13 ms·

GitHub has monopolized open source development. The likelihood of your software being discovered, used or contributed to goes to zero as soon as you host it any

GitHub has monopolized open source development. The likelihood of your software being discovered, used or contributed to goes to zero as soon as you host it anywhere but GitHub.

surround 7y ago
That can change.
- rhinoceraptor 7y ago
  Yes, but it's not even just an end-user problem. Github is taken as assumed all over the place, for example Golang projects often directly download their dependencies from Github.
  - surround 7y ago
    Right, but instead of defeatism, people ought to start self-hosting sooner rather than later.
  - zelphirkalt 7y ago
    That is their problem. They should not rely on Github, especially now, that it is owned by MS.
  - tedunangst 7y ago
    Go will download modules from wherever their URL is.
- jakeogh 7y ago
  Is there a framework for putting the issues and PR's in the repo?
  - surround 7y ago
    You can self host open source alternatives such as Gitlab
Avamander 7y ago
Github does a lot of search engine discoverability improvements for you, if you self host, you probably have to spend that effort yourself. Very few non-GH projects do even the minimum, page descriptions, social metainfo (description, nice preview), and that's really sad. If you do however spend a bit of that effort, you can absolutely do without GH.
kbenson 7y ago
I rarely if ever come across a github repo from a search engine or from github's site. It's almost always linked from some module's info page, documentation, or some website that links to the repo. In that respect, it makes no difference to me if it's github, gitlab, or some random site. Finding some random github repo is almost worse than nothing to me. without some third party indicator as to quality, it's not worth my time, because I don't have time to review and assess everything I come across, only the items that I have some indication actually do what I need and do it sufficiently.
- cosmiccatnap 7y ago
  I have only ever gotten to githubs via goggle...
hobofan 7y ago
While GitHub has a clear advantage in terms of discoverability, if push comes to shove I think this could change fairly quickly. Language package repositories (npmjs.com, crates.io, etc.) or documentation hosting sites (docs.rs) tend to rank pretty well on Google, generally about the same as GitHub. For me personally a lot of project discovery also happens via either Reddit or HN. It's still a pretty big barrier for contributions, but at least discovery seems to be decently decentralized.
vbezhenar 7y ago
I search for libraries or programs with Google. While lots of software hosted in Github because it's convenient, it does not really matter as long as Google is functional. I have no idea why would I search on Github exclusively. That's sounds too limiting.
- Mathnerd314 7y ago
  Google doesn't index a lot of smaller Github repositories, or most of the code on Github for that matter.
  - jonfw 7y ago
    Github is very rarely the first link I click on when reading search results. Often you find the project home page, or a forum discussion, well before any of that
mcguire 7y ago
"GitHub has monopolized open source development." How exactly has GitHub done that? What actions has GitHub taken, other than providing a useful service? Open source developers have chosen to make GitHub a near monopoly.
- xlapp 7y ago
  Partly choice, partly company pressure on project's key developers (in terms of influence, not code quality or code contributions) to move to GitHub. Companies love GitHub because they think it provides metrics. Mediocre developers (the kind that gets influence in OSS projects) love GitHub because they appear productive.
  - KarlKemp 7y ago
    The number of contributors to Open Source Software has also grown by one or two orders of magnitude since Github came into being and standardised the pull request, replacing sourceforge (yuck), custom bug-trackers (with bugs tracked in yet another custom bug tracker) and mailing lists.
  - matchbok 7y ago
    Mediocre developers? Please. The arrogance here is astounding and not needed.
- rhinoceraptor 7y ago
  Github is not just git hosting. It's issues, pull requests, wikis, CI/CD, actions, etc. All of which are lock-in points that would prevent most people from leaving. I'm not blaming Github for this, I'm just pointing out that this is a serious problem. Even if you're a 100% benevolent company today, there's no telling what will happen in the arbitrary future.
rapnie 7y ago
> The likelihood of your software being discovered, used or contributed to goes to zero as soon as you host it anywhere but GitHub. There is hope with Federated Code Hosting being developed. https://feneas.org/federated-code-hosting/ https://feneas.org/federated-code-hosting/ https://forgefed.peers.community/ https://forgefed.peers.community/
krapp 7y ago
>GitHub has monopolized open source development. Github has done nothing of the sort - they're popular, but being popular is not the same as having a monopoly. > The likelihood of your software being discovered, used or contributed to goes to zero as soon as you host it anywhere but GitHub. Untrue. It's less likely, because again Github is more popular, but not zero, because popularity isn't monopoly. Active projects do exist elsewhere, people still use projects hosted on Sourceforge FFS. Unless Github can forcibly prevent competitors from arising by leveraging their control over resources or a legal advantage granted them by the government, they don't have a monopoly.
- Supermancho 7y ago
  > forcibly prevent competitors from arising by leveraging their control over resources or a legal advantage User visibility is a resource. While overwhelming popularity is not the same as a Monopoly (since they are from 2 different perspectives, they can't be equated), the effect is often the same.
  - krapp 7y ago
    It isn't a resource that Github controls, it's a resource that the user timeshares to Github. It isn't like steel or oil or fiberoptic cable, where it's infeasible for a new entrant without Github's resources to compete for user attention without insurmountable effort. OP could have spent their blog post informing users that the project would be hosted elsewhere, rather than going on a rant comparing Github to the Nazis, and that precious user visibility wouldn't have kept their userbase from moving elsewhere. Oh wait, they did, at the end of their post. So... why are we even here then?
- rhinoceraptor 7y ago
  This is similar to the Twitter/Facebook problem. Yes, they're not true monopolies, no one is forcing you to use Facebook. You can use whatever geeky federated project is in vogue, and talk to the three other people who also use it. But if you want to talk to your grandparents, you need to use Facebook.
samatman 7y ago
That explains why my terminal program, iTerm2, disappeared off my computer (zero use), and I was unable to find the repo (zero discovery) or file issues (zero contribution), since it's on Gitlab. Oh wait.
michaelmrose 7y ago
I have never discovered software via github and I doubt that many do quite frankly. People discover software via social channels. People who have heard of a piece of software and want to learn more about it usually do so via their search engine not directly via github. Having discovered it account creation DOES present a barrier to entry for those that want to contribute but nowadays many such services allow one to sign in with a social service. For example Gitlab.com allows one to sign on with google, twitter, salesforce, github, or bitbucket. Likely reducing the barrier to account creation to 30 seconds via oauth or 1 minute to create a new account via email. I don't find it credible that people who want to contribute hours to hundreds of hours of work will be liable to be put off by the need to do half a minute of work.
- lawl 7y ago
  I discover software on github quite frequently, via serps. I'm often pissed some obscure piece of software doesn't seem to exist, contemplate writing it myself, decide to append github to the search query and find someone who already wrote it. Litterally a day ago that's how I found https://github.com/werman/noise-suppression-for-voice https://github.com/werman/noise-suppression-for-voice
pvaldes 7y ago
> The likelihood of your software being discovered, used or contributed to goes to zero as soon as you host it anywhere but GitHub or apt, or cpan, or ctan, or cran, or PyPi, or ...

