6 ms·

GitHub's new features show it’s finally listening to developers

75 points by owenwil 7y ago

bobblywobbles 7y ago
Very excited about this. As someone who contributes to open source software, I'm excited for these changes.
- imiric 7y ago
  I applaud Microsoft for the Sponsor program. We need new ways of monetizing open source, and this is a step in the right direction. However, the article itself mentions this program, a smaller contributor and dependencies feature and a planned feature list as being signs of a major turning point for GitHub. It's a bit too congratulatory of Microsoft and reads more like an advert than a genuine piece, though I'm sure the author meant well. > As someone who contributes to open source software, I'm excited for these changes. I'm curious, if you're passionate about open source, why would you feel excited for changes on one of the most popular closed source websites on the Internet? I like the direction Microsoft has been taking in the past few years regarding F/LOSS, but I think we should be cautiously optimistic about GitHub, while continuing to migrate away towards alternative open platforms. Personally I've been using a self-hosted instance of Gitea[0] for many months now (and Gogs before that), and it's been working great as a private GitHub alternative. I'll be excited when most of the world's developers share code and knowledge (looking at you, SO) on open source platforms. [0]: https://gitea.io/ https://gitea.io/
SEJeff 7y ago
This seems like a really interesting business model but also one that will benefit a lot of smaller developer who use github. I'm excited to see how this all pans out.
- marcinzm 7y ago
  GitHub doesn't really need a business model right now since MS probably has no issues treating it as a loss-leader (and makes plenty of money elsewhere). Eventually it'll need to make a profit probably but it's got time.
  - bluGill 7y ago
    GitHub free is a loss leader for GitHub enterprise. We have our own servers where I work that we pay a fair amount to GitHub. It is pretty much like Github.com, but our own company domain in the middle. We don't always have the latest version, but we are not far off. If there weren't people using the free version and wanting those features to our propitiatory workflow we wouldn't have known about GitHub much less bought it.
    - SEJeff 7y ago
      I also use github enterprise (on-premise). This is still a really interesting business model, and one I applaud, as it helps a lot of open source developers.
Someone1234 7y ago
The main thread seems better: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19989684 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19989684 This lacks additional content or context. It is simply the author promoting some 2016 letter/article criticising GitHub, and then very loosely tying it to recent changes. It is self-promoting blogspam.
sschueller 7y ago
I am wondering how long this will last and at what point they will prohibit repo owners from using alternative funding methods like bounty source or bitcoin.
- anchpop 7y ago
  Since Microsoft's goal with everything they've been doing in the past few months has been to gain developer trust and mindshare (WSL, a better windows terminal, all the new Github features, etc.), I don't see this as a realistic outcome. They also don't seem to plan on monetizing this, as they're currently giving away free money and said they'll only start charging transaction fees next year. This whole endeavor is to get developers on Github so companies will pay to use Github enterprise
  - techntoke 7y ago
    WSL is terrible and gives me a bad impression of MS (and gives Linux a bad name). Their new terminal isn't out yet as far as I know.
    - NicoJuicy 7y ago
      I found the contrary, different perspective perhaps :) - I do almost everything on Windows and WSL
    - GordonS 7y ago
      In what way is WSL "terrible"? I use it quite frequently, and I quite like it.
      - techntoke 7y ago
        It is incredibly slow (20X), distro installs can't keep up, Docker doesn't work, systemd doesn't work, drive mounting has issues, and lack of a descent terminal.
- whatever_dude 7y ago
mukashoo 7y ago
Remember sourceforge ? That’s what I think when I think github now It really loses in features compared to gitlab. Such as large files
- techntoke 7y ago
  And GitLab has an open source version you can self-host. Until GitHub offers that I can't take their dedication to open source seriously.
  - the_common_man 7y ago
    Do you selfhost gitlab? How much effort is it ?
    - kalyanganjam 7y ago
      I do. Self host at my work. Less than 4 his effort for initial setup and an hour or two when I want to upgrade. Super clean and helpful docs makes it a breeze to self host
    - techntoke 7y ago
      Yes, it is very easy. Checkout the official Helm charts to get started quickly or the Docker image.
- GordonS 7y ago
  I've never used GitLab - what other features does it have that you feel GitHub is lacking?
  - raehik 7y ago
    Many recent GitHub features have been ports from GitLab: WIP pull requests, suggested issues. I'd reverse the question and ask what GitHub is offering that GitLab isn't (except the community usage). (And yeah, I guess I'm a GitLab fanboy...)
  - 7y ago
CameronNemo 7y ago
>the world's largest open source community Is github even considered an open source community? Open source projects work on github, sure, (so do closed source projects) but github is not the community. It is a tool.
- techntoke 7y ago
  A closed source tool
- MaxBarraclough 7y ago
  > github is not the community. It is a tool. Not really, no. HackerNews, Slashdot, subreddits, are all communities. Same goes for GitHub. The positive network effects are a considerable hurdle to its competitors.
cr0sh 7y ago
One click pull/update for forked repos? Not holding my breath on it... This is something that more than a few people want, and at one time, it did exist; a simple button you'd click on your fork of a repo, that would go and pull down/merge the latest from the original. I'm probably not alone in this - but I have a ton of repo "forks" that I just keep around but don't make mods to, but try (and fail) to keep up to date with the original. Why? Well - because some of these interest me, but aren't often changed if at all - and I worry that some day, the repo will just up and disappear (ie - be deleted), and the code will be gone. So I keep a copy. This does have the assumption that if they delete their repo, that my branch won't disappear (I assume this is true - wouldn't make sense if that happened). The same kind of thing could even happen to a well used and updated codebase, just because the developer decides this is the thing to do. So a hedge against this kind of thing. But keeping the forks up-to-date - for the ones that are popular - is a pain. A single button should be all that is needed, but doesn't exist. So instead, you have to do this weird process (can't remember the exact steps - I recall there's a point you issue a PR and validate it yourself, as part of the process - it makes no sense). Note that this is all thru the web interface for github. One could keep the repos locally, then issue fetch/pull/merges to grab the latest, but I'd like to avoid the storage req's of that. In the meantime, I've tried to create a process - that mostly works - that fetches the latest version of the repo, if it exists, as the compressed archive, then stores it in a local "directory" that's a VFS to google drive (IIRC), but it's still in a beta/dev phase and on a back burner. It's too bad there isn't a way you could specify a fork as a non-updated thing, that just automagically received the updates as they occurred (and then stayed around or was compressed if the op deleted their original branch).
- jkukul 7y ago
  There are few github bots [1][2] that keep your fork up to date. They probably don't offer the exact workflow that you want, but you can always customise. I'd assume that if GitHub notices that bots like these are popular, they'd think about incorporating it as a feature. In a way, this is what has happened with Dependabot [3] - IMO it's been so widely used that it made sense for GitHub to include it as a feature. [1] https://github.com/backstrokeapp/server https://github.com/backstrokeapp/server [2] https://github.com/wei/pull https://github.com/wei/pull [3] https://dependabot.com/blog/hello-github/ https://dependabot.com/blog/hello-github/

