4 ms·

Since the Microsoft takeover, the platform is compromised. It seems people have very short memories.

by encom 6y ago

stu2b50 6y ago
I'm curious, what is the threat model? For SDL, for example, what's the nightmare scenario with Github and Microsoft?
- encom 6y ago
  Why engage with a company that have proven themselves to be an enemy of Free Software? I'm not buying their "how do you do, fellow Linux users" facade.
  - stu2b50 6y ago
    So, to ask again, what is a specific way that choosing Github and Microsoft can hurt a software project in the future? I'm not asking in bad faith here. If there are such dangerous I would very much like to know them.
    - encom 6y ago
      Look, I don't know. Speculating seems like a pointless exercise, and I'm already being downvoted for not liking Microsoft enough. I think I'm just about done with this website.
    - qbasic_forever 6y ago
      SDL is a project with a long history, so let's pretend they move a backlog of 5,000 issues over to Github. Everything is great--now users can search, discuss, open, manage, etc. all these issues on a slick web UI. People are happy and things just work. Now some years later there's a blog post from Github, "An update to our free tier" that outlines dramatic changes. It turns out Microsoft needs to make some changes to keep their shareholders happy with their returns. Now Github only allows 2,500 issues per repo on the free tier--you'll be wowed with slick graphs that show for 99.999% of users they'll never even know or notice this new limitation. People will post long comments on the Hackernews thread about how 2,500 issues ought to be enough for anybody and that Github/Microsoft actually love developers _more_ because they're willing to reduce the features than shut down the business. And now SDL is in a bind.. a free project that generates no revenue now is facing a dilemma. Should they pony up real dollars to keep the history of their 25+ year old project? The cost of moving source control isn't trivial and is a huge ops burden that keeps the devs from doing real work... and cha-ching out comes the credit card, out goes a $100/mo then $200/mo etc, etc. charge. This isn't some wild speculation, look at Microsoft products like Onedrive that clawed back huge free tiers of storage in the past. It's just an inevitability with commercial software that costs will rise and someone will be squeezed for money.
      - zamadatix 6y ago
        So the threat is some number of years down the line they may have to go back to paying to host and maintain the infrastructure themselves again? I'd take that deal.
        Lammy 6y ago
        Tough luck for anyone who had linked to the project/issues on github dot com instead of sdl dot org.
        easton 6y ago
        It's probable that in that instance they could just pay for GitHub datacenter or whatever Microsoft chooses to name the new evil plan. But Microsoft has little reason to turn evil again (open-source projects generally have little money and won't spend it on source control/issues when there's a free competitor), as we're at a crossroads where nobody needs Microsoft software anymore (iOS/Android/Mac/Chrome OS for personal computing, Google/Amazon for cloud), so they need the advertising for their cloud. Therefore, $500K per year or thereabouts to host all of the open-source code on GitHub and provide some amount of CI minutes is worth it to get people to ask for GitHub/Azure at work.
        pwdisswordfish6 6y ago
        It genuinely surprises the shit out of me that people haven't created a "middleware" layer that treats GitHub as its backend / source of truth, but everything gets routed through a custom domain. E.g., spin up this glorified reverse proxy on Heroku, and now example.com/bugs is really just example.github.io/bugs, which is a page with all its form actions pointing to the Heroku service acting as a go-between for managing github.com/example/whatever/issues with full backups, etc.
    - cmonbro2 6y ago
      Changing pricing or terms of service.. don't be stupid.
genmud 6y ago
Microsoft is a completely different company than it was even just 5 or 10 years ago. Saying that MS is an enemy of open source is uninformed at best and idiotic at worse. Do me a favor, look at Facebook [1], Apple [2], Amazon [3], Netflix [4] and Google [5]. Now tell me which one has more Open Source repos than MS [6]. I'll give you a hint... none of them. Sure, volume of open source repos may not be the best metric, but to say in 2021 they are enemies of open source with almost 4k open source repos is just dumb. Hell, even the new MS terminal [7] is open source. They realized that FOSS isn't the enemy and is actually good for the tech industry at large. [1] https://github.com/facebook https://github.com/facebook [2] https://github.com/apple https://github.com/apple [3] https://github.com/amzn https://github.com/amzn [4] https://github.com/Netflix https://github.com/Netflix [5] https://github.com/google https://github.com/google [6] https://github.com/microsoft https://github.com/microsoft [7] https://github.com/microsoft/terminal https://github.com/microsoft/terminal
- cogman10 6y ago
  And this, btw, is the KEY to show that if MS decides to be evil there's a LOT of motivated players that would happily step in with a new platform and take over. The fact that Apple is trusting MS with their source code really should tell you that your open source project will be fine. What you'll want to watch out for is when these other competitors decide to abandon ship.
- tra3 6y ago
  You're factually correct, but you've probably forgotten the "3 Es": "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" [0]. Microsoft is a business and is therefore about maximizing profits. I'd rather not assume anything, especially not that they are somehow friendly to the OSS movement. Lets give it a few more years before we assume that OSS is something they are gonna do long term. Otherwise, it's like "free" google products; here today, gone tomorrow. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
  - ocdtrekkie 6y ago
    EEE is from a meeting in 1996 by someone who left the company in 2000. It's really hard for anyone to claim it represents the company today or even a decade ago.

