Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mozilla Firefox – Official GitHub repo

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 481 posts

Re: Mozilla Firefox – Official GitHub repo

#241

Post by Aachen »

lpln3452 wrote: post #182
fhd2 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, most contributors who are deterred from contributing because they can't use GitHub aren't particularly valuable contributors. I'm sure there's exceptions, but I haven't seen any for non-trivial open source projects I've been involved in. I might even argue that it could be good to have a slightly higher bar to deter low quality one time contributors.

Contribution isn’t driven by a desire for rewards, but by goodwill. Friction only gets in the way. If the friction is worth it, fine - but what exactly is being lost by moving the repository to GitHub?

> what exactly is being lost by moving the repository to GitHub?

Alternatives to github

We lament Google's browser engine monopoly, but putting the vast majority of open source projects on github is just the expected course to take. I guess we'll repeat history once microsoft decides to set in the enshittification, maybe one day mobile OSes replace Windows and they're strapped for cash, who knows, but it's a centralised closed system owned by a corporation that absolutely adores FOSS

I don't mind any particular project (such as this one) being in Github and I can understand that Mozilla chooses the easy path, they've got bigger problems after all, but it's not like there are no concerns with everyone and everything moving to github

Re: Mozilla Firefox – Official GitHub repo

#242

Post by Double_a_92 »

bandrami wrote: post #12

Pretty cool that Linus Torvalds invented a completely distributed version control system and 20 years later we all use it to store our code in a single place.

How is it a single place if every dev has a full copy of the repository? Also unless it's some software that each user customizes and builds for themselves, you still need some kind of way to tell which is the official version.

Re: Mozilla Firefox – Official GitHub repo

#243

Post by pornel »

moontear wrote: post #11
mlenz wrote: post #2

Great to see, but I wonder what lead to the decision of creating a new org instead of using github.com/mozilla

Without knowing their reason, there are a few things tied to the org where multiple orgs make sense. If you do SSO for example you tie the org to a SSO provider, you can’t tie „just a few users“ to the SSO provider (afaik). The Firefox repo may have totally different authentication / users than the main Mozilla repo.

The GitHub SSO is annoying. I can't even view public issues if I'm logged in to GitHub, but haven't recently re-authenticated with SSO.

GitHub also has a lot of features and authentication scopes tied to the whole org, which is pretty risky for an org as large as Mozilla.

Re: Mozilla Firefox – Official GitHub repo

#244

Post by selectnull »

fsflover wrote: post #218
selectnull wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the Mozilla direction lately, the last thing they want is good data protection laws.

This is a huge exaggeration, borderline dishonest attack.

Time will tell. I would love to be wrong.

Re: Mozilla Firefox – Official GitHub repo

#245

Post by GuB-42 »

monegator wrote: post #204
jgraham wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, I can only comment from the perspective of a user; I haven't worked on the VCS infrastructure. The obvious generic challenges are availability and security: Firefox has contributors around the globe and if the VCS server goes down then it's hard to get work done (yes, you can work locally, but you can't land patches or ship fixes to users). Firefox is also a pretty high value target, and an attacker with acces…

why github and not codeberg? badwidth? $$$ from microsoft? (traffic, free training for copilot, ..)

I would say that using GitHub only for a public git repository is pretty good value.

It is free and robust, and there is not much bad Microsoft can do to you. Because it is standard git, there is no lockdown. If they make a decision you don't like, migrating is just a git clone. As for the "training copilot" part, it is public, it doesn't change anything that Microsoft hosts the project on their own servers, they can just get the source like anyone else, they probably already do.

Why not Codeberg? I don't know, maybe bandwidth, but if that's standard git, making a mirror on Codeberg should be trivial.

That's why git is awesome. The central repository is just a convention. Technically, there is no difference between the original and the clone. You don't even need to be online to collaborate, as long as you have a way to exchange files.

Re: Mozilla Firefox – Official GitHub repo

#246

Post by IshKebab »

matkv wrote: post #52
IshKebab wrote: post #25

Not for PRs or issues though which are arguably the biggest reasons to use GitHub. Still this is definitely an improvement.

So is this now just a mirror? I'm not sure what the point of moving to GitHub was then.

It's the primary repo rather than a mirror, but yeah I agree it they don't get most of the benefits. Moving issues and PRs is probably an enormous effort so I get why they aren't doing it all at once.

Re: Mozilla Firefox – Official GitHub repo

#247

Post by IshKebab »

mrweasel wrote: post #146
sph wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given how terrible GitHub search in files is, what I usually do is clone the repo and run ripgrep.

But Github is actually pretty good at searching for something across all files in a repo.

Not remotely as good as grep.app.

Re: Mozilla Firefox – Official GitHub repo

#248

Post by Miaourt »

Macha wrote: post #215
monegator wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why github and not codeberg? badwidth? $$$ from microsoft? (traffic, free training for copilot, ..)

I'm not sure codeberg has managed two 9s of uptime while I've been using it. Manageable when it's just a public mirror for occasional publishing of my small hobby projects, but I wouldn't recommend it for Firefox sized projects

Maybe if Mozilla gave one hundredth of their CEO's salary in donation to Codeberg they would be more than happy and able to scale to nine nine :p

Re: Mozilla Firefox – Official GitHub repo

#249

Post by stevekemp »

lpln3452 wrote: post #182
fhd2 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, most contributors who are deterred from contributing because they can't use GitHub aren't particularly valuable contributors. I'm sure there's exceptions, but I haven't seen any for non-trivial open source projects I've been involved in. I might even argue that it could be good to have a slightly higher bar to deter low quality one time contributors.

Contribution isn’t driven by a desire for rewards, but by goodwill. Friction only gets in the way. If the friction is worth it, fine - but what exactly is being lost by moving the repository to GitHub?

The number of emails I get "Your website is vulnerable to clickjacking attacks, PS. how much bounty have I earned?" suggests that there are many for whom a desire for literal rewards is their sole driver.

Not to mention the AI-generated security "issues" that are reported against curl, for example, suggests there can indeed be negative value for reports, and contributions.

Re: Mozilla Firefox – Official GitHub repo

#250

Post by [deleted] »

Aachen wrote: post #241
lpln3452 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contribution isn’t driven by a desire for rewards, but by goodwill. Friction only gets in the way. If the friction is worth it, fine - but what exactly is being lost by moving the repository to GitHub?

> what exactly is being lost by moving the repository to GitHub? Alternatives to github We lament Google's browser engine monopoly, but putting the vast majority of open source projects on github is just the expected course to take. I guess we'll repeat history once microsoft decides to set in the enshittification, maybe one day mobile OSes replace Windows and they're strapped for cash, who knows, but it's a centrali…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN