8 ms·

Wow, It took them 29 days to say "we hear you stay tuned"

by eibrahim 11y ago

drinchev 11y ago
Some other companies usually don't reply at all. E.g. Apple, Microsoft, etc.
- giancarlostoro 11y ago
  It's really sad though when you consider gitlab answered a while back.
- chris_wot 11y ago
  And have suffered for it in the past (though Apple, less so, it is true).
  - pluma 11y ago
    But Apple has a reputation of not saying anything outside of the big releases and for the most part didn't have to be responsive because the periodic hype usually drowned out any criticism. GitHub on the other hand largely owes its reputation to how it is perceived by open source communities. Their perceived value is based less on the quality of their product(s) and more on being the place all open source projects live (moreso than even SourceForge ever was -- even companies like Google and Microsoft have moved their open source projects to GitHub simply because that's where developers expect open source projects to live). Apple can get by largely on marketing and the perceived quality of their products. GitHub relies on open source projects, even if they don't make any money of them directly. Hosting open source projects is just an advertising expense. If the majority of noteworthy open source projects left GitHub (especially if they left to the same platform, e.g. GitLab.com or BitBucket) their reputation as "the place where open source projects live" would evaporate and they'd have to fight the same friction for new users as their competitors. Additionally they'd probably become less interesting for third-party integrations as they can no longer serve as a cheap showcase for those products/services. This would again harm their appeal to paid users.
    - chris_wot 11y ago
      Yup, agree with everything you say. You just said it better than I could have :-)
- bhouston 11y ago
  Apple responded to antennagate and other hardware issues pretty quickly actually. 2 weeks for Antennagate: http://www.pcworld.com/article/201297/apples_iphone_4_antenna_gate_timeline.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/201297/apples_iphone_4_antenn...
  - drinchev 11y ago
    Yep, i guess that was an exception https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Apple_Inc.#Quality_control_and_customer_service_issues https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Apple_Inc.#Qual...
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - rmc 11y ago
    That was only after Consumer Reports tested it and confirmed that it did actually have a problem.
- dmethvin 11y ago
  Aspiring to communicate with developers as well as Apple does is a perverse goal. Microsoft for example has a status page for their browser work [1] just like Google does for Chrome [2]. (The Microsoft page lets people vote for their favorite features, the Chrome one does it via stars on their tickets.) Something like either of those from Github would be great. [1] https://dev.windows.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/platform/status/ https://dev.windows.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/platform/status... [2] https://www.chromestatus.com/features https://www.chromestatus.com/features
  - nikanj 11y ago
    Submitting bug reports to Apple is about as fruitful as playing tennis with the pacific ocean.
    - masklinn 11y ago
      Dunno, the ocean can send back your tennis balls. They'll be went, they may take a long time and they may come back on a different beach altogether, but there's a chance. Radar issues? They just fall off the radar.
    - aledalgrande 11y ago
      ROTFL. I report only when they have really annoying bugs and still don't condone their way of hiding issues from other (paying) users inside a private system. They answer after weeks, if they do, and then they expect me to retest next day. Sorry, but that's not gonna work.
    - kuschku 11y ago
      At least better than on Android. Even goddamn String::split is directly, and reproducably, broken. WONTFIX.
  - brodock 11y ago
    GitLab implements Emoji Award (think of vote system with some emojis: https://about.gitlab.com/2015/11/22/gitlab-8-2-released/ https://about.gitlab.com/2015/11/22/gitlab-8-2-released/)
- us0r 11y ago
  Microsoft usually responds pretty fast with "wont fix"
  - Pxtl 11y ago
    Not true, sometimes they respond with "we'll look at it for the next major release in 2 years". I've seen that on a lot of 5-year-old items that are still broken.
