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CocoaPods downloads max out five GitHub server CPUs

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Re: CocoaPods downloads max out five GitHub server CPUs

#301

Post by acjohnson55 »

manyxcxi wrote: post #116
onli wrote: post #2

Note how perfect that response from mhagger is. A clear, honest sounding assurance of what Github wants to deliver. A perfectly comprehensible description of what is the problem, and where it is coming from. And then suggestion how to fix it the project actually can work on, plus mentioning changes to git itself that Github is trying to make that would help. It not only shows great work going on behind the scenes (an…

I was astonished at how selfish/myopic/whatever alloy's response was. To be blunt, you're abusing the shit out of SOMEONE ELSE'S product that you're not even paying for. Your first question shouldn't be to see what Github can do for you to make it so you don't have to make changes. You should be falling over yourself investigating all available avenues for reducing load. It's an incredibly entitled way to think about…

I'll caveat this with the fact that I'm a coworker of alloy's and orta's, so I'm admittedly biased to seeing them in a positive light.

But I think you may be reading his tone more negatively than necessary. What I see is him starting off by expressing gratitude and then switching voices to communicate very explicitly what the needs and desires of his stakeholders are. He's simply trying to reflect that as clearly as possible and discover the additional context. This was clearly effective, as you can see from the rest of the conversation that with all the information out there, everybody comes to a mutually acceptable consensus. Problem solved!

What we've ultimately got here is a free service built on a free service. CocoaPods has nothing but the time and effort of volunteers. GitHub has input of resources from the commercial side of their business. Both sides clearly want to preserve the utility of this end-to-end workflow in a more sustainable way.

"Falling over yourself" is a subjective amount of effort, but clearly CocoaPods has tried to minimize their impact on GitHub. As it turns out, the attempted optimization of shallow fetching backfired, but that's not from lack of regard for the resources they rely on. What was missing was exactly the context the Github employees provided.

Honestly, I think people are offended second-hand by a perceived lack of groveling on CocoaPods part, and to me, that's way overblown.

Re: CocoaPods downloads max out five GitHub server CPUs

#302

Post by braythwayt »

couchand wrote: post #269
braythwayt wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To be blunt, you're abusing the shit out of SOMEONE ELSE’S > product that you're not even paying for. I AFAIC, that makes every free user a customer. They may not be a paying customer, but it's GitHub’s choice to be in the free hosting business.

Just to clarify, GitHub hosts a very specific type of content: open source software development projects. They never offered to be a general purpose hosting provider. From @mhagger's measured and thoughtful reply: "We understand that part of the CocoaPods workflow is that its end users (i.e., not just the people contributing to CocoaPods/Specs) fetch regularly from GitHub..."

I know where you’re going with this, but GitHub deliberately blurs that line too. For example, I host both of my blogs on GitHub.

I guess I’m saying that I don’t see CocoaPods as being a “bad actor” so much as the extreme tail of a distribution.

Re: CocoaPods downloads max out five GitHub server CPUs

#303

Post by mikeash »

cyphar wrote: post #267
mikeash wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more like bringing a shopping cart onto a city bus, when the bus company said "bring all your stuff! we love it!" doing this for years with no problem, the bus driver says nothing, and then one day the bus driver says "hey, you've been causing a ton of problems with that shopping cart, you need to stop." Surprise seems entirely warranted.

I can't seem to find any posting by GitHub saying "yes! please use our free service as your git-based package manager's backend!" Advertising "host your code and assets with us" doesn't suddenly mean that it's justified to say "fuck it, GitHub can be our CDN".

Obvious in hindsight, but if you grew up from a little project to a big one, built so that your "users" are cloning your git repository, is it really clear that you've transitioned from "hosting source code" to "using it as a CDN" sometime along the way?

It's not like these guys thought, "Well, we really should use some dedicated high-end host for all our traffic, but we'll use GitHub because it's easier."

Re: CocoaPods downloads max out five GitHub server CPUs

#306

Post by nickpsecurity »

onli wrote: post #300
nickpsecurity wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Alloy specifically said they were blasting a free service's infrastructure for their own benefit. Told about the issues, the response was basically Alloy et al wanted to invest no time or money into a better situation. Even cited HR and funding benefits. That's selfish to the point that it could be a textbook example of an externality. Fortunately, like you said, things got agreeable by the end with Alloy tak…

> Told about the issues, the response was basically Alloy et al wanted to invest no time or money into a better situation. That's actually not true. https://github.com/CocoaPods/CocoaPods/issues/4989#issuecomm... is the answer we are talking about, aren't we? What alloy is doing there is: 1. Thanking mhagger for the response 2. Asking for additional explanations 3. He explains then why the project is taking the route…

"> Told about the issues, the response was basically Alloy et al wanted to invest no time or money into a better situation."

