4 ms·

Why so much hate for GitHub? My general experience with them has been positive :)

by yzmtf2008 9y ago

pawadu 9y ago
I don't think it is hate, more that people have learned to not put all their eggs in the same basket. Ask any Firebase user what they feel about this. Also, the more players we have the less proprietary web interfaces for things like issues and PR will dominate.
- _pmf_ 9y ago
  > I don't think it is hate, more that people have learned to not put all their eggs in the same basket. I'm just waiting for GitHub to be bought up by MS and turn into Sourceforge 2.0.
  - pawadu 9y ago
    Jokes aside, you actually make a good point. github is loosing money like crazy while gitlab and bitbucket are actually profitable.
    - detaro 9y ago
      source on that claim? If I remember right, the last numbers I published (from some bloomberg article last year) showed them spending a lot, but profitable.
      - BinaryIdiot 9y ago
        Not parent but here you go: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-15/github-is-building-a-coder-s-paradise-it-s-not-coming-cheap https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-15/github-is... They're not expecting to be profitable right now but their loses have risen quite a bit.
        detaro 9y ago
        Thx, that was the article I was thinking about, and clearly remembered wrong.
    - BinaryIdiot 9y ago
      GitHub is losing money but that doesn't mean GitLab and BitBucket are profitable. BitBucket is part of a larger organization so it really doesn't matter if it loses money. As for GitLab I can't find anything but by 2019 they're expecting SaaS to be the majority of the way they make money (which is identical to GitHub) so I'm not sure why you expect the incumbent to fail and the underdog to succeed with identical business models. Sure it's possible but I don't get it. Don't forget as more of these OSS projects take advantage of GitLab's free repositories the more money GitLab will lose.
- BinaryIdiot 9y ago
  > I don't think it is hate, more that people have learned to not put all their eggs in the same basket. But git isn't putting all your eggs in one basket. It's a distributed version control system. GitHub is one way to access your source but it doesn't have to be the only one. That's purely a choice made by folks. If you want to put your eggs into many baskets then great! But that doesn't prevent you from using GitHub at all.
  - qb45 9y ago
    For a dumb git host GH is passable, the problem is with their additional features which many projects use. If/when GH goes the way of the dodo they will be at the mercy of 3rd parties' ability to scrap and import this stuff.
  - johannes1234321 9y ago
    > If you want to put your eggs into many baskets then great! But that doesn't prevent you from using GitHub at all. In theory, yes. In practice you quickly end up having long discussions in "pull requests" and therelike and all references using github.com URLs. If (let's hope that doesn't happen) Github one day does what Sourceforge did and injects ads and malware you're in trouble as everybody still points to their domain.
  - bzbarsky 9y ago
    Yes, if you use Github but don't use PRs you're not putting all your eggs in one basket. As soon as you start using PRs, you almost certainly have part of your project's version control history (the reasons for changes) in the PR discussions, and now if Github ever shuts down you have dataloss.
- skrebbel 9y ago
  > Ask any Firebase user what they feel about this. I'm curious what you mean by this. In a world of discontinued acquihired services and breaking changes, firebase has just kept working across major organizational and product changes. For example you can still use the old client libraries and URLs from before google bought them and it just works. REST urls, admin UI urls, everything redirects perfectly.
  - KaoruAoiShiho 9y ago
    Firebase increased prices three times in one year.
qb45 9y ago
People had positive experience with SourceForge too, before they started bundling adware. I wouldn't really use these proprietary platforms for anything more than a dumb DVCS host.
BinaryIdiot 9y ago
GitHub is great but there is a group of people, many of whom are on HN, who prefer OSS to be on non-proprietary systems. Personally I think you should just use whatever tool works best but not everyone agrees. Git is a distributed system but almost every single time GitHub goes down you get people complaining about OSS and others using / relying on GitHub but honestly you really don't have to at all. Git was designed so you wouldn't need to. So yeah hating on GitHub can be a bit popular on HN.
Normal_gaussian 9y ago
There is the fact it is proprietary, and the fact its got most of the other eggs, but most importantly in my book is the fact it has an incredibly unstable and racist culture. There was a recent discussion about ElectronConf (organised by GitHub) that highlights this [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14480868 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14480868
- aeorgnoieang 9y ago
  > it has an incredibly unstable and racist culture It doesn't have a culture so this is really inflammatory, and unnecessarily so. Or were you referring to GitHub the organization and not the set of people that use it?
  - qb45 9y ago
    Not the OP but I presume GitHub-the-company was meant since it is them who are behind ElectronConf, not their customers. They are also somewhat infamous for having hired one self-proclaimed "notorious SJW" who previously harassed a GitHub user for his contribution to some unrelated Twitter flamewar and later went on to work at GitHub on "community management and anti-harassment tools". Go figure.
romanovcode 9y ago
Github praises open source but they sure do keep their own stuff as proprietary as possible. (Even their EE is obfuscated code)
- amelius 9y ago
  Question: is all the auxiliary project data (issues, etcetera) also stored in the git repository, or is that data stored separately by github (and thus impossible to migrate out of it)?
  - eeZah7Ux 9y ago
    Separate. You can fetch most of issues and so on as long as 1) GitHub does not change its policy 2) You have an account 3) The project has not been deleted or somehow locked
- jononor 9y ago
  None of the extra data (issues etc) is stored in git. However they do have a comprehensive HTTP API, so one can migrate away using that.
  - floatboth 9y ago
    https://github-backup.branchable.com/README/ https://github-backup.branchable.com/README/
vultour 9y ago
They play too much politics, I like to keep politics out of tech.
Grue3 9y ago
Because they comply with government censorship [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_GitHub#Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_GitHub#Russia
benologist 9y ago
Your experience has been positive because the closed-source platform fueled by $350,000,000 in VC hasn't had to address revenue issues, yet.

