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I actually don't like this change. Private contributions don't benefit the greater community unless the project is eventually open sourced. The contribution g

I actually don't like this change. Private contributions don't benefit the greater community unless the project is eventually open sourced. The contribution graph was a nice way to show off how much one contributes to open source, thereby encouraging folks to contribute to open source projects. It's a vanity metric in the first place, so why not use it to help motivate more contributions to open source software?

karim 10y ago
Because Github has a different incentive: they want as many hobbyist developers as possible using private repos.
- sdesol 10y ago
  They are definitely working on strengthening their value proposition for paying customers. And I really can't blame them, as they are competing against free. GitLab is free. Bitbucket and Microsoft Visual Studio Team Service (VSS) are free for 5 or less users. What they (GitHub) really need to work on, if it isn't on their radar is a marketplace/extension system. And this is where I think Microsoft may leap frog everybody. I've only spent a day looking at building extensions for VSS, but I'm really impressed by how much thought they put into making 3rd party solutions, first class citizens. And I think this comes from the fact they understand enterprise. In enterprise, there are so many crazy edge cases and if you don't have a reasonable answer to how you can address them, customers will pass on you.
  - moby 10y ago
    We released this last October as a way of broadcasting the work we've been doing in the ecosystem thus far: https://github.com/integrations https://github.com/integrations. There's lots more to be done in that area, and we're learning a ton from our integration partners along the way. Enterprise readiness is one of the big areas we want to keep refining too.
    - sdesol 10y ago
      I hope supported injection points is something that will be supported in the future. The way of integrating on top of GitHub with a browser extension, is really a hassle and it's the reason why I'm going to discontinue my Chrome extension. I would like to bring advanced Git analytics and search to GitHub, but it's not worth the effort considering how easily I can drop it into Bitbucket and VSS.
drinchev 10y ago
I agree. Unfortunately I thought the same was with GitHub's "private repositories are paid" idea, until they switched to unlimited ones. Anyway as a friend of mine says : "GitHub is Facebook for developers", so I guess the social features are still playing a role in the decisions.
busterarm 10y ago
It also makes it somewhat obvious if you quit or got fired from a job (that uses github). You don't get green boxes for repositories you no longer have access to.
- shampine 10y ago
  Only if you remove your work email from your account. I still have green boxes for things I don't have access to. But I made sure to leave my work email in my account settings, if you remove it, then you lose all the green boxes.
  - busterarm 10y ago
    I did some contract work for several months where they just gave me access to the organization and removed it when I left. I have nothing for that time.
  - chris_7 10y ago
    Do you mean that the committer email is used? (so, if you use your personal email on your work .gitconfig, you're fine already)
    - shampine 10y ago
      Yes, or if you you use the hidden <user_email>@users.noreply.github.com.
- fvargas 10y ago
  Actually, I found after enabling the new feature I regained a lot of squares from a private organization I am no longer a member of. These squares didn't even show up when I was logged in before.
  - busterarm 10y ago
    This is so weird. -.-. I'm having the opposite.
jghn 10y ago
I like it because if a potential employer were to look at my github it'd look pretty lame. Seeing a boatload of anonymized activity sends the message "hey, what you see mught not be indicative" instead of them saying meh and moving on

karim 10y ago

Because Github has a different incentive: they want as many hobbyist developers as possible using private repos.

sdesol 10y ago
They are definitely working on strengthening their value proposition for paying customers. And I really can't blame them, as they are competing against free. GitLab is free. Bitbucket and Microsoft Visual Studio Team Service (VSS) are free for 5 or less users. What they (GitHub) really need to work on, if it isn't on their radar is a marketplace/extension system. And this is where I think Microsoft may leap frog everybody. I've only spent a day looking at building extensions for VSS, but I'm really impressed by how much thought they put into making 3rd party solutions, first class citizens. And I think this comes from the fact they understand enterprise. In enterprise, there are so many crazy edge cases and if you don't have a reasonable answer to how you can address them, customers will pass on you.
- moby 10y ago
  We released this last October as a way of broadcasting the work we've been doing in the ecosystem thus far: https://github.com/integrations https://github.com/integrations. There's lots more to be done in that area, and we're learning a ton from our integration partners along the way. Enterprise readiness is one of the big areas we want to keep refining too.
  - sdesol 10y ago
    I hope supported injection points is something that will be supported in the future. The way of integrating on top of GitHub with a browser extension, is really a hassle and it's the reason why I'm going to discontinue my Chrome extension. I would like to bring advanced Git analytics and search to GitHub, but it's not worth the effort considering how easily I can drop it into Bitbucket and VSS.

drinchev 10y ago

I agree. Unfortunately I thought the same was with GitHub's "private repositories are paid" idea, until they switched to unlimited ones. Anyway as a friend of mine says : "GitHub is Facebook for developers", so I guess the social features are still playing a role in the decisions.

busterarm 10y ago

It also makes it somewhat obvious if you quit or got fired from a job (that uses github). You don't get green boxes for repositories you no longer have access to.

shampine 10y ago
Only if you remove your work email from your account. I still have green boxes for things I don't have access to. But I made sure to leave my work email in my account settings, if you remove it, then you lose all the green boxes.
- busterarm 10y ago
  I did some contract work for several months where they just gave me access to the organization and removed it when I left. I have nothing for that time.
- chris_7 10y ago
  Do you mean that the committer email is used? (so, if you use your personal email on your work .gitconfig, you're fine already)
  - shampine 10y ago
    Yes, or if you you use the hidden <user_email>@users.noreply.github.com.
fvargas 10y ago
Actually, I found after enabling the new feature I regained a lot of squares from a private organization I am no longer a member of. These squares didn't even show up when I was logged in before.
- busterarm 10y ago
  This is so weird. -.-. I'm having the opposite.

jghn 10y ago

I like it because if a potential employer were to look at my github it'd look pretty lame. Seeing a boatload of anonymized activity sends the message "hey, what you see mught not be indicative" instead of them saying meh and moving on