5 ms·

> you're abusing Cocoapods uses GitHub. No abuse here.

Wintamute 11y ago
You're quibbling semantics. Using a GitHub repo as a high traffic code CDN and keeping 5+ cores pegged while being the single biggest consumer of resources across the whole platform could be reasonably defined as an abuse of the service. Primary definitions on Google: "abuse" verb: use (something) to bad effect "abuse" noun: the improper use of something
- jethro_tell 11y ago
  Dabbling in the 'kind of customer we can afford to lose' territory.
  - jenscow 11y ago
    Not really. Imagine the backlash github would receive here.
    - mioelnir 11y ago
      As an ops person, I can tell you that I would probably upgrade my paid github account instead of cancel it if a project was thrown out that had the audacity to issue the statement that they don't care about the infrastructure they use for free so they can focus on the important things - namely developer funding.
    - jethro_tell 11y ago
      yeah, it's the kind of backlash that would cancel a couple other non paying projects and there would be half dozen discouraging blog posts but paying customers that aren't open source aren't going to leave because a free tier opensource customer was abusing a service.
    - manyxcxi 11y ago
      > Not really. Imagine the backlash github would receive I don't know... I'm sure they'd get some, CocoaPods has a very large user base after all. But if GitHub laid out the reasons like they laid out the options to start this thread, I think they'd weather the storm fine and diffuse some people who show up to be angry. I could see why GH would drop them and think they'd be well within their right and in good moral standing in my book. I just don't think they would unless the maintainers became incredibly hostile or proved unable to fix the problem or even band-aid it. GH just seems too culturally invested in making things like this work to a satisfactory conclusion. I have a feeling that the CocoaPods team will be schooled in a lot of things directly from the GitHub team as they work to resolve the performance issues, just look how informative the initial post was.
MBCook 11y ago
It's very clear GitHub was not designed to be used as some project's personal CDN for this kind of traffic. It's abuse. Wasn't intentional, but at the scale that Cocoapods is running it's abuse.
- odbol_ 11y ago
  > personal CDN Discounting the fact that CocoaPods is used by millions of iOS developers...
  - Lazare 11y ago
    Pretty sure that's the point. If it wasn't used by so many developers, it wouldn't be causing load issues. :)
    - mianos 11y ago
      It's not the developers causing the issue, it's the end users.
      - wslack 11y ago
        In this case, developers are the end user population.
        mianos 11y ago
        "This repository experiences a huge volume of fetches (multiple fetches per second on average). We understand that part of the CocoaPods workflow is that its end users (i.e., not just the people contributing to CocoaPods/Specs) fetch regularly from GitHub"
        accatyyc 11y ago
        Yes, but he means that "end users" of CocoaPods are actually developers. It's a package manager for libraries.
jlarocco 11y ago
I totally disagree. The CocoaPods usage model is not at all the expected way to use GitHub. I'm surprised using GitHub that way is even allowed by the TOS. It's very obviously a hack to avoid paying for their own infrastructure. The project representative in the issues thread even admits as much in his response. Just about every other package manager for every other language (Pip, CPAN, Hackage, etc.) uses its own infrastructure.
- zyxley 11y ago
  Homebrew uses Github in roughly the same way.
  - jethro_tell 11y ago
    In this case the difference between 'abuse' and fair use may be a homebrew dev that works for github. I would expect that to be a perk of most places that I work. I've run tor exit nodes and repo hosting when I worked for ISPs and Datacenters while at the same time shuting customers down who do the same. The difference being that I had that conversation with my boss and said, 'this will violate our normal terms of service but I would like to do this.' The boss is of course more willing to make that concession when he can walk down the hall and say, 'uh, we have extremely high usage and today, can you shut down the repos until we can get another link installed?'
    - niij 11y ago
      Hey, I run 2 middle relays (~80-90mb/s bandwidth total) on cheap VPS's, but was thinking of upping bandwidth and hosting an exi on some dedicated hardwaret. Do you have any tips for running an exit node (legally and technically)? If you want, you can email me (link in profile). Thanks!
      - jethro_tell 11y ago
        Honestly, I don't like to give advice about this. Due, in part to risks involved, and since I've been out of it for a couple years, I don't really feel qualified. Everything you need is online but you'd have to find it for yourself and make decisions about the best way for you to do it.

