7 ms·
This is pure speculation, but it seems that GitHub's ownership by Microsoft causes them to be significantly more strict with the types of content that they are
by firloop 7y ago
This is pure speculation, but it seems that GitHub's ownership by Microsoft causes them to be significantly more strict with the types of content that they are comfortable hosting. Expect this to continue as they expand up and down the stack; once their npm acquisition closes you'll see this there too.
I think this should be a wake-up call to anyone staking their open source project on GitHub — if I let someone from a US sanctioned country contribute to my repo will I be banned? Hopefully mindshare moves to alternatives in due time.
- coliveira 7y agoNobody should depend on GitHub, especially after it was taken over by Microsoft. If you have any repository on GH, create similar accounts on competing sites such as bitbucket. Also consider services hosted in other countries, since it seems that local political prejudices and propaganda are starting to creep out on the science and technology arena.
- fartcannon 7y agoBetter yet, self host. Post RSS feeds.
- worble 7y agoAbsolutely agree with this, and if Gitlab's hardware requirements seem a little expensive, I can highly recommend Gitea[0]. It runs very happily on a $5 Digital Ocean droplet. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles, but for my basic needs, and presumably as a panic backup, it's a great bit of software. [0]https://gitea.io/en-us/ https://gitea.io/en-us/
- neop1x 7y agoPull requests and collaboration would be a bit more complicated, I guess. But as long as "Log in with ..." works to quickly create an account, it may be ok.
- shadowgovt 7y ago"local political prejudices and propaganda" is a fascinating way to interpret "The US list of sanctioned countries."
- freeone3000 7y agoIt's local to the US and it's prejudice and propaganda, so...?
- shadowgovt 7y agoI think I'd need a citation on why "prejudice and propaganda" applies here. The US doesn't turn to sanctions flippantly (it's not in the US's economic interests, in general, to take a trading partner off the table).
- slavik81 7y agoI probably wouldn't use language quite that strong, but the view from outside the US is definitely quite different. The US withdrawl from the Iran nuclear agreement was more a result of changes in the US than of changes in Iran. Barack Obama brokered the deal and he stated his clear opposition to Donald Trump's decision to end it. (https://facebook.com/barackobama/posts/10155854913976749 https://facebook.com/barackobama/posts/10155854913976749) The European Union was also a party to the Iran nuclear deal, and they thought so poorly of the resumption of US sanctions on Iran that they passed a law making it illegal for European companies to comply. (https://dw.com/en/eu-to-reactivate-blocking-statute-against-us-sanctions-on-iran-for-european-firms/a-43826992 https://dw.com/en/eu-to-reactivate-blocking-statute-against-...)
- philliphaydon 7y agoWhat other company was better suited to take over? Google? FB? Amazon? None of them... MS is the only company I would trust at this point.
- chatmasta 7y agoGitLab is fantastic, but GitHub has the most eyeballs and best discoverability features. As long as that remains true, GitHub will remain a better place to launch an open source product than alternatives.
- enriquto 7y agoYou can use any old git repo as your main source, and "dump" every commit into github for visibility. Any issues and pull request into the github site are replied by an automatic answer to use some other site.
- shadowgovt 7y ago... which diminishes the likelihood volunteers will join your project, because now they have to go learn another site.
- vetinari 7y agoIs it really a thing, to have to learn another site? If you know the basic functionality of Github, do you really have to learn to use similar functionality of Gitlab, Gitea, etc? Is it not enough to be familiar with the concepts?
- jan6 7y agowell, the UI is different, so you have to learn to use that... the concepts can be quite similar, but execution, isn't
- vetinari 7y agoSure, but the difference isn't that big. Just like when people were switching from the blue e to firefox/chrome: these were different browsers, with different UI, but the concept of browsing the internet was the same. So in the end, the different UI didn't matter.
- 7y ago
- stickfigure 7y agoThis seems peculiar since Rob Eisenberg (author of that tweet and lead of Aurelia) works for Microsoft.
- kemiller2002 7y ago...and from what I understand, they actually use it on some of their sites.
- khuey 7y agoSounds like a mistake.
- frankdenbow 7y agoMakes sense if you think of them as separate companies (which is how they are run)
- jslakro 7y agohttps://nouhailler.tumblr.com/image/21516226342 https://nouhailler.tumblr.com/image/21516226342
- frankdenbow 7y agoMaybe >5 years ago, culture has changed under Satya :)
- itronitron 7y agowell, that helps explain the CEO's responsiveness in sorting it out
- frankdenbow 7y agoMicrosoft lets Github run independently https://www.businessinsider.com/github-coo-microsoft-azure-erica-brescia-2020-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/github-coo-microsoft-azure-e...
- shadowgovt 7y agoThere's independently and independently. MS is on the hook for violations of US sanctions by any of its subsidiaries and constituent organizations; one can assume the legal team keeps an eye on Github's operations even if the main operations team allows for independent goals and direction of work.
- tw04 7y agoI'm not sure why you'd lay the blame at Microsoft's feet. You could self-host and your ISP would still take you down if you were violating US sanctions in most parts of the world. If they did this by accident, and you've got some proof the decisions was made by someone that's actually FROM Microsoft and not a legacy Github employee, by all means present it. Otherwise you're just gas-lighting.
- vetinari 7y ago> your ISP would still take you down if you were violating US sanctions in most parts of the world No, they would not. These are US sanctions, not most parts of the world sanctions. You could have problems with companies in the jurisdiction of US, but most parts of the world are not it.
- tw04 7y agoIf that's not an idealists view of how the world works. So you think if you're in Japan that NTT is going to risk losing ALL of their US contracts for a random home user that's violating US sanctions? Good luck with that. Just because you aren't in US jurisdictions doesn't mean your ISP doesn't make a LOT of money off the US market. Not to mention the mass exodus of customers if they were banned from all US based content: All Microsoft properties All facebook properties All Google and Amazon properties etc. etc. etc.
- ta999999171 7y agoGreat job at summarizing the problem with centralization.
- vetinari 7y agoDoes not work that way. How do you think Iran and North Korea are connected to Internet in the first place? For NTT and US, such a situation would be a PR disaster. It would be very difficult for them to explain to the public, why they are applying foreign laws to Japanese citizens. Even US knows that, and they would never push for such draconian thing.
- solinent 7y agoYes, these trade sanctions will definitely cause these issues--if they operate a business or do any dealings with businesses in countries which are embargo'd they will lose their ability to sell their product internationally, since Microsoft also fulfills defense contracts it probably makes these obligations even stronger, though I am not a lawyer. I think at this point Fossil is looking really really good.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- bdcravens 7y ago> Microsoft causes them to be significantly more strict with the types of content that they are comfortable hosting The law as written doesn't allow subjective decision based on what they're comfortable with.
- dependenttypes 7y agoThis is true, and not only for US regulation-related reasons. They also removed multiple political writings about people criticising their authoritarian governments as well as games with sexually explicit content (but no images).
- dopamean 7y ago> This is pure speculation > Expect this to continue I'm not expecting anything to continue based on "pure speculation."
- Twirrim 7y agoNote: This is the company that is acquiring NPM. Which now also is going to have to deal with the messy reality of us sanctions, if they'd been dodging them before. Prior to this it wouldn't have been entirely beyond the pale for NPM to move ownership to another country if it proved to onerous. The threshold for "too onerous" is likely to be significantly higher at Microsoft / Github.
- bbrree66 7y agoUnsubstantiated speculation that is simply confirmation bias of what you want to be true without evidence.
- DreamScatter 7y agoThat's why i push my git to both github and gitlab simultaneously. Git makes this easy to do, there is no reason to not use both.