6 ms·

If you're hosting your stuff on corporate platforms, like Github, Google (Gmail/etc.) you just have to be Ok with losing access to all your code or data with no

If you're hosting your stuff on corporate platforms, like Github, Google (Gmail/etc.) you just have to be Ok with losing access to all your code or data with no notice, explanation or recourse.

techntoke 7y ago
People are so content with the status quo and making excuses why they enable these behaviors, it almost reminds me of... oh wait.
iKevinShah 7y ago
While I understand the reality, this is just how a lot of us did not imagine Internet should be / would be. It's 2020, we should have some way to connect them instead of hoping the victim's post go viral forcing the "Big ones" to act on that particular case.
- pdonis 7y ago
  > this is just how a lot of us did not imagine Internet should be / would be That's right, but that's because the way a lot of us imagined this did not involve relying on third parties with other agendas to host cost that we write that others rely on in production. > It's 2020, we should have some way to connect them We do: set up your own hosting for projects that you provide that others rely on in production. Oh, that costs money, you say? First, hosting is cheap these days. Second, if your code is used by so many people, at least some of them will probably be willing to pay for it.
  - yakireev 7y ago
    You make it sound as if it is the guy's fault. Being a software developer is a well-paid job indeed, but that guy was offering (some of) his work for free, and apparently other developers made some use of it. And now you are blaming him for the fact that he was not also paying extra for being able to share his work. As much as I support self-hosting and not relying on third-parties, attitude like this is bullshit.
    - pdonis 7y ago
      > You make it sound as if it is the guy's fault. It's not the guy's fault that Github behaved poorly, yes. It is the guy's fault that he relied on an untrustworthy third party to host his code that lots of other people were using in production, meaning they lost access to it when that third party screwed him. > now you are blaming him for the fact that he was not also paying extra for being able to share his work. No, I'm blaming him for using an untrustworthy third party to provide production code to other people who were depending on him. If he can find a way to provide his code to others for free without doing that, that's fine. Btw, I probably should make clear that all of those others who are using his code are also to blame if they don't have a plan in place to deal with this situation. Also, "paying extra for being able to share his work" is not correct. If he's willing to share his work with the explicit disclaimer that he doesn't control the access to the shared hosting where the work is available, so he makes no guarantee that others will always be able to find it and access it, that's fine too. But clearly he didn't intend to share his work with that disclaimer. And the only way to be sure others can access your work is to host it yourself, so you control access.
      - krapp 7y ago
        >It is the guy's fault that he relied on an untrustworthy third party to host his code that lots of other people were using in production, meaning they lost access to it when that third party screwed him. He can literally git push to any webhost and they can literally git pull from there, or has everyone just forgotten how git and the web actually works? He can drop a zip file somewhere the way we used to do back in the ancient days. And that's not even considering the plethora of other hosted Git portals he could push to as well. And everyone still has access to their own repositories. They only thing anyone has lost here is momentary convenience.
        yakireev 7y ago
        > They only thing anyone has lost here is momentary convenience. No, what we all lost here all the other meta-information which is not code, but is still part of the project.
vbezhenar 7y ago
Why domains are different? If I bought domain and registrar suddenly don't want to do business with Crimea users, just banning them, is there anything I can do? I guess, the only safe way to host something is to use onion network.
- yakireev 7y ago
  This actually happened when these sanctions were first implemented. US registrars notified their customers from Crimea that they wouldn't be providing them any services from now on, and the customers all just quietly migrated to European registrars. See the difference? Domains were not seized, traffic was not silently redirected to /dev/null. Microsoft could do something along these lines too, but instead just chose to be evil.
  - vbezhenar 7y ago
    I can see the difference between Microsoft and some of those companies. I'm not sure that some particular company won't act in Microsoft's way. May be there's some regulation above those companies that they must let their customers to move domains if they don't want to work with them? That's what I asked. Other than that, those are just anecdotal cases.
stronglikedan 7y ago
True, but you should also make a fuss if it happens to you. If no one complains, then nothing can change.
smsm42 7y ago
The problem is not him losing access to his code. He actually probably wouldn't as he likely has a local copy. The problem is that much of the open source infrastructure now relies on github repos, npm repos (which are now owned by github btw), and so on corporate resources. And those can apparently be completely wiped off the internet because somebody made a random offhand comment somewhere. Avoiding github and similar repositories would require pretty much giving up all modern open source infrastructure - or taking extraordinary measures of keeping a local mirror of every single repository you've ever used and every dependency of those and of the software running those. This is not a normal situation. I understand when a corporation needs some CYA policy to avoid charges of "hostile environment" or whatever. But for whole open source development world be the hostage of these policies is not a normal situation. We need separation of corporate PC and technology, otherwise it ends in a lot of trouble for everybody.

