Think Twice Before Downgrading to a Free GitHub Account • Hacker News Board

Re: Think Twice Before Downgrading to a Free GitHub Account

#81

Post by karlding » Mon, Mar 25, 2019, 2:36 PM UTC

swish_bob wrote: post #66

sigi45 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not and it shouldn't. I do often rebase on my local branch but i will communicate a force push on master to the whole team and will disable protection temporarily. If thats the only reason, he should overthink his workflow.

People aren't talking about force pushing to master, they're talking about force pushing to another branch, but with master unprotected, and therefore, by accident, force pushing to master as well.

Isn't that situation only possible if config.push is set to matching? As far as I know, it's been set to simple by default since Git 2.0 [0].

[0] https://git-scm.com/docs/git-config#Documentation/git-config...

Re: Think Twice Before Downgrading to a Free GitHub Account

#82

Post by dustinmoris » Mon, Mar 25, 2019, 2:42 PM UTC

Tenhundfeld wrote: post #80

dustinmoris wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I admit that my rather sarcastic comment was a bit snarky. I am genuinely surprised though that people find this newsworthy. It's pretty obvious that if you're going to downgrade anything you'll lose something, no? I also find it very surprising that the OP was so astound that the lost triggers had to be re-configured if he was to upgrade again. Maybe it's just me, but this really felt pretty standard and extremely o…

Amazing. I expected you to double-down and reply aggressively defensive, but that was a sincere, thoughtful reply. Thank you. Maybe 2019 isn't so bad after all. ;) And I agree it's a fairly obvious risk if you stop and think about it, but it's not necessarily true that losing access to a feature, which is a reversible state, also permanently deletes all configuration data associated with that feature.

Your comment was direct, but fair, so it wasn't difficult to agree with you ;)

Regarding the branch protection feature, I can see it both ways, but I think overall I would have not expected them to be re-instantiated when upgrading to a higher tier again. Branches could have changed since then. I could have added more branches, deleted a branch which previously had the protection, then maybe created a new branch under the same name, etc.

Unless it's an immediate "I accidentally downgraded, revert all changes back again" action I think it's easier for GitHub to just let the user re-create what makes the most sense for them at the point of re-joining the higher tier. But like with most user features it's debatable...

Re: Think Twice Before Downgrading to a Free GitHub Account

#83

Post by gnicholas » Mon, Mar 25, 2019, 3:51 PM UTC

richardwhiuk wrote: post #8

ddtaylor wrote: post #7

Does this mean free accounts cannot have private repositories?

They can have private repos - it's just branch protection rules which are no go.

I think private repos are also limited to just a few (3, IIRC) contributors.

Re: Think Twice Before Downgrading to a Free GitHub Account

#84

Post by sli » Mon, Mar 25, 2019, 3:57 PM UTC

If your account is downgraded automatically, Github will extort you for access to your private repositories. You don't get the option to just set them to public and stay on the free tier, Github simply forces you to pay up to get them back or lose them permanently.

Found this out when my old student account lapsed after I left college. Luckily, they screwed up and unlocked my private repos when attempting to charge me (there was no credit card on my Github account and never was -- nice work, Github) and I was able to pull my private repos and move everything to Gitlab.

Zero regrets. Extortion is never acceptable, especially when it's policy.

Re: Think Twice Before Downgrading to a Free GitHub Account

#85

Post by woodrowbarlow » Mon, Mar 25, 2019, 4:06 PM UTC

Ristovski wrote: post #26

d2p wrote: post #18

I downgraded too, and noticed GitHub Pages stopped working (the content is still there, but they don't rebuild - although they did for a little while after downgrading). It is clearly marked as a Pro feature, I just hadn't considered that the free private repos would be more restricted. It's not a big deal to me, I'll probably just make the repos public.

This answers a question I had I guess. I thought with the new free-tier stuff like private repos - GH pages would still work :(

it does but only for public repos.