"That's actually not true."

"taking the route they took, the benefits for them... Yes, that mentions the time and money benefit, but so what – it's honest, and it is valid to limit expectations on what is possible now."

So, it was true. Then the dialog continued from there with Alloy paying attention to the situation. Alloy refused to do any signiciant work on their end for their maximal benefit in a disruptive situation from a free service. Even admitted they were using a service for something it's not designed for but didn't care about moving to a more appropriate one. Hence, my calling it selfish.

Eventually, others had invested their own time and energy into the problem enough to come up with some simple recommendations for Alloy that take very little effort on his part. Alloy summarized those and agreed to attempt them. Thread was closed before we could see where that went.

Given above, I stand by my claim that he was a selfish individual pushing his own liabilities onto others wherever possible. Even in how it was remedied was mostly on others. On other hand, he might make a good capitalist w/ that level of exploitation and externalizing. :)

Re: CocoaPods downloads max out five GitHub server CPUs

#307

Post by pyre »

lazylizard wrote: post #280
manyxcxi wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you really think that when people say "I would never hire that person" that there is an implication of "everyone wants to be hired by me (and by extension my company)?" Nailed it. Just because someone, a team, or a company has hiring criteria doesn't mean they assume everyone wants to work at their company. It means they have an idea of who they are looking for.

nope. they also want everyone to know. its the difference between buying a packet of your favorite snacks and telling all your friends what your favorite snack is.. you probably expect them to like the same snack.

You're right. The obvious answer is to never communicate with other people... ever. Communication with other people implies that you are full of yourself and looking to show off to other people how awesome you are.

Re: CocoaPods downloads max out five GitHub server CPUs

#308

Post by [deleted] »

manyxcxi wrote: post #277
mintplant wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I certainly don't think the barb about your willingness to employ people who write things on Github issues threads that you disagree with is helping anyone understand any part of this situation. It seems to be one of HN's go-to insults. "Look at this person's behavior, I would never hire them," as if everyone wants to work at your startup.

I didn't say I disagree with his statement. I'm saying, maybe more implied, that I'm not going to hire someone who displays a lack of interest in finding a real solution to a real problem that has to do very much with what they're trying to build. And on top of that shows a serious streak of entitlement and a lack empathy towards the very service they're essentially abusing and not even paying for. I wonder how many…

[deleted]

Re: CocoaPods downloads max out five GitHub server CPUs

#309

Post by johnnyfaehell »

manyxcxi wrote: post #277
mintplant wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I certainly don't think the barb about your willingness to employ people who write things on Github issues threads that you disagree with is helping anyone understand any part of this situation. It seems to be one of HN's go-to insults. "Look at this person's behavior, I would never hire them," as if everyone wants to work at your startup.

I didn't say I disagree with his statement. I'm saying, maybe more implied, that I'm not going to hire someone who displays a lack of interest in finding a real solution to a real problem that has to do very much with what they're trying to build. And on top of that shows a serious streak of entitlement and a lack empathy towards the very service they're essentially abusing and not even paying for. I wonder how many…

I think it is a hyperbolic statement to say they're responsible for ruining people's days.

Let's think this through and ask ourselves a few question.

1. Did they go out there way to do damage? 2. Are they responsible for deciding the infrastructure and how well it can handle with load? 3. Did they force said people to work at GitHub? 4. Is the open source culture and hosting a major part of GitHub business plan? 5. Are they responsible for staffing to ensure people are scheduled to work when work needs some?

Re: CocoaPods downloads max out five GitHub server CPUs

#310

Post by onli »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #306
onli wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Told about the issues, the response was basically Alloy et al wanted to invest no time or money into a better situation. That's actually not true. https://github.com/CocoaPods/CocoaPods/issues/4989#issuecomm... is the answer we are talking about, aren't we? What alloy is doing there is: 1. Thanking mhagger for the response 2. Asking for additional explanations 3. He explains then why the project is taking the route…

"> Told about the issues, the response was basically Alloy et al wanted to invest no time or money into a better situation." "That's actually not true." "taking the route they took, the benefits for them... Yes, that mentions the time and money benefit, but so what – it's honest, and it is valid to limit expectations on what is possible now." So, it was true. Then the dialog continued from there with Alloy paying att…

Saw how you went from "no time and money" to "no significant work"? My point is that he signaled explicitly that he was willing to invest time and work. He literally writes so:

> I.e. I’d like us to continue this discussion, at first, from the notion of us maintaining the existing architecture. Where things are absolutely impossible, it would be great if you can include more links to docs/source that explain why things are impossible.

Notice the "at first", notice also the following proposed action of working with a snapshot.

You made clear you were expecting another reaction. And I see why. Still, I think you miss how much good faith was contained in this response. It is a bit sad this gets overlooked. People forget text is not that easy to interpret.

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