You're quibbling semantics. Using a GitHub repo as a high traffic code CDN and keeping 5+ cores pegged while being the single biggest consumer of resources across the whole platform could be reasonably defined as an abuse of the service. Primary definitions on Google: "abuse" verb: use (something) to bad effect "abuse" noun: the improper use of something

jethro_tell 11y ago
Dabbling in the 'kind of customer we can afford to lose' territory.
- jenscow 11y ago
  Not really. Imagine the backlash github would receive here.
  - mioelnir 11y ago
    As an ops person, I can tell you that I would probably upgrade my paid github account instead of cancel it if a project was thrown out that had the audacity to issue the statement that they don't care about the infrastructure they use for free so they can focus on the important things - namely developer funding.
  - jethro_tell 11y ago
    yeah, it's the kind of backlash that would cancel a couple other non paying projects and there would be half dozen discouraging blog posts but paying customers that aren't open source aren't going to leave because a free tier opensource customer was abusing a service.
  - manyxcxi 11y ago
    > Not really. Imagine the backlash github would receive I don't know... I'm sure they'd get some, CocoaPods has a very large user base after all. But if GitHub laid out the reasons like they laid out the options to start this thread, I think they'd weather the storm fine and diffuse some people who show up to be angry. I could see why GH would drop them and think they'd be well within their right and in good moral standing in my book. I just don't think they would unless the maintainers became incredibly hostile or proved unable to fix the problem or even band-aid it. GH just seems too culturally invested in making things like this work to a satisfactory conclusion. I have a feeling that the CocoaPods team will be schooled in a lot of things directly from the GitHub team as they work to resolve the performance issues, just look how informative the initial post was.

MBCook 11y ago

It's very clear GitHub was not designed to be used as some project's personal CDN for this kind of traffic. It's abuse. Wasn't intentional, but at the scale that Cocoapods is running it's abuse.

odbol_ 11y ago
> personal CDN Discounting the fact that CocoaPods is used by millions of iOS developers...
- Lazare 11y ago
  Pretty sure that's the point. If it wasn't used by so many developers, it wouldn't be causing load issues. :)
  - mianos 11y ago
    It's not the developers causing the issue, it's the end users.
    - wslack 11y ago
      In this case, developers are the end user population.
      - mianos 11y ago
        "This repository experiences a huge volume of fetches (multiple fetches per second on average). We understand that part of the CocoaPods workflow is that its end users (i.e., not just the people contributing to CocoaPods/Specs) fetch regularly from GitHub"
        accatyyc 11y ago
        Yes, but he means that "end users" of CocoaPods are actually developers. It's a package manager for libraries.

jlarocco 11y ago

I totally disagree. The CocoaPods usage model is not at all the expected way to use GitHub. I'm surprised using GitHub that way is even allowed by the TOS. It's very obviously a hack to avoid paying for their own infrastructure. The project representative in the issues thread even admits as much in his response. Just about every other package manager for every other language (Pip, CPAN, Hackage, etc.) uses its own infrastructure.

zyxley 11y ago
Homebrew uses Github in roughly the same way.
- jethro_tell 11y ago
  In this case the difference between 'abuse' and fair use may be a homebrew dev that works for github. I would expect that to be a perk of most places that I work. I've run tor exit nodes and repo hosting when I worked for ISPs and Datacenters while at the same time shuting customers down who do the same. The difference being that I had that conversation with my boss and said, 'this will violate our normal terms of service but I would like to do this.' The boss is of course more willing to make that concession when he can walk down the hall and say, 'uh, we have extremely high usage and today, can you shut down the repos until we can get another link installed?'
  - niij 11y ago
    Hey, I run 2 middle relays (~80-90mb/s bandwidth total) on cheap VPS's, but was thinking of upping bandwidth and hosting an exi on some dedicated hardwaret. Do you have any tips for running an exit node (legally and technically)? If you want, you can email me (link in profile). Thanks!
    - jethro_tell 11y ago
      Honestly, I don't like to give advice about this. Due, in part to risks involved, and since I've been out of it for a couple years, I don't really feel qualified. Everything you need is online but you'd have to find it for yourself and make decisions about the best way for you to do it.