GitHub has monopolized open source development. The likelihood of your software being discovered, used or contributed to goes to zero as soon as you host it anywhere but GitHub.

surround 7y ago

That can change.

rhinoceraptor 7y ago
Yes, but it's not even just an end-user problem. Github is taken as assumed all over the place, for example Golang projects often directly download their dependencies from Github.
- surround 7y ago
  Right, but instead of defeatism, people ought to start self-hosting sooner rather than later.
- zelphirkalt 7y ago
  That is their problem. They should not rely on Github, especially now, that it is owned by MS.
- tedunangst 7y ago
  Go will download modules from wherever their URL is.
jakeogh 7y ago
Is there a framework for putting the issues and PR's in the repo?
- surround 7y ago
  You can self host open source alternatives such as Gitlab

Avamander 7y ago

Github does a lot of search engine discoverability improvements for you, if you self host, you probably have to spend that effort yourself. Very few non-GH projects do even the minimum, page descriptions, social metainfo (description, nice preview), and that's really sad. If you do however spend a bit of that effort, you can absolutely do without GH.

kbenson 7y ago

I rarely if ever come across a github repo from a search engine or from github's site. It's almost always linked from some module's info page, documentation, or some website that links to the repo. In that respect, it makes no difference to me if it's github, gitlab, or some random site. Finding some random github repo is almost worse than nothing to me. without some third party indicator as to quality, it's not worth my time, because I don't have time to review and assess everything I come across, only the items that I have some indication actually do what I need and do it sufficiently.

cosmiccatnap 7y ago
I have only ever gotten to githubs via goggle...

hobofan 7y ago

While GitHub has a clear advantage in terms of discoverability, if push comes to shove I think this could change fairly quickly. Language package repositories (npmjs.com, crates.io, etc.) or documentation hosting sites (docs.rs) tend to rank pretty well on Google, generally about the same as GitHub. For me personally a lot of project discovery also happens via either Reddit or HN. It's still a pretty big barrier for contributions, but at least discovery seems to be decently decentralized.

vbezhenar 7y ago

I search for libraries or programs with Google. While lots of software hosted in Github because it's convenient, it does not really matter as long as Google is functional. I have no idea why would I search on Github exclusively. That's sounds too limiting.

