

#30

Post by derefr »

dcuthbertson wrote: post #28
derefr wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's cool. I wonder why Git hasn't copied the implementation.

They are completely different. In fossil, commit history is sacred, where git users can rebase, and cherry pick to their hearts content

I meant the implementation of these side-features as objects sitting in the repo, with appropriate client commands for creating and editing them, etc.

Git already has notes, and signed commits/signed tags, which are all those same kind of "objects that just happen to be there." So they don't need to copy Fossil's architecture; they can just copy the way that said object types interact as dependents of commits (while letting them get blown away when commits themselves do.)

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