3 ms·

I would be more sympathetic to this position if GitHub allowed user-provided domains as CNAMES; and I mean in both directions: redirecting you off github.com to

by saurik 6y ago

I would be more sympathetic to this position if GitHub allowed user-provided domains as CNAMES; and I mean in both directions: redirecting you off github.com to the user's domain name, allowing true federated independence from the centralized platform. Without this feature, the argument is nonsense: you may as well be making the same claim about any other hosting service, as you can almost always pick up your content and put it somewhere... the question is how to update the hundreds, thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of links to your content once you decide to (or are forced to) migrate :/.

saagarjha 6y ago
As much as I hate that the web, like many memory unsafe languages, permits dangling pointers, I feel like it would be a huge phishing/open redirect/some other web security buzzwords if this happens. Plus, can you even CNAME a specific URL (as opposed to redirecting it)?
- saurik 6y ago
  I don't understand what "CNAME a specific URL" means. (If you are thinking "can this be done in any reasonable way without GitHub adding the feature", the answer is "no": they would have to provide the feature on their end, to provide the right content given the right hostname, the same way many other companies have over the years, including Medium, which is but one of many possible specific examples I mostly bring up as I hear they recently stopped allowing this and it has correctly made people say others should no longer use the platform due to URL lock-in.)
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    I'm talking about CNAME, which as I understand lets you do something like "saagarjha.github.com" → "saagarjha.com" but not "github.com/saagarjha" → "saagarjha.com". Of course, GitHub would need to support this on their end, but I don't think the second is possible using CNAMEs, which is what you would really want?

3 ms·

I would be more sympathetic to this position if GitHub allowed user-provided domains as CNAMES; and I mean in both directions: redirecting you off github.com to

by saurik 6y ago

saagarjha 6y ago
As much as I hate that the web, like many memory unsafe languages, permits dangling pointers, I feel like it would be a huge phishing/open redirect/some other web security buzzwords if this happens. Plus, can you even CNAME a specific URL (as opposed to redirecting it)?
- saurik 6y ago
  I don't understand what "CNAME a specific URL" means. (If you are thinking "can this be done in any reasonable way without GitHub adding the feature", the answer is "no": they would have to provide the feature on their end, to provide the right content given the right hostname, the same way many other companies have over the years, including Medium, which is but one of many possible specific examples I mostly bring up as I hear they recently stopped allowing this and it has correctly made people say others should no longer use the platform due to URL lock-in.)
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    I'm talking about CNAME, which as I understand lets you do something like "saagarjha.github.com" → "saagarjha.com" but not "github.com/saagarjha" → "saagarjha.com". Of course, GitHub would need to support this on their end, but I don't think the second is possible using CNAMEs, which is what you would really want?