Mathnerd314 7y ago
Google doesn't index a lot of smaller Github repositories, or most of the code on Github for that matter.
- jonfw 7y ago
  Github is very rarely the first link I click on when reading search results. Often you find the project home page, or a forum discussion, well before any of that

mcguire 7y ago

"GitHub has monopolized open source development." How exactly has GitHub done that? What actions has GitHub taken, other than providing a useful service? Open source developers have chosen to make GitHub a near monopoly.

xlapp 7y ago
Partly choice, partly company pressure on project's key developers (in terms of influence, not code quality or code contributions) to move to GitHub. Companies love GitHub because they think it provides metrics. Mediocre developers (the kind that gets influence in OSS projects) love GitHub because they appear productive.
- KarlKemp 7y ago
  The number of contributors to Open Source Software has also grown by one or two orders of magnitude since Github came into being and standardised the pull request, replacing sourceforge (yuck), custom bug-trackers (with bugs tracked in yet another custom bug tracker) and mailing lists.
- matchbok 7y ago
  Mediocre developers? Please. The arrogance here is astounding and not needed.
rhinoceraptor 7y ago
Github is not just git hosting. It's issues, pull requests, wikis, CI/CD, actions, etc. All of which are lock-in points that would prevent most people from leaving. I'm not blaming Github for this, I'm just pointing out that this is a serious problem. Even if you're a 100% benevolent company today, there's no telling what will happen in the arbitrary future.

rapnie 7y ago

> The likelihood of your software being discovered, used or contributed to goes to zero as soon as you host it anywhere but GitHub. There is hope with Federated Code Hosting being developed. https://feneas.org/federated-code-hosting/ https://feneas.org/federated-code-hosting/ https://forgefed.peers.community/ https://forgefed.peers.community/

krapp 7y ago

>GitHub has monopolized open source development. Github has done nothing of the sort - they're popular, but being popular is not the same as having a monopoly. > The likelihood of your software being discovered, used or contributed to goes to zero as soon as you host it anywhere but GitHub. Untrue. It's less likely, because again Github is more popular, but not zero, because popularity isn't monopoly. Active projects do exist elsewhere, people still use projects hosted on Sourceforge FFS. Unless Github can forcibly prevent competitors from arising by leveraging their control over resources or a legal advantage granted them by the government, they don't have a monopoly.

Supermancho 7y ago
> forcibly prevent competitors from arising by leveraging their control over resources or a legal advantage User visibility is a resource. While overwhelming popularity is not the same as a Monopoly (since they are from 2 different perspectives, they can't be equated), the effect is often the same.
- krapp 7y ago
  It isn't a resource that Github controls, it's a resource that the user timeshares to Github. It isn't like steel or oil or fiberoptic cable, where it's infeasible for a new entrant without Github's resources to compete for user attention without insurmountable effort. OP could have spent their blog post informing users that the project would be hosted elsewhere, rather than going on a rant comparing Github to the Nazis, and that precious user visibility wouldn't have kept their userbase from moving elsewhere. Oh wait, they did, at the end of their post. So... why are we even here then?
rhinoceraptor 7y ago
This is similar to the Twitter/Facebook problem. Yes, they're not true monopolies, no one is forcing you to use Facebook. You can use whatever geeky federated project is in vogue, and talk to the three other people who also use it. But if you want to talk to your grandparents, you need to use Facebook.

samatman 7y ago

That explains why my terminal program, iTerm2, disappeared off my computer (zero use), and I was unable to find the repo (zero discovery) or file issues (zero contribution), since it's on Gitlab. Oh wait.

michaelmrose 7y ago

I have never discovered software via github and I doubt that many do quite frankly. People discover software via social channels. People who have heard of a piece of software and want to learn more about it usually do so via their search engine not directly via github. Having discovered it account creation DOES present a barrier to entry for those that want to contribute but nowadays many such services allow one to sign in with a social service. For example Gitlab.com allows one to sign on with google, twitter, salesforce, github, or bitbucket. Likely reducing the barrier to account creation to 30 seconds via oauth or 1 minute to create a new account via email. I don't find it credible that people who want to contribute hours to hundreds of hours of work will be liable to be put off by the need to do half a minute of work.

lawl 7y ago
I discover software on github quite frequently, via serps. I'm often pissed some obscure piece of software doesn't seem to exist, contemplate writing it myself, decide to append github to the search query and find someone who already wrote it. Litterally a day ago that's how I found https://github.com/werman/noise-suppression-for-voice https://github.com/werman/noise-suppression-for-voice

pvaldes 7y ago

> The likelihood of your software being discovered, used or contributed to goes to zero as soon as you host it anywhere but GitHub or apt, or cpan, or ctan, or cran, or PyPi, or ...