31–40 of 74 posts
That way the social aspect is still there, regardless of if the repo is hosted ON github.com or a remote copy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Yo dawg I heard you like GitHub, so I put GitHub on GitHub so you can contribute to GitHub using GitHub.
>Microsoft open sourced Xamarin after acquisition and it was good for community. I don't think Microsoft's previous open sourcing of Xamarin is a good indicator and may lead us to misunderstand MS's strategy. To me, it would be very out of character for MS to open source Github. Yes, MS has released things like C# compiler (Rosalyn), Visual Studio Code (Javascript Electron app), and Xamarin to the open source communi…
> But, MS has not open sourced CodePlex, Visual Studio Team Foundation Server, Skype, Linkedin. [...] I see a difference between "programming tools" and "collaboration platforms" [...]
They've open source some of those "collaboration platforms". It's not a clear black & white situation, I don't think.
LinkedIn has a large open source footprint: http://linkedin.github.io/
More importantly, Azure has a ton of Open Source: https://azure.github.io/
A lot of what might possibly be considered "secret sauce" bits of the Azure stack are open source, and you could possibly cobble together your own mini-Azure if you needed too and for some reason it wasn't just cheaper to buy Windows Servers with Azure Stack out of the box or even to just use Azure's existing cloud.
The Azure Functions Host is the biggest example off the top of my head that a lot of people imagine would be closed source but is open source.
(Another example is I've used over the years for different reasons is Azure's "Kudu" website deployment engine.)
I don't know if there's a cut/dried point where Microsoft might currently be drawing the line between its closed source stuff and open source, but "programming tools" versus "collaboration platforms" doesn't seem to be it (even before getting into semantic arguments about the fuzzy boundary between such categories).
That said, there probably is no obvious strategic reason for Microsoft to open source GitHub at this point, and maybe all that money that was spent in the purchase are plenty more reasons not to.
But Xamarin is an interesting leading indicator, and if there is a person to put in charge of GitHub with any interest in exploring the possibility of at least open sourcing more of GitHub, even if never quite "all" of GitHub, it is probably Nat Friedman.
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…
>Microsoft open sourced Xamarin after acquisition and it was good for community. I don't think Microsoft's previous open sourcing of Xamarin is a good indicator and may lead us to misunderstand MS's strategy. To me, it would be very out of character for MS to open source Github. Yes, MS has released things like C# compiler (Rosalyn), Visual Studio Code (Javascript Electron app), and Xamarin to the open source communi…
Xamarin is an easy to use leading indicator because of Nat Friedman's involvement in both. Simply in choosing Nat Friedman as new CEO it is hard not to wonder if Microsoft at least has the intention to explore Open Source as an operating option for GitHub moving forward. > But, MS has not open sourced CodePlex, Visual Studio Team Foundation Server, Skype, Linkedin. [...] I see a difference between "programming tools"…
>More importantly, Azure has a ton of Open Source: https://azure.github.io/
Sure I get those examples of "bits and pieces" being open source. Likewise, Google open sources lots of things like Protobufs (BSD license), CityHash (MIT license), and Kubernetes (Apache license) -- but they don't open source their crown jewels of proprietary source code collaboration, the Google Cloud datacenter management stack, and of course, their latest iteration of PageRank. A lot of those Azure github repos I see are open source examples for client SDKs as opposed to building a full clone of Azure that's equivalent to RedHat's OpenStack.
Those limited examples didn't seem to be the spirit of Joel Handwell's wish. I think we can presume that he wants to download the entire Github source code, compile it, and self-host it like GitLab. I could definitely see MS open sourcing bits & pieces of Github but still not give away the entire stack.
To me, it looks like MS is taking Github in the direction of a hosted service for full Application Lifecycle Management. (For example, add more features to compete with Jira.) Github-Enterprise could possibly eventually overtake Microsoft's own Team Foundation Server as the preferred release management tool. It adds to MS portfolio of other cloud services like Office 365. Likewise, if we ask for MS to "please open source Microsoft Excel", it's probably not going to happen because it's not compatible with their strategy of selling Office 365 subscriptions.
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 really don't see the value in open sourcing GitHub when Gitlab exists if you are looking for a replacement incase MS decides to go full tyrant - unless if you believe GitHub enterprise is an amazing project. If GitHub wasn't built from the start for hosted deployments, it will probably be both expensive and a pain in the neck to run. GitLab probably has it's issues, but I won't be surprised if there are assumptions…