5 ms·

The problem with Github being completely open source is that no one would pay for the service part of it, which is the only way it can exist.

sp332 15y ago
I don't understand your point. Surely people do pay for hosted storage, even when the code is available?
- tzs 15y ago
  Looked at from the point of view of for-pay hosted storage, Github is astoundingly expensive. I have 94 megabytes of git repositories at work. Github would want $100/month to host that. If their software was all available and open source, I could host their software and my repositories on an $11/month Rackspace virtual machine, and still have about 7 gigabytes left over (or more realistically just stick it on a vhost on some machine I've already got on the internet and host it essentially for free). This is the brilliance of Github. They have found a way to sell storage at several orders of magnitude over the going rate--all because they have coupled it with some attractive proprietary software. Their value is entirely in that proprietary software.
  - mattyb 15y ago
    I have 94 megabytes of git repositories at work. Github would want $100/month to host that. Huh? My $7/month plan comes with 600+MB of storage, and my job's $50/month plan comes with 6GB. Where are you getting these numbers?
    - sjs 15y ago
      Number of repos.
      - gaius 15y ago
        Number of private repos. You can have an unlimited number of public repos with any plan.
        Argorak 15y ago
        Also: Number of private repositories that have their _root_ in your account. You can fork private projects between users with access to the root repos and not have them count against you limit.
    - tzs 15y ago
      Github pricing is by number of repositories. I have 37 repositories. That requires the "Gold" plan, which is $100/month.
    - jjm 15y ago
      Disk space is a soft limit. Hard limits are repos. I find it hard to beleive your company can't spend $100 on offloading to a managed resource such as GitHub.
      - mattyb 15y ago
        I find it hard to beleive your company can't spend $100 on offloading to a managed resource such as GitHub. Oh, we can. We just haven't needed to yet.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - p4bl0 15y ago
    You can do that with Gitorious and many other web front-end for git and/or other vcs (if you need a web front end at all, which is not really clear, and git-web is sufficient if you just need an easy way to link to some commits or file in your source tree). What would be nice on these open source web front-end for git is decentralized pull/merge requests, I don't know if there is one which does that yet (like you can follow someone with another Status.net install on identi.ca for instance, you could issue pull/merge requests from any "nodes"). Also, this would kind of make a lot of sense for a dvcs.
  - Confusion 15y ago
    They're not selling storage. They're selling an interface.
  - Dipen 15y ago
    Some time back I asked myself the same question as I am fine paying for the storage, usage but when it becomes a number of X ( repositories, collaborators) it gets somewhat annoying. So, 6-8 months ago I set out to host my own git server and liked gitorious for its fancy front end and ease of setting up keys and adding collaborators with diff rights, all good and was able to get it running in 90 mins or so. My real problems started on day 2 when it wasn't functioning the way I liked it to, some troubleshooting and found that stomp server exited for unknown reason so the message queue was not working, checked logs and restarted it. I kept having those problems abruptly and every time I had to ssh and restart the stompserver or the git-poller. I think it all depends on how u perceive cost, in my case it was much more than 11$/month coz of the num of hrs lost in maintaining and worrying about it and sometimes it didnt work for hrs when i was not in front of computer. It was then I chose to submit to github plans though I'd still like if I was being charged for usage (any kind) rather than number of X. So I think, like they say TCO was justified.
- robryan 15y ago
  Sure, except that storage is a commodity which you need to get pretty large scale to turn a decent profit, code is fairly light on on space. Github is able to charge a very large premium on it because of the unique service that they supply.
  - cookiecaper 15y ago
    GitHub is certainly overpriced for its private plans, but I don't think releasing the source would destroy their profitability. Once the ball gets rolling on something like GitHub, network effects play a major role in its continued usage and popularity. Good support and constant evolution of the platform also encourage users to pay for your hosted service even if the code is available elsewhere. GitHub's features like pull requests, profiles, and expected presence on resumes as the de-facto standard "git hub" (har, har, har), and overall convenience would continue to promote usage of github.com.
    - sjs 15y ago
      Github's widest margins are obviously at the high end business plans, and businesses would run an internal github in a second if it was OSS. There goes Github FI as well. It would cripple them, the only way they can possible host all open source projects at no charge is because they are subsidized by the big fish.
      - justincormack 15y ago
        Some businesses would, but many would not. Running internal services has a cost too. More likely though other providers would spring up and undercut their pricing but not invest in development.
    - tzs 15y ago
      I'm not sure I buy the network effects argument. It makes sense for repositories for open projects, but for private repositories I don't see where network effects come into play.
SkyMarshal 15y ago
Gitorious exists just fine doing that, they make money off support and consulting, same way most other FOSS projects that make money do it. http://gitorious.com/ http://gitorious.com/
mtogo 15y ago
Which is why they charge insanely exorbitant prices for simple git hosting.
- psadauskas 15y ago
  $7/mo is exorbitant? Even the biggest plan at $200 is essentially nothing for a small company. I have my complaints about github, but "exorbitant" isn't even close. They're a bargain.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- Confusion 15y ago
  Their interface is not 'simple'. They don't sell 'simple git hosting'. That's making the same mistake that people make when they think they can code Reddit in a weekend.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]

sp332 15y ago

I don't understand your point. Surely people do pay for hosted storage, even when the code is available?