75 points by owenwil 7y ago

bobblywobbles 7y ago

Very excited about this. As someone who contributes to open source software, I'm excited for these changes.

imiric 7y ago
I applaud Microsoft for the Sponsor program. We need new ways of monetizing open source, and this is a step in the right direction. However, the article itself mentions this program, a smaller contributor and dependencies feature and a planned feature list as being signs of a major turning point for GitHub. It's a bit too congratulatory of Microsoft and reads more like an advert than a genuine piece, though I'm sure the author meant well. > As someone who contributes to open source software, I'm excited for these changes. I'm curious, if you're passionate about open source, why would you feel excited for changes on one of the most popular closed source websites on the Internet? I like the direction Microsoft has been taking in the past few years regarding F/LOSS, but I think we should be cautiously optimistic about GitHub, while continuing to migrate away towards alternative open platforms. Personally I've been using a self-hosted instance of Gitea[0] for many months now (and Gogs before that), and it's been working great as a private GitHub alternative. I'll be excited when most of the world's developers share code and knowledge (looking at you, SO) on open source platforms. [0]: https://gitea.io/ https://gitea.io/

SEJeff 7y ago

This seems like a really interesting business model but also one that will benefit a lot of smaller developer who use github. I'm excited to see how this all pans out.

marcinzm 7y ago
GitHub doesn't really need a business model right now since MS probably has no issues treating it as a loss-leader (and makes plenty of money elsewhere). Eventually it'll need to make a profit probably but it's got time.
- bluGill 7y ago
  GitHub free is a loss leader for GitHub enterprise. We have our own servers where I work that we pay a fair amount to GitHub. It is pretty much like Github.com, but our own company domain in the middle. We don't always have the latest version, but we are not far off. If there weren't people using the free version and wanting those features to our propitiatory workflow we wouldn't have known about GitHub much less bought it.
  - SEJeff 7y ago
    I also use github enterprise (on-premise). This is still a really interesting business model, and one I applaud, as it helps a lot of open source developers.