Re: Think Twice Before Downgrading to a Free GitHub Account

#86

Post by oliwarner » Mon, Mar 25, 2019, 4:07 PM UTC

sli wrote: post #84

If your account is downgraded automatically, Github will extort you for access to your private repositories. You don't get the option to just set them to public and stay on the free tier, Github simply forces you to pay up to get them back or lose them permanently. Found this out when my old student account lapsed after I left college. Luckily, they screwed up and unlocked my private repos when attempting to charge m…

I assume this is distant history.

Free accounts are now allowed unlimited numbers of private repos with limited collaboration.

But I would also not classify as removing access when you stop paying as extortion. You know when your account is paid up to. You would therefore know when you'd have featureful access to. It's not their fault you can't plan ahead is it?

Re: Think Twice Before Downgrading to a Free GitHub Account

#87

Post by woodrowbarlow » Mon, Mar 25, 2019, 4:14 PM UTC

mort96 wrote: post #69

d2p wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fairly common to do `git push --force` (or hopefully `--force-with-lease`) after operations like rebasing. This overwrites the remote history, so can easily lose work. Many people set some branches as protected, so they can't be force-pushed over accidentally.

Isn't it a pretty bad idea to have a workflow which involves --force? If it's to keep history tidy, why not just develop on a separate branch and do squash merges? I'll admit I haven't used git in extremely complex circumstances, but I've always viewed --force as something you do only if you really mess up, such as pushing secrets (and that should obviously be in addition to invalidating those keys and generating new…

the rebase strategy involves force-pushing to your topic branch and then ff-merging to master (or develop, or whatever). some people love it, some hate it, but force pushing is a necessary part of the strategy if the master branch has had new commits since you created your branch.

yes, force pushing can be dangerous, which is why (when you use the rebase strategy) you usually protect certain branches. force-pushing should only happen on your short-lived topic branches.

Re: Think Twice Before Downgrading to a Free GitHub Account

#88

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 25, 2019, 4:32 PM UTC

oliwarner wrote: post #86

sli wrote: post #84

If your account is downgraded automatically, Github will extort you for access to your private repositories. You don't get the option to just set them to public and stay on the free tier, Github simply forces you to pay up to get them back or lose them permanently. Found this out when my old student account lapsed after I left college. Luckily, they screwed up and unlocked my private repos when attempting to charge m…

I assume this is distant history. Free accounts are now allowed unlimited numbers of private repos with limited collaboration. But I would also not classify as removing access when you stop paying as extortion. You know when your account is paid up to. You would therefore know when you'd have featureful access to. It's not their fault you can't plan ahead is it?

[deleted]

Re: Think Twice Before Downgrading to a Free GitHub Account

#89

Post by zrobotics » Mon, Mar 25, 2019, 4:40 PM UTC

sli wrote: post #84

If your account is downgraded automatically, Github will extort you for access to your private repositories. You don't get the option to just set them to public and stay on the free tier, Github simply forces you to pay up to get them back or lose them permanently. Found this out when my old student account lapsed after I left college. Luckily, they screwed up and unlocked my private repos when attempting to charge m…

So if I don't pay the cable bill and my internet gets shut off, can I reasonably say I am being extorted by the cable company? That's a little hyperbolic. Plus, this isn't even how GH operates anymore, since they now offer free private repos.

Re: Think Twice Before Downgrading to a Free GitHub Account

#90

Post by kevin_b_er » Mon, Mar 25, 2019, 4:47 PM UTC

oliwarner wrote: post #86

sli wrote: post #84

If your account is downgraded automatically, Github will extort you for access to your private repositories. You don't get the option to just set them to public and stay on the free tier, Github simply forces you to pay up to get them back or lose them permanently. Found this out when my old student account lapsed after I left college. Luckily, they screwed up and unlocked my private repos when attempting to charge m…

I assume this is distant history. Free accounts are now allowed unlimited numbers of private repos with limited collaboration. But I would also not classify as removing access when you stop paying as extortion. You know when your account is paid up to. You would therefore know when you'd have featureful access to. It's not their fault you can't plan ahead is it?

It was a student account. It was not "paid up to" because it was a student account.