    - striking 11y ago
      They finally added task bar on multiple screens, which was in the wings for a very long time.
- zanny 11y ago
  Gitlab responded to dear github within a week: https://about.gitlab.com/2016/01/15/making-gitlab-better-for-large-open-source-projects/ https://about.gitlab.com/2016/01/15/making-gitlab-better-for... Someone wants your business :p
  - sytse 11y ago
    For sure!
- ianceicys 11y ago
  Parts of Microsoft actually do respond and provide nice roadmaps. I am hoping Github will do something similiar. https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/bharry/2016/01/11/team-foundation-server-and-visual-studio-team-services-roadmap-update-2/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/bharry/2016/01/11/team-foun...
- jcoffland 11y ago
  You can add Google to that list but just because some other big companies do it does not make it right. Nor should we accept it.
- tomjen3 11y ago
  I will grant you that. At the same time, it is a horrible benchmark and it is even more deadly when you compare github, a company, among many, that offers hosting to a monopoly that you can't easily move away from.
forgottenpass 11y ago
Or, more cynically, it took them 6 days to find a way to respond to some of the problems raised by the Business Insider article on GitHub without addressing the article directly. "Dear GitHub" paints a picture of feature requests going unanswered. To a software developer userbase that isn't damning on it's own. We all understand the realities of software project priorities, and users can be accommodating to their timeline (and changing development platforms isn't a trivial task). But that accommodating attitude is severely damaged by learning the business doesn't care about serving that userbase anymore.
- chris_wot 11y ago
  Oh, do you have a link to that article?
  - detaro 11y ago
    "GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart — and we have the full inside story" http://www.businessinsider.com/github-the-full-inside-story-2016-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/github-the-full-inside-story-..., HN discussion was here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11049067 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11049067
- s_kilk 11y ago
  Exactly what I was thinking: The BI article lit a fire under their arse and this is a quick scramble rather than a long-considered response.
- res0nat0r 11y ago
  It's almost as if planning changes to ui and backend design used by millions of people on a daily basis just can't happen instantly...
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    It's almost as if it takes 29 days to say that you have read an open letter and respond that you will get back to them...
Touche 11y ago
Yeah, how dare you take your time to respond to non-paying customers.
- Perceptes 11y ago
  This seems like an unrealistic attitude. The free users running open source projects on GitHub are part of what made them so big and successful.
- joshmanders 11y ago
  Non-paying customers? I pay for a private repos on my account, and for repos on 3 orgs. That's $82/mo. Many others also pay for private repos. Hardly non-paying customers.
zyx321 11y ago
Maybe they were busy fighting such heinous evils as meritocracy and inappropriate language.
HelloNurse 11y ago
They could have acknowledged the problem quickly, but without an actual plan to implement something useful in a close time frame someone would have called the bluff. Insulting customers with empty, insincere declarations is worse than working in silence.
rmc 11y ago
Or, they got the original letter and only then decided to implement some changes. It could take 29 days to get management level approval for switching developement to issues, and to get an idea if all those issue changes are possible, before they are willing to publically announce it
- timv 11y ago
  That's certainly possible, but if so then it's a pretty sad indictment. If it takes 29 days just to get approval to say you're going to work on the problem, imagine how long it will take to actually get something done.
im3w1l 11y ago
I distinctly remember them responding to Dear Github previously, and pretty quickly.
tootie 11y ago
They were probably resisting the urge to say "We give you an awesome and extremely valuable product for free and all you fuckers do is complain."
- joshmanders 11y ago
  My credit card statement every month with 3 charges from GitHub totaling $82 is hardly free.

