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Nat was a great CEO. The best that could have happened to Github after the acquisition IMO. The one time that I won't forget about Github under Nat, was when t

by ya3r 5y ago

Nat was a great CEO. The best that could have happened to Github after the acquisition IMO. The one time that I won't forget about Github under Nat, was when they stood up for Iranian developers [1]. They went the extra distance to get a permission/license from the US government specially to offer full Github to developers from Iran. Many other companies didn't do something similar. [1]: https://github.blog/2021-01-05-advancing-developer-freedom-github-is-fully-available-in-iran/ https://github.blog/2021-01-05-advancing-developer-freedom-g...

rarkins 5y ago
I agree. youtube-dl was another example of them turning a vulnerable moment into a win: https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1328365679473426432 https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1328365679473426432
- fragmede 5y ago
  Which, btw, was also thanks to the EFF. Their mission is occasionally murky these days, but their part in the subsequent restoration of youtube-dl in the face of a DMCA takedown is not to be ignored or forgotten. https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/11/2020-11-16-RIAA-reversal-effletter.pdf https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/11/2020-11-1...
  - depressedpanda 5y ago
    In what way is their mission occasionally murky?
    - fragmede 5y ago
      In the face of widely popular de-platforming of some individuals, it's not clear to me what the EFF's position should be. I don't want them to ignore current affairs (aka how to counter cultish indoctrination of people with totally bonkers lies like "the covid vaccine has a microchip in it") while at the same time preserving the freedom of speech we believe in (in the US).
rsync 5y ago
"They went the extra distance to get a permission/license from the US government specially to offer full Github to developers from Iran." Wait, that's a thing ? We get a signup from Iran about once every month and I always, apologetically, send a personal note saying that I wish we could provide service to them but ... You're saying rsync.net can legally provide service to Iranians with ... some paperwork ?
- ya3r 5y ago
  Definitely a thing. Regarding the cost, it might be more than "some paperwork".
  - AriaMinaei 5y ago
    Iranian dev here. I can tell you if a company goes the extra mile to provide services to us, the reason is almost always that they just care. It's not a marketing tactic. You have to care if you go through all that trouble. And there is very little publicity to these acts. No one is going to notice it but us. They only do it out of the goodness of their hearts.
    - rvnx 5y ago
      They also went the extra-mile to block Iranian developers, they didn't have to do so much police, and probably tried to buy their redemption. For example, in theory Hackernews should block Iranians, but they will probably pretend not to be aware and won't actively chase them.
      - IlliOnato 5y ago
        And if GitHub did not block Iranian developers _before_ it obtained the exemption, it would be in violation of sanctions, which carries both criminal and pretty much unlimited financial charges. I don't know whether HN violates sanctions, but comparing to GitHub HN is very, very small fish. The chances that GitHub would swim under the radar were pretty slim. Really, "this company obeys the law, so it is evil" is lame.
5faulker 5y ago
Here's another new chapter to software development.
ghuntley 5y ago
In case people missed it. There was two promotions today. A new CEO at GitHub and the person GitHub reports to a MSFT also got promoted. Here’s the internal msft email https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29098640 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29098640 This person at MSFT who got promoted is the one that caused the problems in the dotnet community where features that had a go-live RTM license (as in merged and ready for long term support) were removed from the programming language so that more Microsoft Visual Studio licenses could be sold. Other items under this persons remit: - Visual Studio - .NET - Python - TypeScript - OpenJDK - GitHub (+NPM) - (hint hint) Azure SDKs (hint hint) - (hint hint) Azure PaaS / Azure Serverless (hint hint)
- tailspin2019 5y ago
  Wow.
- DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
  > removed from the programming language so that more Microsoft Visual Studio licenses could be sold. Honestly, I’m fine with this level of dickishness so long as it means the rest of the VS ecosystem is free-to-use. Someone or something has to subsidise VSCode.
  - geofft 5y ago
    Right, I have to admit I don't entirely understand the .NET kerfuffle. .NET is clearly Microsoft's language ecosystem, just as much as Swift is Apple's, and much more so than, say, Go is Google's. A lot of the value in .NET is how it works with the Microsoft ecosystem - or put another way, as someone who mostly doesn't develop on Windows (but uses Windows a lot as a desktop OS), I have never once felt that .NET was the best way to solve a problem that wasn't a Windows-specific problem. It would be totally fine if .NET were a closed-source, Microsoft-run language. It is pretty cool that this isn't true. But the idea that Microsoft organizationally having control over the .NET open source project is somehow bad for open source is just incomprehensible to me, who grew up on .NET not being open source at all.
    - 5y ago
devoutsalsa 5y ago
I wonder if services of non-Iranians ever get canceled if they travel to Iran for vacation or business. Has anyone heard of that happening?
- mschuster91 5y ago
  Yes, there were occasional reports of people traveling to Iran, Cuba or North Korea who then happened to have their accounts blocked out.
ljm 5y ago
I once posted on here to give feedback about the new UI they were testing out at Github. The UI that you now see. All I said was that it's cool but I can't see the latest commit status (the result of your CI pipeline) any more, and that I sent that feedback through the official channels as it were. I think I tacked a less favourable comment on the end and that was also answered. First reply to my HN comment was from Nat, acknowledging it. That was cool. Also, solid leadership.
schneems 5y ago
I didn’t see the Iran thing. That’s interesting. I’m still personally waiting on “leveraging the vast resources of Microsoft will have the greatest likelihood of affecting public policy” regarding ICE. That was 2019. It’s almost like he didn’t actually intend on doing anything about it.

