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Is anyone else worried about the mass centralization of Open Source projects at one central point of failure on github? especially since it's owned by an Ameri

Is anyone else worried about the mass centralization of Open Source projects at one central point of failure on github? especially since it's owned by an American company and I assume hosted within the United States

cel1ne 6y ago
Not really, since everybody who cloned a repo has a full copy of everything. Reminds me of the saying that writing git was just a backup strategy for Linus Torvalds: FTP-mirrors were the first step to ensure that the kernel was never lost, git was needed to mirror the source-history as well.
- zdw 6y ago
  Except all the proprietary lock-in tools they add to Git like the issue tracker, PR's, discussion, wiki, released binaries, container registry, access control settings, etc.
  - pb82 6y ago
    I think you mean Github, those features are not part of git.
    - chrisseaton 6y ago
      That's what they said - 'add to Git'. > proprietary lock-in tools they add to Git Git + their other stuff = GitHub.
    - alessivs 6y ago
      Of course the immediate parent meant GitHub. It is the grand-parent comment that conflated the two: > one central point of failure on github? >> Not really, since everybody who cloned a repo has a full copy of everything. (everything != Git repo)
andrewla 6y ago
Not me. The fact that it's in git makes it easy to mirror and export, so I don't consider github to be a central point of failure. Issue tracking and PR handling lives in the github UI, but the significant change here is a change from Mercurial to Git, which I hold as a positive development. Fundamentally git is a data storage format that is very well-defined, with a standard command-line interface which is fine, not great. Mercurial has an arguably better command-line interface, but a data structure that is not well-defined or documented, and the main interface to hg is through python-based plugins, which is just awful.
- giancarlostoro 6y ago
  Agreed, if it were not for the nature of how git works I would then be a little worried.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  You even see GitHub mirrors for got projects hosted privately, which is good. If github went away, tons of projects would need to rework their workflow, but very few people would actually lose their code, which is the most expensive asset to restore.
- quleap 6y ago
  There is no way that git command-line interface can be called anything remotely close to fine. It's really sad that something as badly designed as git command line is taking over the world.
geodel 6y ago
No bigger problem than someone is using software developed by an American company and hosted on platform of another company
chrisseaton 6y ago
It has its trade-offs I guess. But I think people are forgetting what a nightmare it was before websites such as GitHub. Just browsing the source of open source projects used to be a terrible experience. Let alone the issue trackers - Bugzilla! I'll take unfortunate centralisation over source code browsing like https://hg.openjdk.java.net/jdk/jdk/ https://hg.openjdk.java.net/jdk/jdk/ and pull requests like https://cr.openjdk.java.net/~ngasson/8251923/webrev.1/ https://cr.openjdk.java.net/~ngasson/8251923/webrev.1/. And the issue trackers, which is what most people complain about on GitHub, weren't distributed before, so we haven't lost anything there.
- aardvark179 6y ago
  In some ways I think it’s a pity that none of the attempts to store issues in the git repo itself have taken off. It would be an interesting world where the state of a bug was tied to the state of the source.
  - nytgop77 6y ago
    not in git, but relevant: vcs with issue tracker built in. Fossil. https://fossil-scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/index.wiki https://fossil-scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/index.wiki
NationalPark 6y ago
It's definitely an improvement to figuring out which "Download" button on the Sourceforge page gets you the code rather than BonziBuddy.
devwastaken 6y ago
Bandwidth is expensive, the only way you get hosting like this for free is that a company makes profits other ways. We cannot afford to self host.
- teknopurge 6y ago
  Entirely depends on how much. Bandwidth is not very expensive, and once you're at-scale it goes to 0.
vfistri2 6y ago
I am, pepperidge farm remembers and so do i a couple of years ago the US leveraged their power to block access to Iran and a couple of other countries afaik

cel1ne 6y ago

Not really, since everybody who cloned a repo has a full copy of everything. Reminds me of the saying that writing git was just a backup strategy for Linus Torvalds: FTP-mirrors were the first step to ensure that the kernel was never lost, git was needed to mirror the source-history as well.

zdw 6y ago
Except all the proprietary lock-in tools they add to Git like the issue tracker, PR's, discussion, wiki, released binaries, container registry, access control settings, etc.
- pb82 6y ago
  I think you mean Github, those features are not part of git.
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    That's what they said - 'add to Git'. > proprietary lock-in tools they add to Git Git + their other stuff = GitHub.
  - alessivs 6y ago
    Of course the immediate parent meant GitHub. It is the grand-parent comment that conflated the two: > one central point of failure on github? >> Not really, since everybody who cloned a repo has a full copy of everything. (everything != Git repo)

andrewla 6y ago

Not me. The fact that it's in git makes it easy to mirror and export, so I don't consider github to be a central point of failure. Issue tracking and PR handling lives in the github UI, but the significant change here is a change from Mercurial to Git, which I hold as a positive development. Fundamentally git is a data storage format that is very well-defined, with a standard command-line interface which is fine, not great. Mercurial has an arguably better command-line interface, but a data structure that is not well-defined or documented, and the main interface to hg is through python-based plugins, which is just awful.

giancarlostoro 6y ago
Agreed, if it were not for the nature of how git works I would then be a little worried.
ashtonkem 6y ago
You even see GitHub mirrors for got projects hosted privately, which is good. If github went away, tons of projects would need to rework their workflow, but very few people would actually lose their code, which is the most expensive asset to restore.
quleap 6y ago
There is no way that git command-line interface can be called anything remotely close to fine. It's really sad that something as badly designed as git command line is taking over the world.

geodel 6y ago

No bigger problem than someone is using software developed by an American company and hosted on platform of another company

chrisseaton 6y ago

It has its trade-offs I guess. But I think people are forgetting what a nightmare it was before websites such as GitHub. Just browsing the source of open source projects used to be a terrible experience. Let alone the issue trackers - Bugzilla! I'll take unfortunate centralisation over source code browsing like https://hg.openjdk.java.net/jdk/jdk/ https://hg.openjdk.java.net/jdk/jdk/ and pull requests like https://cr.openjdk.java.net/~ngasson/8251923/webrev.1/ https://cr.openjdk.java.net/~ngasson/8251923/webrev.1/. And the issue trackers, which is what most people complain about on GitHub, weren't distributed before, so we haven't lost anything there.

aardvark179 6y ago
In some ways I think it’s a pity that none of the attempts to store issues in the git repo itself have taken off. It would be an interesting world where the state of a bug was tied to the state of the source.
- nytgop77 6y ago
  not in git, but relevant: vcs with issue tracker built in. Fossil. https://fossil-scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/index.wiki https://fossil-scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/index.wiki

NationalPark 6y ago

It's definitely an improvement to figuring out which "Download" button on the Sourceforge page gets you the code rather than BonziBuddy.

devwastaken 6y ago

Bandwidth is expensive, the only way you get hosting like this for free is that a company makes profits other ways. We cannot afford to self host.

teknopurge 6y ago
Entirely depends on how much. Bandwidth is not very expensive, and once you're at-scale it goes to 0.

vfistri2 6y ago

I am, pepperidge farm remembers and so do i a couple of years ago the US leveraged their power to block access to Iran and a couple of other countries afaik