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Do you foresee GitHub shutting down in the next 5 years? I certainly don't.

bachmeier 11y ago
That's not the only way there will be trouble. A more likely scenario is "We've been going over the numbers. To keep our costs down, we are making the following changes to our support of open source projects..." I'd be surprised if that didn't happen in some capacity in the next five years.
chippy 11y ago
Five years is a long time in tech. I think it's more likely that we will see same thing happen with Sourceforge and Google Code - a better thing comes along and people move to it. This is something which is seen over and over again. Its not that loved active services and sites get turned off, it's that the userbase moves somewhere else first.
afandian 11y ago
Did you foresee what happened to SourceForge?
- maaarghk 11y ago
  Well... maybe? SourceForge was always a really terrible experience for me, using it in say 2004/05. Loads of ads, interstitials and other general bad behaviour. It's not exactly surprising.
  - castell 11y ago
    SourceForge used to be okay though already looked a bit dated, back then. Slashdot and SF were owned by the same company. Though adding adware to binary downloads is downright incorrect and alarming. SF doesn't even host the binary files themselves, they just provide an interface for various open file mirrors like HEAnet. HEAnet and co should block SF and we would need an open community website that links to the mirrors to replace SF.
vortico 11y ago
Actually perhaps. If the current team continues to own and run it, it'll be around forever. But eventually they'll want to sell it, the team will change, and its goals will become more feature-oriented for the sake of grabbing more premium members. This will give it less value (due to the removal of simplicity) to the average user, so its userbase will gradually shrink until a few years later they pull the plug. It's happened to almost every web service more than a decade old.
- tcopeland 11y ago
  Remind me of this Slashdot comment about killing the goose that laid the golden eggs: http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=7754987&cid=50198935 http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=7754987&cid=5019893... Perhaps GitHub will be able to resist "change for change's sake".
mahmud 11y ago
How long have you been in the software industry? Github would be lucky to be half its current size in 5 years, if it's not entirely gone by then.
- coldcode 11y ago
  There has also been a fair amount of executive turnover lately. Plus it's not a great business which means as cash is spent some type of business change is inevitable which includes selling it and relinquishing control to some new owner which might have a different idea (see Oracle and Java).
pixl97 11y ago
I like your crystal ball. Maybe I should use it to gamble in the stock market. As for the rest of us, you can't possibly see or guess the future that will affect that business. Maybe they'll get sued out of existence by then? Maybe the owners will run it into the ground? We hope it will continue to exist, but we can't possibly know until then.
- piker 11y ago
  To be fair, if you use his crystal ball, it wouldn't really be "gambling", right?

That's not the only way there will be trouble. A more likely scenario is "We've been going over the numbers. To keep our costs down, we are making the following changes to our support of open source projects..." I'd be surprised if that didn't happen in some capacity in the next five years.

chippy 11y ago

Five years is a long time in tech. I think it's more likely that we will see same thing happen with Sourceforge and Google Code - a better thing comes along and people move to it. This is something which is seen over and over again. Its not that loved active services and sites get turned off, it's that the userbase moves somewhere else first.

afandian 11y ago

Did you foresee what happened to SourceForge?

maaarghk 11y ago
Well... maybe? SourceForge was always a really terrible experience for me, using it in say 2004/05. Loads of ads, interstitials and other general bad behaviour. It's not exactly surprising.
- castell 11y ago
  SourceForge used to be okay though already looked a bit dated, back then. Slashdot and SF were owned by the same company. Though adding adware to binary downloads is downright incorrect and alarming. SF doesn't even host the binary files themselves, they just provide an interface for various open file mirrors like HEAnet. HEAnet and co should block SF and we would need an open community website that links to the mirrors to replace SF.

vortico 11y ago

Actually perhaps. If the current team continues to own and run it, it'll be around forever. But eventually they'll want to sell it, the team will change, and its goals will become more feature-oriented for the sake of grabbing more premium members. This will give it less value (due to the removal of simplicity) to the average user, so its userbase will gradually shrink until a few years later they pull the plug. It's happened to almost every web service more than a decade old.

tcopeland 11y ago
Remind me of this Slashdot comment about killing the goose that laid the golden eggs: http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=7754987&cid=50198935 http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=7754987&cid=5019893... Perhaps GitHub will be able to resist "change for change's sake".

mahmud 11y ago

How long have you been in the software industry? Github would be lucky to be half its current size in 5 years, if it's not entirely gone by then.

coldcode 11y ago
There has also been a fair amount of executive turnover lately. Plus it's not a great business which means as cash is spent some type of business change is inevitable which includes selling it and relinquishing control to some new owner which might have a different idea (see Oracle and Java).

pixl97 11y ago

I like your crystal ball. Maybe I should use it to gamble in the stock market. As for the rest of us, you can't possibly see or guess the future that will affect that business. Maybe they'll get sued out of existence by then? Maybe the owners will run it into the ground? We hope it will continue to exist, but we can't possibly know until then.

piker 11y ago
To be fair, if you use his crystal ball, it wouldn't really be "gambling", right?