Why so much hate for GitHub? My general experience with them has been positive :)

I don't think it is hate, more that people have learned to not put all their eggs in the same basket. Ask any Firebase user what they feel about this. Also, the more players we have the less proprietary web interfaces for things like issues and PR will dominate.

_pmf_ 9y ago
> I don't think it is hate, more that people have learned to not put all their eggs in the same basket. I'm just waiting for GitHub to be bought up by MS and turn into Sourceforge 2.0.
- pawadu 9y ago
  Jokes aside, you actually make a good point. github is loosing money like crazy while gitlab and bitbucket are actually profitable.
  - detaro 9y ago
    source on that claim? If I remember right, the last numbers I published (from some bloomberg article last year) showed them spending a lot, but profitable.
    - BinaryIdiot 9y ago
      Not parent but here you go: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-15/github-is-building-a-coder-s-paradise-it-s-not-coming-cheap https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-15/github-is... They're not expecting to be profitable right now but their loses have risen quite a bit.
      - detaro 9y ago
        Thx, that was the article I was thinking about, and clearly remembered wrong.
  - BinaryIdiot 9y ago
    GitHub is losing money but that doesn't mean GitLab and BitBucket are profitable. BitBucket is part of a larger organization so it really doesn't matter if it loses money. As for GitLab I can't find anything but by 2019 they're expecting SaaS to be the majority of the way they make money (which is identical to GitHub) so I'm not sure why you expect the incumbent to fail and the underdog to succeed with identical business models. Sure it's possible but I don't get it. Don't forget as more of these OSS projects take advantage of GitLab's free repositories the more money GitLab will lose.
BinaryIdiot 9y ago
> I don't think it is hate, more that people have learned to not put all their eggs in the same basket. But git isn't putting all your eggs in one basket. It's a distributed version control system. GitHub is one way to access your source but it doesn't have to be the only one. That's purely a choice made by folks. If you want to put your eggs into many baskets then great! But that doesn't prevent you from using GitHub at all.
- qb45 9y ago
  For a dumb git host GH is passable, the problem is with their additional features which many projects use. If/when GH goes the way of the dodo they will be at the mercy of 3rd parties' ability to scrap and import this stuff.
- johannes1234321 9y ago
  > If you want to put your eggs into many baskets then great! But that doesn't prevent you from using GitHub at all. In theory, yes. In practice you quickly end up having long discussions in "pull requests" and therelike and all references using github.com URLs. If (let's hope that doesn't happen) Github one day does what Sourceforge did and injects ads and malware you're in trouble as everybody still points to their domain.
- bzbarsky 9y ago
  Yes, if you use Github but don't use PRs you're not putting all your eggs in one basket. As soon as you start using PRs, you almost certainly have part of your project's version control history (the reasons for changes) in the PR discussions, and now if Github ever shuts down you have dataloss.
skrebbel 9y ago
> Ask any Firebase user what they feel about this. I'm curious what you mean by this. In a world of discontinued acquihired services and breaking changes, firebase has just kept working across major organizational and product changes. For example you can still use the old client libraries and URLs from before google bought them and it just works. REST urls, admin UI urls, everything redirects perfectly.
- KaoruAoiShiho 9y ago
  Firebase increased prices three times in one year.

qb45 9y ago

People had positive experience with SourceForge too, before they started bundling adware. I wouldn't really use these proprietary platforms for anything more than a dumb DVCS host.

BinaryIdiot 9y ago

GitHub is great but there is a group of people, many of whom are on HN, who prefer OSS to be on non-proprietary systems. Personally I think you should just use whatever tool works best but not everyone agrees. Git is a distributed system but almost every single time GitHub goes down you get people complaining about OSS and others using / relying on GitHub but honestly you really don't have to at all. Git was designed so you wouldn't need to. So yeah hating on GitHub can be a bit popular on HN.

Normal_gaussian 9y ago

There is the fact it is proprietary, and the fact its got most of the other eggs, but most importantly in my book is the fact it has an incredibly unstable and racist culture. There was a recent discussion about ElectronConf (organised by GitHub) that highlights this [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14480868 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14480868

aeorgnoieang 9y ago
> it has an incredibly unstable and racist culture It doesn't have a culture so this is really inflammatory, and unnecessarily so. Or were you referring to GitHub the organization and not the set of people that use it?
- qb45 9y ago
  Not the OP but I presume GitHub-the-company was meant since it is them who are behind ElectronConf, not their customers. They are also somewhat infamous for having hired one self-proclaimed "notorious SJW" who previously harassed a GitHub user for his contribution to some unrelated Twitter flamewar and later went on to work at GitHub on "community management and anti-harassment tools". Go figure.

romanovcode 9y ago

Github praises open source but they sure do keep their own stuff as proprietary as possible. (Even their EE is obfuscated code)

amelius 9y ago
Question: is all the auxiliary project data (issues, etcetera) also stored in the git repository, or is that data stored separately by github (and thus impossible to migrate out of it)?
- eeZah7Ux 9y ago
  Separate. You can fetch most of issues and so on as long as 1) GitHub does not change its policy 2) You have an account 3) The project has not been deleted or somehow locked
jononor 9y ago
None of the extra data (issues etc) is stored in git. However they do have a comprehensive HTTP API, so one can migrate away using that.
- floatboth 9y ago
  https://github-backup.branchable.com/README/ https://github-backup.branchable.com/README/

vultour 9y ago

They play too much politics, I like to keep politics out of tech.

Grue3 9y ago

Because they comply with government censorship [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_GitHub#Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_GitHub#Russia

benologist 9y ago

Your experience has been positive because the closed-source platform fueled by $350,000,000 in VC hasn't had to address revenue issues, yet.