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Hello, GitHub

natfriedman.github.io

451–460 of 671 posts

Re: Hello, GitHub

#451
post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once bitten, twice shy. Moreover, although I agree Microsoft is making efforts to change [1], pro-Microsoft partisans make it clear much of this is due to the new CEO. What one CEO does, another can undo. GitHub's bus factor is now 1. I would much rather have seen them go public. They were losing money, but not, last I saw, at a rate that was absurd for building a SaaS business. Is there some reason to think they cou…

I think the biggest thing suggesting they couldn't have gotten into the black is the fact that they had been looking for a CEO for 10 months and still hadn't found someone. I'm not entirely sure why they couldn't find anyone, perhaps they were just being picky, but it certainly didn't look good.

Or it could be that the board has been looking to sell the company for that period and nobody wanted to come on to be the CEO for 20 minutes before being replaced by somebody from the acquirer. Hard to say.

Re: Hello, GitHub

#452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unmarked van You may think it’s unmarked, but if you know how to spot them they’re very easy to pick out.

If I was an intelligence agency, I would do the trivially obvious thing and only use "unmarked cars" when I didn't care about being spotted, and an actual nondescript vehicle the rest of the time.

What's the difference between an "unmarked car" and a "nondescript vehicle" ?

You think the CIA would do their clandestine work on cars labeled "CIA" ?

Re: Hello, GitHub

#453
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No sir, I do not. And I'd rather not have to.

I'm sometimes amazed at how afraid otherwise competent software dudes are of a bit of sysadministration.

You don't even have to self-host it now. You can host it on pretty much any cloud service.

Re: Hello, GitHub

#454
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think public code will still live on github, but I See FAANG 100% avoiding any private github repos from now on.

Bigger tech companies not only do not host important private source code on Github but won't even host on outsourced physical servers. Where I've worked (incl. well-known names), information that we wanted spread to the world could be hosted on trusted external systems (trust still mattered to keep it from being "edited"), but non-public info was always hosted inside a physical building that we owned watched 24/7 by…

Note that this doesn't preclude the possibility of an on-prem Enterprise Github setup.

Re: Hello, GitHub

#455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think public code will still live on github, but I See FAANG 100% avoiding any private github repos from now on.

FAANG, I've never seen this before! Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google?

I thought the N was Netscape, a major competitor to Microsoft (browser and server) and Google (browser)

Re: Hello, GitHub

#456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everything a corporation does is to further its own interests. This is a common misconception. It's a close cousin of the "increase shareholder value" school of thought, which has widely (and correctly) been called "the world's dumbest idea": https://www.google.com/search?q=the+world's+dumbest+idea We exist in a complex society. It is everybody's job to maintain that society. We do that through things like voting a…

If Microsoft's goal is to become a better corporate citizen, isn't anything they do to progress on that goal "furthering their own interests"?

There's a difference between putting on a mask of citizenship because it's profitable and actually caring about the world beyond the size of one's wallet. Confusing the two requires confusing the meaning of "their own interests".

Re: Hello, GitHub

#457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because people with closed source, the paying customers, now have to trust their potential biggest competitor with their source code ‽

Are you suggesting MSFT is going to _steal people's code_ from private github repositories? This strikes me as a bit fantastical. What software hosting platform is not also itself a software company? Atlassian, Gitlab...?

Not steal source code, but platform companies have been known to use their insight into platform user metrics as a source of competitive intelligence metrics. Knowing which private repos are large and active is valuable info.

Re: Hello, GitHub

#458
post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I was an intelligence agency, I would do the trivially obvious thing and only use "unmarked cars" when I didn't care about being spotted, and an actual nondescript vehicle the rest of the time.

What's the difference between an "unmarked car" and a "nondescript vehicle" ? You think the CIA would do their clandestine work on cars labeled "CIA" ?

> What's the difference between an "unmarked car" and a "nondescript vehicle" ?

Unmarked police cars often have multiple radio antennae, flexible lights, and even government plates, they simply lack explicit police markings and light bars.

Re: Hello, GitHub

#459
Microsoft destroyed Skype something I used for ten years but don’t anymore. I.e. I forgot my password and mistakenly chose a fake birthday in my first attempt to reset my ten year old Skype account. Well doing that triggered authenticate your age by giving us your credit card number... what? Horrible consumer UX it’s all about milking Skype for all it’s worth and was worth. Facebook voice messenger works just as well and no credit card needed.

Re: Hello, GitHub

#460
post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.linuxfoundation.org/membership/members/ Microsoft has had a vested interest in Git and Open-Source for a while now.

Is the Open Invention Network still a thing? MS still hasn't joined, and is still using patents as a weapon, apparently. https://www.infoworld.com/article/3042699/open-source-tools/...

Doesn't the OIN secretly sell some of its patents to non-members and non-licensees? Sounds very strategic for the companies involved and this can lead to some serious consequences for any company who is targeted by an OIN patent.
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