tzs 15y ago
Looked at from the point of view of for-pay hosted storage, Github is astoundingly expensive. I have 94 megabytes of git repositories at work. Github would want $100/month to host that. If their software was all available and open source, I could host their software and my repositories on an $11/month Rackspace virtual machine, and still have about 7 gigabytes left over (or more realistically just stick it on a vhost on some machine I've already got on the internet and host it essentially for free). This is the brilliance of Github. They have found a way to sell storage at several orders of magnitude over the going rate--all because they have coupled it with some attractive proprietary software. Their value is entirely in that proprietary software.
- mattyb 15y ago
  I have 94 megabytes of git repositories at work. Github would want $100/month to host that. Huh? My $7/month plan comes with 600+MB of storage, and my job's $50/month plan comes with 6GB. Where are you getting these numbers?
  - sjs 15y ago
    Number of repos.
    - gaius 15y ago
      Number of private repos. You can have an unlimited number of public repos with any plan.
      - Argorak 15y ago
        Also: Number of private repositories that have their _root_ in your account. You can fork private projects between users with access to the root repos and not have them count against you limit.
  - tzs 15y ago
    Github pricing is by number of repositories. I have 37 repositories. That requires the "Gold" plan, which is $100/month.
  - jjm 15y ago
    Disk space is a soft limit. Hard limits are repos. I find it hard to beleive your company can't spend $100 on offloading to a managed resource such as GitHub.
    - mattyb 15y ago
      I find it hard to beleive your company can't spend $100 on offloading to a managed resource such as GitHub. Oh, we can. We just haven't needed to yet.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- p4bl0 15y ago
  You can do that with Gitorious and many other web front-end for git and/or other vcs (if you need a web front end at all, which is not really clear, and git-web is sufficient if you just need an easy way to link to some commits or file in your source tree). What would be nice on these open source web front-end for git is decentralized pull/merge requests, I don't know if there is one which does that yet (like you can follow someone with another Status.net install on identi.ca for instance, you could issue pull/merge requests from any "nodes"). Also, this would kind of make a lot of sense for a dvcs.
- Confusion 15y ago
  They're not selling storage. They're selling an interface.
- Dipen 15y ago
  Some time back I asked myself the same question as I am fine paying for the storage, usage but when it becomes a number of X ( repositories, collaborators) it gets somewhat annoying. So, 6-8 months ago I set out to host my own git server and liked gitorious for its fancy front end and ease of setting up keys and adding collaborators with diff rights, all good and was able to get it running in 90 mins or so. My real problems started on day 2 when it wasn't functioning the way I liked it to, some troubleshooting and found that stomp server exited for unknown reason so the message queue was not working, checked logs and restarted it. I kept having those problems abruptly and every time I had to ssh and restart the stompserver or the git-poller. I think it all depends on how u perceive cost, in my case it was much more than 11$/month coz of the num of hrs lost in maintaining and worrying about it and sometimes it didnt work for hrs when i was not in front of computer. It was then I chose to submit to github plans though I'd still like if I was being charged for usage (any kind) rather than number of X. So I think, like they say TCO was justified.
robryan 15y ago
Sure, except that storage is a commodity which you need to get pretty large scale to turn a decent profit, code is fairly light on on space. Github is able to charge a very large premium on it because of the unique service that they supply.
- cookiecaper 15y ago
  GitHub is certainly overpriced for its private plans, but I don't think releasing the source would destroy their profitability. Once the ball gets rolling on something like GitHub, network effects play a major role in its continued usage and popularity. Good support and constant evolution of the platform also encourage users to pay for your hosted service even if the code is available elsewhere. GitHub's features like pull requests, profiles, and expected presence on resumes as the de-facto standard "git hub" (har, har, har), and overall convenience would continue to promote usage of github.com.
  - sjs 15y ago
    Github's widest margins are obviously at the high end business plans, and businesses would run an internal github in a second if it was OSS. There goes Github FI as well. It would cripple them, the only way they can possible host all open source projects at no charge is because they are subsidized by the big fish.
    - justincormack 15y ago
      Some businesses would, but many would not. Running internal services has a cost too. More likely though other providers would spring up and undercut their pricing but not invest in development.
  - tzs 15y ago
    I'm not sure I buy the network effects argument. It makes sense for repositories for open projects, but for private repositories I don't see where network effects come into play.

SkyMarshal 15y ago

Gitorious exists just fine doing that, they make money off support and consulting, same way most other FOSS projects that make money do it. http://gitorious.com/ http://gitorious.com/

mtogo 15y ago

Which is why they charge insanely exorbitant prices for simple git hosting.

psadauskas 15y ago
$7/mo is exorbitant? Even the biggest plan at $200 is essentially nothing for a small company. I have my complaints about github, but "exorbitant" isn't even close. They're a bargain.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
Confusion 15y ago
Their interface is not 'simple'. They don't sell 'simple git hosting'. That's making the same mistake that people make when they think they can code Reddit in a weekend.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]