by ya3r 5y ago

rarkins 5y ago

I agree. youtube-dl was another example of them turning a vulnerable moment into a win: https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1328365679473426432 https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1328365679473426432

fragmede 5y ago
Which, btw, was also thanks to the EFF. Their mission is occasionally murky these days, but their part in the subsequent restoration of youtube-dl in the face of a DMCA takedown is not to be ignored or forgotten. https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/11/2020-11-16-RIAA-reversal-effletter.pdf https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/11/2020-11-1...
- depressedpanda 5y ago
  In what way is their mission occasionally murky?
  - fragmede 5y ago
    In the face of widely popular de-platforming of some individuals, it's not clear to me what the EFF's position should be. I don't want them to ignore current affairs (aka how to counter cultish indoctrination of people with totally bonkers lies like "the covid vaccine has a microchip in it") while at the same time preserving the freedom of speech we believe in (in the US).

rsync 5y ago

"They went the extra distance to get a permission/license from the US government specially to offer full Github to developers from Iran." Wait, that's a thing ? We get a signup from Iran about once every month and I always, apologetically, send a personal note saying that I wish we could provide service to them but ... You're saying rsync.net can legally provide service to Iranians with ... some paperwork ?

ya3r 5y ago
Definitely a thing. Regarding the cost, it might be more than "some paperwork".
- AriaMinaei 5y ago
  Iranian dev here. I can tell you if a company goes the extra mile to provide services to us, the reason is almost always that they just care. It's not a marketing tactic. You have to care if you go through all that trouble. And there is very little publicity to these acts. No one is going to notice it but us. They only do it out of the goodness of their hearts.
  - rvnx 5y ago
    They also went the extra-mile to block Iranian developers, they didn't have to do so much police, and probably tried to buy their redemption. For example, in theory Hackernews should block Iranians, but they will probably pretend not to be aware and won't actively chase them.
    - IlliOnato 5y ago
      And if GitHub did not block Iranian developers _before_ it obtained the exemption, it would be in violation of sanctions, which carries both criminal and pretty much unlimited financial charges. I don't know whether HN violates sanctions, but comparing to GitHub HN is very, very small fish. The chances that GitHub would swim under the radar were pretty slim. Really, "this company obeys the law, so it is evil" is lame.

5faulker 5y ago

Here's another new chapter to software development.

ghuntley 5y ago

In case people missed it. There was two promotions today. A new CEO at GitHub and the person GitHub reports to a MSFT also got promoted. Here’s the internal msft email https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29098640 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29098640 This person at MSFT who got promoted is the one that caused the problems in the dotnet community where features that had a go-live RTM license (as in merged and ready for long term support) were removed from the programming language so that more Microsoft Visual Studio licenses could be sold. Other items under this persons remit: - Visual Studio - .NET - Python - TypeScript - OpenJDK - GitHub (+NPM) - (hint hint) Azure SDKs (hint hint) - (hint hint) Azure PaaS / Azure Serverless (hint hint)

tailspin2019 5y ago
Wow.
DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
> removed from the programming language so that more Microsoft Visual Studio licenses could be sold. Honestly, I’m fine with this level of dickishness so long as it means the rest of the VS ecosystem is free-to-use. Someone or something has to subsidise VSCode.
- geofft 5y ago
  Right, I have to admit I don't entirely understand the .NET kerfuffle. .NET is clearly Microsoft's language ecosystem, just as much as Swift is Apple's, and much more so than, say, Go is Google's. A lot of the value in .NET is how it works with the Microsoft ecosystem - or put another way, as someone who mostly doesn't develop on Windows (but uses Windows a lot as a desktop OS), I have never once felt that .NET was the best way to solve a problem that wasn't a Windows-specific problem. It would be totally fine if .NET were a closed-source, Microsoft-run language. It is pretty cool that this isn't true. But the idea that Microsoft organizationally having control over the .NET open source project is somehow bad for open source is just incomprehensible to me, who grew up on .NET not being open source at all.
  - 5y ago

devoutsalsa 5y ago

I wonder if services of non-Iranians ever get canceled if they travel to Iran for vacation or business. Has anyone heard of that happening?

mschuster91 5y ago
Yes, there were occasional reports of people traveling to Iran, Cuba or North Korea who then happened to have their accounts blocked out.

ljm 5y ago

I once posted on here to give feedback about the new UI they were testing out at Github. The UI that you now see. All I said was that it's cool but I can't see the latest commit status (the result of your CI pipeline) any more, and that I sent that feedback through the official channels as it were. I think I tacked a less favourable comment on the end and that was also answered. First reply to my HN comment was from Nat, acknowledging it. That was cool. Also, solid leadership.

schneems 5y ago

I didn’t see the Iran thing. That’s interesting. I’m still personally waiting on “leveraging the vast resources of Microsoft will have the greatest likelihood of affecting public policy” regarding ICE. That was 2019. It’s almost like he didn’t actually intend on doing anything about it.