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> Speaking as someone who's participated, led and created several open source software projects and organizations, you're wrong. Github is the primary reason wh

> Speaking as someone who's participated, led and created several open source software projects and organizations, you're wrong. Github is the primary reason why open source is thriving today. OK, so what do you think would the world of free software look like today if github had never existed, and why do you think that? > GitHub and GitHub Pages have made it both easy and free for FOSS projects to get contributors set up and managed, market themselves and be more than an obscure project on a nameless site. Why do you think would the alternative solution that would have been developed if github had not been around not have been able to achieve the same? > The centralization that Github provides is essential to lowering the barrier of entry for new contributors, and those are what makes or breaks a project. Why do you think that the centralization is essential? > So yes, you do need a middleman; or at least you need something. What specifically do you mean by "something"? > You're welcome to attempt solving the problem, in the mean time you can't start claiming that they "hampered" progress, that's just delusional. Does that mean then that your implicit claims about alternative histories are also delusional? I mean, your claims about how github is better than what the world would look like if github had not been around obviously also imply some idea of what you think the world would otherwise look like (i.e. worse). Is that speculation on your part also delusional?

ajdlinux 9y ago
> Why do you think that the centralization is essential? Decentralisation, as a general concept, has a lot of benefits. Ease of use for new users is generally not one of them. I'm a Linux kernel dev by day, where we still submit patches through mailing lists. Now, I don't believe the kernel can switch to using a platform like GitHub, as our development workflow on the whole is too decentralised and too complex to shoehorn into the kinds of tools that GitHub et al give us, but I can certainly say that the existing kernel process is a right PITA for new contributors. A large part of this is that we don't have centralised development resources and every different subsystem has a slightly different workflow.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
  > Decentralisation, as a general concept, has a lot of benefits. Ease of use for new users is generally not one of them. Why do you think that ease of use for new users is a benefit of centralized systems such as github? And not, say, of standardization? Is electricity, say, easy to use because it is all supplied by one centralized world-wide supplier, or is it easy to use because voltage, frequency and so on are standardized, so you can plug in your appliances no matter who the supplier is? But also: Do you think that ease of use for new users is a worthwhile optimization target? I mean, at what cost for non-new users does this optimization come, and is that cost worth it? > but I can certainly say that the existing kernel process is a right PITA for new contributors. Why do you think that? My experience would say the exact opposite: You read the readme that comes in the source tree, you run that script that figures out who is responsible for the respective component and you send an email ... you don't even need to create an account with some third party with lengthy TOS to study and stuff. Seriously, submitting patches to the linux kernel so far has been one of the smoothest experiences contributing to free software, with an absolutely minimal barrier to entry.
  - ajdlinux 9y ago
    > Is electricity, say, easy to use because it is all supplied by one centralized world-wide supplier, or is it easy to use because voltage, frequency and so on are standardized, so you can plug in your appliances no matter who the supplier is? The voltage, frequency and so on only became standardised because of either monopoly providers or government regulation, depending on where you are in the world. There are parts of the world where they've actually ended up with different electrical standards in different parts of the same country as a direct result of having non-centralised suppliers and multiple different electric grids. > But also: Do you think that ease of use for new users is a worthwhile optimization target? I mean, at what cost for non-new users does this optimization come, and is that cost worth it? Yes, and ideally, it's not a cost for non-new users.

ajdlinux 9y ago

> Why do you think that the centralization is essential? Decentralisation, as a general concept, has a lot of benefits. Ease of use for new users is generally not one of them. I'm a Linux kernel dev by day, where we still submit patches through mailing lists. Now, I don't believe the kernel can switch to using a platform like GitHub, as our development workflow on the whole is too decentralised and too complex to shoehorn into the kinds of tools that GitHub et al give us, but I can certainly say that the existing kernel process is a right PITA for new contributors. A large part of this is that we don't have centralised development resources and every different subsystem has a slightly different workflow.

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
> Decentralisation, as a general concept, has a lot of benefits. Ease of use for new users is generally not one of them. Why do you think that ease of use for new users is a benefit of centralized systems such as github? And not, say, of standardization? Is electricity, say, easy to use because it is all supplied by one centralized world-wide supplier, or is it easy to use because voltage, frequency and so on are standardized, so you can plug in your appliances no matter who the supplier is? But also: Do you think that ease of use for new users is a worthwhile optimization target? I mean, at what cost for non-new users does this optimization come, and is that cost worth it? > but I can certainly say that the existing kernel process is a right PITA for new contributors. Why do you think that? My experience would say the exact opposite: You read the readme that comes in the source tree, you run that script that figures out who is responsible for the respective component and you send an email ... you don't even need to create an account with some third party with lengthy TOS to study and stuff. Seriously, submitting patches to the linux kernel so far has been one of the smoothest experiences contributing to free software, with an absolutely minimal barrier to entry.
- ajdlinux 9y ago
  > Is electricity, say, easy to use because it is all supplied by one centralized world-wide supplier, or is it easy to use because voltage, frequency and so on are standardized, so you can plug in your appliances no matter who the supplier is? The voltage, frequency and so on only became standardised because of either monopoly providers or government regulation, depending on where you are in the world. There are parts of the world where they've actually ended up with different electrical standards in different parts of the same country as a direct result of having non-centralised suppliers and multiple different electric grids. > But also: Do you think that ease of use for new users is a worthwhile optimization target? I mean, at what cost for non-new users does this optimization come, and is that cost worth it? Yes, and ideally, it's not a cost for non-new users.