Someone1234 7y ago

The main thread seems better: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19989684 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19989684 This lacks additional content or context. It is simply the author promoting some 2016 letter/article criticising GitHub, and then very loosely tying it to recent changes. It is self-promoting blogspam.

sschueller 7y ago

I am wondering how long this will last and at what point they will prohibit repo owners from using alternative funding methods like bounty source or bitcoin.

anchpop 7y ago
Since Microsoft's goal with everything they've been doing in the past few months has been to gain developer trust and mindshare (WSL, a better windows terminal, all the new Github features, etc.), I don't see this as a realistic outcome. They also don't seem to plan on monetizing this, as they're currently giving away free money and said they'll only start charging transaction fees next year. This whole endeavor is to get developers on Github so companies will pay to use Github enterprise
- techntoke 7y ago
  WSL is terrible and gives me a bad impression of MS (and gives Linux a bad name). Their new terminal isn't out yet as far as I know.
  - NicoJuicy 7y ago
    I found the contrary, different perspective perhaps :) - I do almost everything on Windows and WSL
  - GordonS 7y ago
    In what way is WSL "terrible"? I use it quite frequently, and I quite like it.
    - techntoke 7y ago
      It is incredibly slow (20X), distro installs can't keep up, Docker doesn't work, systemd doesn't work, drive mounting has issues, and lack of a descent terminal.
whatever_dude 7y ago

mukashoo 7y ago

Remember sourceforge ? That’s what I think when I think github now It really loses in features compared to gitlab. Such as large files

techntoke 7y ago
And GitLab has an open source version you can self-host. Until GitHub offers that I can't take their dedication to open source seriously.
- the_common_man 7y ago
  Do you selfhost gitlab? How much effort is it ?
  - kalyanganjam 7y ago
    I do. Self host at my work. Less than 4 his effort for initial setup and an hour or two when I want to upgrade. Super clean and helpful docs makes it a breeze to self host
  - techntoke 7y ago
    Yes, it is very easy. Checkout the official Helm charts to get started quickly or the Docker image.
GordonS 7y ago
I've never used GitLab - what other features does it have that you feel GitHub is lacking?
- raehik 7y ago
  Many recent GitHub features have been ports from GitLab: WIP pull requests, suggested issues. I'd reverse the question and ask what GitHub is offering that GitLab isn't (except the community usage). (And yeah, I guess I'm a GitLab fanboy...)
- 7y ago

CameronNemo 7y ago

>the world's largest open source community Is github even considered an open source community? Open source projects work on github, sure, (so do closed source projects) but github is not the community. It is a tool.

techntoke 7y ago
A closed source tool
MaxBarraclough 7y ago
> github is not the community. It is a tool. Not really, no. HackerNews, Slashdot, subreddits, are all communities. Same goes for GitHub. The positive network effects are a considerable hurdle to its competitors.

cr0sh 7y ago

One click pull/update for forked repos? Not holding my breath on it... This is something that more than a few people want, and at one time, it did exist; a simple button you'd click on your fork of a repo, that would go and pull down/merge the latest from the original. I'm probably not alone in this - but I have a ton of repo "forks" that I just keep around but don't make mods to, but try (and fail) to keep up to date with the original. Why? Well - because some of these interest me, but aren't often changed if at all - and I worry that some day, the repo will just up and disappear (ie - be deleted), and the code will be gone. So I keep a copy. This does have the assumption that if they delete their repo, that my branch won't disappear (I assume this is true - wouldn't make sense if that happened). The same kind of thing could even happen to a well used and updated codebase, just because the developer decides this is the thing to do. So a hedge against this kind of thing. But keeping the forks up-to-date - for the ones that are popular - is a pain. A single button should be all that is needed, but doesn't exist. So instead, you have to do this weird process (can't remember the exact steps - I recall there's a point you issue a PR and validate it yourself, as part of the process - it makes no sense). Note that this is all thru the web interface for github. One could keep the repos locally, then issue fetch/pull/merges to grab the latest, but I'd like to avoid the storage req's of that. In the meantime, I've tried to create a process - that mostly works - that fetches the latest version of the repo, if it exists, as the compressed archive, then stores it in a local "directory" that's a VFS to google drive (IIRC), but it's still in a beta/dev phase and on a back burner. It's too bad there isn't a way you could specify a fork as a non-updated thing, that just automagically received the updates as they occurred (and then stayed around or was compressed if the op deleted their original branch).

jkukul 7y ago
There are few github bots [1][2] that keep your fork up to date. They probably don't offer the exact workflow that you want, but you can always customise. I'd assume that if GitHub notices that bots like these are popular, they'd think about incorporating it as a feature. In a way, this is what has happened with Dependabot [3] - IMO it's been so widely used that it made sense for GitHub to include it as a feature. [1] https://github.com/backstrokeapp/server https://github.com/backstrokeapp/server [2] https://github.com/wei/pull https://github.com/wei/pull [3] https://dependabot.com/blog/hello-github/ https://dependabot.com/blog/hello-github/