Since the Microsoft takeover, the platform is compromised. It seems people have very short memories.

by encom 6y ago

Since the Microsoft takeover, the platform is compromised. It seems people have very short memories.

stu2b50 6y ago

I'm curious, what is the threat model? For SDL, for example, what's the nightmare scenario with Github and Microsoft?

encom 6y ago
Why engage with a company that have proven themselves to be an enemy of Free Software? I'm not buying their "how do you do, fellow Linux users" facade.
- stu2b50 6y ago
  So, to ask again, what is a specific way that choosing Github and Microsoft can hurt a software project in the future? I'm not asking in bad faith here. If there are such dangerous I would very much like to know them.
  - encom 6y ago
    Look, I don't know. Speculating seems like a pointless exercise, and I'm already being downvoted for not liking Microsoft enough. I think I'm just about done with this website.
  - qbasic_forever 6y ago
    SDL is a project with a long history, so let's pretend they move a backlog of 5,000 issues over to Github. Everything is great--now users can search, discuss, open, manage, etc. all these issues on a slick web UI. People are happy and things just work. Now some years later there's a blog post from Github, "An update to our free tier" that outlines dramatic changes. It turns out Microsoft needs to make some changes to keep their shareholders happy with their returns. Now Github only allows 2,500 issues per repo on the free tier--you'll be wowed with slick graphs that show for 99.999% of users they'll never even know or notice this new limitation. People will post long comments on the Hackernews thread about how 2,500 issues ought to be enough for anybody and that Github/Microsoft actually love developers _more_ because they're willing to reduce the features than shut down the business. And now SDL is in a bind.. a free project that generates no revenue now is facing a dilemma. Should they pony up real dollars to keep the history of their 25+ year old project? The cost of moving source control isn't trivial and is a huge ops burden that keeps the devs from doing real work... and cha-ching out comes the credit card, out goes a $100/mo then $200/mo etc, etc. charge. This isn't some wild speculation, look at Microsoft products like Onedrive that clawed back huge free tiers of storage in the past. It's just an inevitability with commercial software that costs will rise and someone will be squeezed for money.
    - zamadatix 6y ago
      So the threat is some number of years down the line they may have to go back to paying to host and maintain the infrastructure themselves again? I'd take that deal.
      - Lammy 6y ago
        Tough luck for anyone who had linked to the project/issues on github dot com instead of sdl dot org.
        easton 6y ago
        It's probable that in that instance they could just pay for GitHub datacenter or whatever Microsoft chooses to name the new evil plan. But Microsoft has little reason to turn evil again (open-source projects generally have little money and won't spend it on source control/issues when there's a free competitor), as we're at a crossroads where nobody needs Microsoft software anymore (iOS/Android/Mac/Chrome OS for personal computing, Google/Amazon for cloud), so they need the advertising for their cloud. Therefore, $500K per year or thereabouts to host all of the open-source code on GitHub and provide some amount of CI minutes is worth it to get people to ask for GitHub/Azure at work.
        pwdisswordfish6 6y ago
        It genuinely surprises the shit out of me that people haven't created a "middleware" layer that treats GitHub as its backend / source of truth, but everything gets routed through a custom domain. E.g., spin up this glorified reverse proxy on Heroku, and now example.com/bugs is really just example.github.io/bugs, which is a page with all its form actions pointing to the Heroku service acting as a go-between for managing github.com/example/whatever/issues with full backups, etc.
  - cmonbro2 6y ago
    Changing pricing or terms of service.. don't be stupid.

genmud 6y ago

Microsoft is a completely different company than it was even just 5 or 10 years ago. Saying that MS is an enemy of open source is uninformed at best and idiotic at worse. Do me a favor, look at Facebook [1], Apple [2], Amazon [3], Netflix [4] and Google [5]. Now tell me which one has more Open Source repos than MS [6]. I'll give you a hint... none of them. Sure, volume of open source repos may not be the best metric, but to say in 2021 they are enemies of open source with almost 4k open source repos is just dumb. Hell, even the new MS terminal [7] is open source. They realized that FOSS isn't the enemy and is actually good for the tech industry at large. [1] https://github.com/facebook https://github.com/facebook [2] https://github.com/apple https://github.com/apple [3] https://github.com/amzn https://github.com/amzn [4] https://github.com/Netflix https://github.com/Netflix [5] https://github.com/google https://github.com/google [6] https://github.com/microsoft https://github.com/microsoft [7] https://github.com/microsoft/terminal https://github.com/microsoft/terminal

cogman10 6y ago
And this, btw, is the KEY to show that if MS decides to be evil there's a LOT of motivated players that would happily step in with a new platform and take over. The fact that Apple is trusting MS with their source code really should tell you that your open source project will be fine. What you'll want to watch out for is when these other competitors decide to abandon ship.
tra3 6y ago
You're factually correct, but you've probably forgotten the "3 Es": "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" [0]. Microsoft is a business and is therefore about maximizing profits. I'd rather not assume anything, especially not that they are somehow friendly to the OSS movement. Lets give it a few more years before we assume that OSS is something they are gonna do long term. Otherwise, it's like "free" google products; here today, gone tomorrow. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
- ocdtrekkie 6y ago
  EEE is from a meeting in 1996 by someone who left the company in 2000. It's really hard for anyone to claim it represents the company today or even a decade ago.