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There's a lot of assumptions here about GitHub being greedy. I've got no idea how much money it costs GitHub to support Open Source projects, but it must easily

There's a lot of assumptions here about GitHub being greedy. I've got no idea how much money it costs GitHub to support Open Source projects, but it must easily be in the millions. I think that by this point GitHub deserves the benefit of the doubt before launching into vicious accusations.

neandrake 11y ago
There's still the issue where turning on LFS makes forks unusable - regardless of price/profit this still seems like a major issue. Based off all the author's descriptions it sounds more like GitHub are still in the process of figuring out how best to get LFS management in their largely-collaborative environment. I wouldn't be surprised if GitHub has upcoming changes to resolve some of these issues.
SwellJoe 11y ago
While I don't think github is deserving of "vicious accusations", I do believe it is foolish to assume that the github we know today will be the github of tomorrow. SourceForge.net was once an excellent and trustworthy steward of Open Source software projects. It was predicted by some folks in the free software community that it would not always be the case, and alternatives like Savannah were maintained in order to act as a hedge against that concern. I believe it is more than reasonable to assume that github will change, and it would be downright dangerous to assume that we can rely on a profit-motivated corporation (even one as cool as github currently is) to remain a trustworthy repository forever. So, sure, say nice things about github; I also think github is a good product, and I appreciate their free hosting for OSS projects. And, sure, you should use github if it provides value for you and you're willing to accept the price. But, don't ask me to trust they'll never change, because history indicates they will. It's probably also unfair to suggest that someone criticizing some valid concerns about github's current behavior, based on their own experience with Open Source projects hosted at github, are making "vicious accusations".
- pbiggar 11y ago
  Really? These aren't vicious? "My guess is that some high-level greedy marketing dickwad, completely unaware of the asinine implications of his brilliant idea, signed off on this dumb-as-a-bag-of-rocks pricing model." "All the marketing material pimping GitHub’s LFS support [...]. I do not believe this is unintentional." "This is completely batshit. The side effect of this pernicious, greedy pricing model is to [...]" "I honestly couldn’t believe that GitHub would be willing to do something that shortsighted, visibly motivated by greed from the cash they thought they could extract from some of their users"
  - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
    Nothing you wouldn't see in your average jwz rant, or really any rant.
  - SwellJoe 11y ago
    OK, those are maybe a little vicious, and probably not entirely fair. Still, the implication of not being able to fork a whole project from github if you use LFS is a pretty big deal.
    - pbiggar 11y ago
      GitHub has added features, and made their product better for their customers, but have not yet made it possible to use from everywhere on their platform. Perhaps that is a big deal (I don't use LFS and until recently neither did anyone else), but it's a far cry from what you said in your original comment, such as "I do believe it is foolish to assume that the github we know today will be the github of tomorrow." They implement a feature in a restricted manner and all of a sudden they're evil?
      - SwellJoe 11y ago
        No, of course not. I have nowhere said github is evil. I've said it would be foolish to believe they never will be, because we have seen on a number of occasions that good companies turn bad (with varying definitions of "good" and "bad") when given sufficient monetary motivation to do so. SourceForge is the best past analog for github, and I think it's worth learning from history. SF.net didn't start out evil and untrustworthy; they started out good. Who's to say github won't do the same?
joesmo 11y ago
Considering what they get in return for hosting all those free OSS projects, I'd say they're more than breaking even, so let's not pretend like they're doing anyone a favor here. Github would simply not be nearly as big if it wasn't the de facto storage option for most OSS projects. All these OSS projects are their marketing. My point is that they're not hosting OSS projects out of the goodness of their heart or out of service to some community. That's the core of their business. Their greediness is, of course, debatable.
deleted 11y ago
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neandrake 11y ago

There's still the issue where turning on LFS makes forks unusable - regardless of price/profit this still seems like a major issue. Based off all the author's descriptions it sounds more like GitHub are still in the process of figuring out how best to get LFS management in their largely-collaborative environment. I wouldn't be surprised if GitHub has upcoming changes to resolve some of these issues.

SwellJoe 11y ago

While I don't think github is deserving of "vicious accusations", I do believe it is foolish to assume that the github we know today will be the github of tomorrow. SourceForge.net was once an excellent and trustworthy steward of Open Source software projects. It was predicted by some folks in the free software community that it would not always be the case, and alternatives like Savannah were maintained in order to act as a hedge against that concern. I believe it is more than reasonable to assume that github will change, and it would be downright dangerous to assume that we can rely on a profit-motivated corporation (even one as cool as github currently is) to remain a trustworthy repository forever. So, sure, say nice things about github; I also think github is a good product, and I appreciate their free hosting for OSS projects. And, sure, you should use github if it provides value for you and you're willing to accept the price. But, don't ask me to trust they'll never change, because history indicates they will. It's probably also unfair to suggest that someone criticizing some valid concerns about github's current behavior, based on their own experience with Open Source projects hosted at github, are making "vicious accusations".

pbiggar 11y ago
Really? These aren't vicious? "My guess is that some high-level greedy marketing dickwad, completely unaware of the asinine implications of his brilliant idea, signed off on this dumb-as-a-bag-of-rocks pricing model." "All the marketing material pimping GitHub’s LFS support [...]. I do not believe this is unintentional." "This is completely batshit. The side effect of this pernicious, greedy pricing model is to [...]" "I honestly couldn’t believe that GitHub would be willing to do something that shortsighted, visibly motivated by greed from the cash they thought they could extract from some of their users"
- vezzy-fnord 11y ago
  Nothing you wouldn't see in your average jwz rant, or really any rant.
- SwellJoe 11y ago
  OK, those are maybe a little vicious, and probably not entirely fair. Still, the implication of not being able to fork a whole project from github if you use LFS is a pretty big deal.
  - pbiggar 11y ago
    GitHub has added features, and made their product better for their customers, but have not yet made it possible to use from everywhere on their platform. Perhaps that is a big deal (I don't use LFS and until recently neither did anyone else), but it's a far cry from what you said in your original comment, such as "I do believe it is foolish to assume that the github we know today will be the github of tomorrow." They implement a feature in a restricted manner and all of a sudden they're evil?
    - SwellJoe 11y ago
      No, of course not. I have nowhere said github is evil. I've said it would be foolish to believe they never will be, because we have seen on a number of occasions that good companies turn bad (with varying definitions of "good" and "bad") when given sufficient monetary motivation to do so. SourceForge is the best past analog for github, and I think it's worth learning from history. SF.net didn't start out evil and untrustworthy; they started out good. Who's to say github won't do the same?

joesmo 11y ago

Considering what they get in return for hosting all those free OSS projects, I'd say they're more than breaking even, so let's not pretend like they're doing anyone a favor here. Github would simply not be nearly as big if it wasn't the de facto storage option for most OSS projects. All these OSS projects are their marketing. My point is that they're not hosting OSS projects out of the goodness of their heart or out of service to some community. That's the core of their business. Their greediness is, of course, debatable.

deleted 11y ago

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