If you're hosting your stuff on corporate platforms, like Github, Google (Gmail/etc.) you just have to be Ok with losing access to all your code or data with no notice, explanation or recourse.

techntoke 7y ago

People are so content with the status quo and making excuses why they enable these behaviors, it almost reminds me of... oh wait.

iKevinShah 7y ago

While I understand the reality, this is just how a lot of us did not imagine Internet should be / would be. It's 2020, we should have some way to connect them instead of hoping the victim's post go viral forcing the "Big ones" to act on that particular case.

pdonis 7y ago
> this is just how a lot of us did not imagine Internet should be / would be That's right, but that's because the way a lot of us imagined this did not involve relying on third parties with other agendas to host cost that we write that others rely on in production. > It's 2020, we should have some way to connect them We do: set up your own hosting for projects that you provide that others rely on in production. Oh, that costs money, you say? First, hosting is cheap these days. Second, if your code is used by so many people, at least some of them will probably be willing to pay for it.
- yakireev 7y ago
  You make it sound as if it is the guy's fault. Being a software developer is a well-paid job indeed, but that guy was offering (some of) his work for free, and apparently other developers made some use of it. And now you are blaming him for the fact that he was not also paying extra for being able to share his work. As much as I support self-hosting and not relying on third-parties, attitude like this is bullshit.
  - pdonis 7y ago
    > You make it sound as if it is the guy's fault. It's not the guy's fault that Github behaved poorly, yes. It is the guy's fault that he relied on an untrustworthy third party to host his code that lots of other people were using in production, meaning they lost access to it when that third party screwed him. > now you are blaming him for the fact that he was not also paying extra for being able to share his work. No, I'm blaming him for using an untrustworthy third party to provide production code to other people who were depending on him. If he can find a way to provide his code to others for free without doing that, that's fine. Btw, I probably should make clear that all of those others who are using his code are also to blame if they don't have a plan in place to deal with this situation. Also, "paying extra for being able to share his work" is not correct. If he's willing to share his work with the explicit disclaimer that he doesn't control the access to the shared hosting where the work is available, so he makes no guarantee that others will always be able to find it and access it, that's fine too. But clearly he didn't intend to share his work with that disclaimer. And the only way to be sure others can access your work is to host it yourself, so you control access.
    - krapp 7y ago
      >It is the guy's fault that he relied on an untrustworthy third party to host his code that lots of other people were using in production, meaning they lost access to it when that third party screwed him. He can literally git push to any webhost and they can literally git pull from there, or has everyone just forgotten how git and the web actually works? He can drop a zip file somewhere the way we used to do back in the ancient days. And that's not even considering the plethora of other hosted Git portals he could push to as well. And everyone still has access to their own repositories. They only thing anyone has lost here is momentary convenience.
      - yakireev 7y ago
        > They only thing anyone has lost here is momentary convenience. No, what we all lost here all the other meta-information which is not code, but is still part of the project.

vbezhenar 7y ago

Why domains are different? If I bought domain and registrar suddenly don't want to do business with Crimea users, just banning them, is there anything I can do? I guess, the only safe way to host something is to use onion network.

yakireev 7y ago
This actually happened when these sanctions were first implemented. US registrars notified their customers from Crimea that they wouldn't be providing them any services from now on, and the customers all just quietly migrated to European registrars. See the difference? Domains were not seized, traffic was not silently redirected to /dev/null. Microsoft could do something along these lines too, but instead just chose to be evil.
- vbezhenar 7y ago
  I can see the difference between Microsoft and some of those companies. I'm not sure that some particular company won't act in Microsoft's way. May be there's some regulation above those companies that they must let their customers to move domains if they don't want to work with them? That's what I asked. Other than that, those are just anecdotal cases.

stronglikedan 7y ago

True, but you should also make a fuss if it happens to you. If no one complains, then nothing can change.

smsm42 7y ago

The problem is not him losing access to his code. He actually probably wouldn't as he likely has a local copy. The problem is that much of the open source infrastructure now relies on github repos, npm repos (which are now owned by github btw), and so on corporate resources. And those can apparently be completely wiped off the internet because somebody made a random offhand comment somewhere. Avoiding github and similar repositories would require pretty much giving up all modern open source infrastructure - or taking extraordinary measures of keeping a local mirror of every single repository you've ever used and every dependency of those and of the software running those. This is not a normal situation. I understand when a corporation needs some CYA policy to avoid charges of "hostile environment" or whatever. But for whole open source development world be the hostage of these policies is not a normal situation. We need separation of corporate PC and technology, otherwise it ends in a lot of trouble for everybody.