Wow, It took them 29 days to say "we hear you stay tuned"

drinchev 11y ago

Some other companies usually don't reply at all. E.g. Apple, Microsoft, etc.

giancarlostoro 11y ago
It's really sad though when you consider gitlab answered a while back.
chris_wot 11y ago
And have suffered for it in the past (though Apple, less so, it is true).
- pluma 11y ago
  But Apple has a reputation of not saying anything outside of the big releases and for the most part didn't have to be responsive because the periodic hype usually drowned out any criticism. GitHub on the other hand largely owes its reputation to how it is perceived by open source communities. Their perceived value is based less on the quality of their product(s) and more on being the place all open source projects live (moreso than even SourceForge ever was -- even companies like Google and Microsoft have moved their open source projects to GitHub simply because that's where developers expect open source projects to live). Apple can get by largely on marketing and the perceived quality of their products. GitHub relies on open source projects, even if they don't make any money of them directly. Hosting open source projects is just an advertising expense. If the majority of noteworthy open source projects left GitHub (especially if they left to the same platform, e.g. GitLab.com or BitBucket) their reputation as "the place where open source projects live" would evaporate and they'd have to fight the same friction for new users as their competitors. Additionally they'd probably become less interesting for third-party integrations as they can no longer serve as a cheap showcase for those products/services. This would again harm their appeal to paid users.
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    Yup, agree with everything you say. You just said it better than I could have :-)
bhouston 11y ago
Apple responded to antennagate and other hardware issues pretty quickly actually. 2 weeks for Antennagate: http://www.pcworld.com/article/201297/apples_iphone_4_antenna_gate_timeline.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/201297/apples_iphone_4_antenn...
- drinchev 11y ago
  Yep, i guess that was an exception https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Apple_Inc.#Quality_control_and_customer_service_issues https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Apple_Inc.#Qual...
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- rmc 11y ago
  That was only after Consumer Reports tested it and confirmed that it did actually have a problem.
dmethvin 11y ago
Aspiring to communicate with developers as well as Apple does is a perverse goal. Microsoft for example has a status page for their browser work [1] just like Google does for Chrome [2]. (The Microsoft page lets people vote for their favorite features, the Chrome one does it via stars on their tickets.) Something like either of those from Github would be great. [1] https://dev.windows.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/platform/status/ https://dev.windows.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/platform/status... [2] https://www.chromestatus.com/features https://www.chromestatus.com/features
- nikanj 11y ago
  Submitting bug reports to Apple is about as fruitful as playing tennis with the pacific ocean.
  - masklinn 11y ago
    Dunno, the ocean can send back your tennis balls. They'll be went, they may take a long time and they may come back on a different beach altogether, but there's a chance. Radar issues? They just fall off the radar.
  - aledalgrande 11y ago
    ROTFL. I report only when they have really annoying bugs and still don't condone their way of hiding issues from other (paying) users inside a private system. They answer after weeks, if they do, and then they expect me to retest next day. Sorry, but that's not gonna work.
  - kuschku 11y ago
    At least better than on Android. Even goddamn String::split is directly, and reproducably, broken. WONTFIX.
- brodock 11y ago
  GitLab implements Emoji Award (think of vote system with some emojis: https://about.gitlab.com/2015/11/22/gitlab-8-2-released/ https://about.gitlab.com/2015/11/22/gitlab-8-2-released/)
us0r 11y ago
Microsoft usually responds pretty fast with "wont fix"
- Pxtl 11y ago
  Not true, sometimes they respond with "we'll look at it for the next major release in 2 years". I've seen that on a lot of 5-year-old items that are still broken.
  - striking 11y ago
    They finally added task bar on multiple screens, which was in the wings for a very long time.
zanny 11y ago
Gitlab responded to dear github within a week: https://about.gitlab.com/2016/01/15/making-gitlab-better-for-large-open-source-projects/ https://about.gitlab.com/2016/01/15/making-gitlab-better-for... Someone wants your business :p
- sytse 11y ago
  For sure!
ianceicys 11y ago
Parts of Microsoft actually do respond and provide nice roadmaps. I am hoping Github will do something similiar. https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/bharry/2016/01/11/team-foundation-server-and-visual-studio-team-services-roadmap-update-2/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/bharry/2016/01/11/team-foun...
jcoffland 11y ago
You can add Google to that list but just because some other big companies do it does not make it right. Nor should we accept it.
tomjen3 11y ago
I will grant you that. At the same time, it is a horrible benchmark and it is even more deadly when you compare github, a company, among many, that offers hosting to a monopoly that you can't easily move away from.

forgottenpass 11y ago

Or, more cynically, it took them 6 days to find a way to respond to some of the problems raised by the Business Insider article on GitHub without addressing the article directly. "Dear GitHub" paints a picture of feature requests going unanswered. To a software developer userbase that isn't damning on it's own. We all understand the realities of software project priorities, and users can be accommodating to their timeline (and changing development platforms isn't a trivial task). But that accommodating attitude is severely damaged by learning the business doesn't care about serving that userbase anymore.

chris_wot 11y ago
Oh, do you have a link to that article?
- detaro 11y ago
  "GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart — and we have the full inside story" http://www.businessinsider.com/github-the-full-inside-story-2016-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/github-the-full-inside-story-..., HN discussion was here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11049067 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11049067
s_kilk 11y ago
Exactly what I was thinking: The BI article lit a fire under their arse and this is a quick scramble rather than a long-considered response.
res0nat0r 11y ago
It's almost as if planning changes to ui and backend design used by millions of people on a daily basis just can't happen instantly...
- chris_wot 11y ago
  It's almost as if it takes 29 days to say that you have read an open letter and respond that you will get back to them...

Touche 11y ago

Yeah, how dare you take your time to respond to non-paying customers.

Perceptes 11y ago
This seems like an unrealistic attitude. The free users running open source projects on GitHub are part of what made them so big and successful.
joshmanders 11y ago
Non-paying customers? I pay for a private repos on my account, and for repos on 3 orgs. That's $82/mo. Many others also pay for private repos. Hardly non-paying customers.

zyx321 11y ago

Maybe they were busy fighting such heinous evils as meritocracy and inappropriate language.

HelloNurse 11y ago

They could have acknowledged the problem quickly, but without an actual plan to implement something useful in a close time frame someone would have called the bluff. Insulting customers with empty, insincere declarations is worse than working in silence.

rmc 11y ago

Or, they got the original letter and only then decided to implement some changes. It could take 29 days to get management level approval for switching developement to issues, and to get an idea if all those issue changes are possible, before they are willing to publically announce it

timv 11y ago
That's certainly possible, but if so then it's a pretty sad indictment. If it takes 29 days just to get approval to say you're going to work on the problem, imagine how long it will take to actually get something done.

im3w1l 11y ago

I distinctly remember them responding to Dear Github previously, and pretty quickly.

tootie 11y ago

They were probably resisting the urge to say "We give you an awesome and extremely valuable product for free and all you fuckers do is complain."

joshmanders 11y ago
My credit card statement every month with 3 charges from GitHub totaling $82 is hardly free.