Tell HN: GitHub will delete your private repo if you lose access to the original

#1

Post by baobabKoodaa » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 7:56 PM UTC

I was surprised to see this in my email today:

> Your private repository baobabKoodaa/laaketutka-scripts (forked from futurice/how-to-get-healthy) has been deleted because you are no longer a collaborator on futurice/how-to-get-healthy.

That was an MIT-licensed open source project I worked on years ago. We published the source code for everyone to use, so I certainly did not expect to lose access to it just because someone at my previous company has been doing spring cleaning at GitHub! I had a 100% legal fork of the project, and now it's gone... why?

Turns out I don't even have a local copy of it anymore, so this actually caused me data loss. I'm fine with losing access to this particular codebase, I'm not using HN as customer support to regain access. I just wanted everyone to be aware that GitHub does this.

Re: Tell HN: GitHub will delete your private repo if you lose access to the original

#2

Post by Alex3917 » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 8:03 PM UTC

Thanks for the heads up, this is pretty nuts.

Re: Tell HN: GitHub will delete your private repo if you lose access to the original

#3

Post by mattl » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 8:07 PM UTC

Your fork wasn't public?

Re: Tell HN: GitHub will delete your private repo if you lose access to the original

#4

Post by baobabKoodaa » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 8:11 PM UTC

mattl wrote: post #3

Your fork wasn't public?

Correct.

Re: Tell HN: GitHub will delete your private repo if you lose access to the original

#5

Post by sbierwagen » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 8:40 PM UTC

Is futurice/how-to-get-healthy a public repo? It's not visible on https://github.com/orgs/futurice/repositories

If you fork a private repo and they remove you from the collaborators list, it's reasonable that your fork would be removed.

Re: Tell HN: GitHub will delete your private repo if you lose access to the original

#6

Post by csteinbe » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 8:43 PM UTC

This is documented at: https://docs.github.com/en/pull-requests/collaborating-with-...

Re: Tell HN: GitHub will delete your private repo if you lose access to the original

#7

Post by tux3 » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 8:45 PM UTC

I think this is under the assumption of "employee has a private fork of the company repo, then leaves, employee should not keep the fork"

So when "removed as a collaborator" which apparently includes the original being deleted, you lose access to the main repo and all forks, even yours. As if leaving a company.

Re: Tell HN: GitHub will delete your private repo if you lose access to the original

#8

Post by chrisfosterelli » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 8:54 PM UTC

tux3 wrote: post #7

I think this is under the assumption of "employee has a private fork of the company repo, then leaves, employee should not keep the fork" So when "removed as a collaborator" which apparently includes the original being deleted, you lose access to the main repo and all forks, even yours. As if leaving a company.

Yeah I understand how this is unfortunate but for 99% of cases this is what you want to happen when you remove someone's access to a private codebase.

It seems like this is an unusual use case that OP had an MIT-licensed open source project whose source only exists in a private repo.

Re: Tell HN: GitHub will delete your private repo if you lose access to the original

#9

Post by Dork1234 » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 8:55 PM UTC

Does it go into GitHub Desktop and remove it from your computer as well?

Re: Tell HN: GitHub will delete your private repo if you lose access to the original

#10

Post by amelius » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 9:04 PM UTC

Why a mail saying that something was deleted instead of a warning that something will be deleted??