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As a leader of a FOSS project that is on github, and migrated off of sourceforge because SVN and email patches were not scaling - I'm a bit confused by this art

As a leader of a FOSS project that is on github, and migrated off of sourceforge because SVN and email patches were not scaling - I'm a bit confused by this article. Co-pilot has issues, ergo github is going the way of sourceforge, and so now we must abandon github? Do I have that reasoning correct? We need to: - migrate the bug queue - have all links in commit history break - application integration with githib for bug reporting be removed - update documentation - find a new website host (and no longer github.io) - find a new CI/CD (we were already burned by travis, github workflows are nice) - teach our user contributors to actually use git! There has been a lot of heartache from them that they have to use the pencil icon on a web ui to edit config files, now we have to take them back to using a git GUI client! We were on github before that blessed pencil icon feature came out, there was no end to the wailing about how unapproachable the process was (super frustrating when users see they have to do something.. frustrating for us because our users wanted to just email is stuff so we could then do the uploading to git work) - lose all PR history - migrate project tracking - find a new place to host release artifacts - update our website to use a new distribution URL (the website scrapes github api to get latest version for download link; it's nice never updating website as we do releases on every merge) - figure out and migrate repository permissions. (We have a hundred repositories of user generated plugin content, everything about migrating that would be a lot of work and missing important features) - lose our search ranking and rebuild our SEO What else to add to this pile.. and all because co-pilot smells?? Meanwhile all of that work is busy work, and not at all feature-pare. That kind of migration would take a long time, seems like that pivot without good reason is the worst kind of churn. Convince me this article is not a temper tantrum about copilot...

npteljes 4y ago
>What else to add to this pile.. and all because co-pilot smells?? You are absolutely right that this all is a huge pain in the ass. GitHub, and later Microsoft, played their cards well. The product both works well, and also creates such a moat of vendor lock-in that it won't make sense to leave.
rv77ax 4y ago
This is called "vendor lock-in" [1]. I believe you have heard it before. If the article's writer read this, please add this as one of the reason why FOSS need to move from GitHub. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in
CRConrad 4y ago
> I'm a bit confused by this article. Obviously. > Co-pilot has issues, ergo github is going the way of sourceforge, and so now we must abandon github? Do I have that reasoning correct? No, you don't. If you had actually read the whole article[1], you would have noticed that they also listed several other issues which far predate Copilot. ___ [1]: You need to correct this part of the guidelines, dang. Some times -- like here -- the injunction against saying this is just fucking wrong.
- seadan83 4y ago
  TL;DR: The rest of the article is vacuous, the list of other reasons is a link of bothersome but not compelling other reasons. In sum, it's not a compelling argument to give up github. I disagree that the correct course of action based on the arguments presented would be to boycott Github rather than take any of course of action that would lobby them to change. If this is just fucking wrong, I wonder about the implication. Would you say, I am just fucking right? I would be careful whenever having any such conviction. If I were already a hater of github, this article would have resonated with me a lot more. Perhaps there is some kool-aid drinking happening here? Maybe not and everything is totally reason to abandon Github as a hosting platform. > you would have noticed that they also listed several other issues which far predate Copilot. I don't quite see that list. I do see this article as quite focused on co-pilot. Though, I do see this: > There are so many good reasons to give up on GitHub, and we list the major ones on our Give Up On GitHub site. We were already considering this action ourselves for some time, but last week's event showed that this action is overdue. Which links to this https://sfconservancy.org/GiveUpGitHub/ https://sfconservancy.org/GiveUpGitHub/ (I'll point out here, linking to a list is different from listing the other points, so.. 'fucking right?') Re-capping that list from sfconservancy: (1) co-pilot (2) contracts with ice (3) githubs hosting code itself is not FOSS (4) no self-hosting with github code options (again, github hosting is itself not FOSS) (5) work to discredit copyleft (6) wholly owned by MSFT In this article, it essentially says that co-pilot was the last straw, and a decisively large one at that. So my response is still, this is the last straw where we need to abandon github? If you are fully vested in the other reasons, then I think that this article would be preaching to the choir. For me, points 1-6 are bothersome, but still just 2s and 4s on the 1-10 scale of fire alarms. My personal take on this list: (1) co-pilot: seems problematic, perhaps github can fix it. Maybe a better solution is to lobby github first before doing a cancel campaign (2) ice contracts: this is bothersome; but I can see how it could be a bit complicated given ownership by MSFT and the complexity of government contracts. It is bothersome though. (3) closed source: I don't put a lot of weight to this criticism. Just because I can't run Githubs code for myself.. I mostly shrug. Yes, I'd prefer for it to be open source too, but I respect there are various for-profit models out there (and holy-hell I wish I was payed market-rate for FOSS work). (4) no self-hosting option: Seems like the same point as (3) (5) CEO leadership discrediting copyleft: bothersome, but without concrete examples, for me it is not fully substantive and just bothersome (but not major, like, wow, they are shutting down FOSS projects, or aiding in getting them taken down by ginning up BS charges, etc..). So, yes, the CEOs of Github were at times discouraging to copyleft. Are they evil incarnate here where those bad actors needs to spurn everything Github? Did the CEOs of Github personally oversee any FOSS projects being sued, or made into non-FOSS? Did they personally increase the cost on FOSS? (6) owned by MSFT: big companies are big companies and they are really hard to avoid completely... MSFT has had a big culture shift in the last 5, 10 and 15 years. It's not the same company it once was. That is not to say this is not a concern. Though, until I have specifics around how/why I thnk MSFT has become actively evil, this remains just a notable concern. > If you had actually read the whole article[1] Apologies for seeming like I only commented on the first paragraph. A lot of the article seems vacuous to me and generally trying to gin up a mountain out of what might just be a gnarly hill.
nunez 4y ago
Teaching people how to use Git is a BIG one. Git is confusing for just about everyone. It is really easy to shoot yourself in the foot once you step away from git add/git commit/git push. Hell, you can foot-gun yourself even with the usual workflow. GUIs help with bridging the gap, but because the GUIs make everything that's actually happening opaque, troubleshooting gets really complicated when something goes wrong (GitHub also sells professional services). Github and Gitlab have done a lot to make Git easier.
rglullis 4y ago
Forget Copilot for a second. Do you think it is healthy for the industry to be so dependent on one single service provider, and a closed one on top of that?
- natefinch 4y ago
  I think it's like any social network. It grows in value with how many people use it. Yes, you can host your own public git repo or even your own gitlab, but then there's a barrier of entry to contribute to your code, and it's a lot harder for others to discover it. disclosure: I work for github
  - alcover 4y ago
    > barrier of entry to contribute to your code What barrier, may I ask ? > it's a lot harder for others to discover it. The vast majority of stars I got was from a HN submission, not from organic discovery through GH search.
    - natefinch 4y ago
      Familiarity with the UX and conventions on that platform. Almost everyone knows how to make a PR against a GitHub repo. But some random other code hosting site? It would be a lot less familiar, and people would have to spend time making an account and figuring out how to contribute. Even low barriers of entry can cause a big drop in user engagement.
  - rglullis 4y ago
    The network grows in value with the size of the protocol, not just with a platform. Social networks can and should operate like email, not like siloed platforms. All the value ends up being captured and controlled by one single entity. (I will not get in a tangent about web3, but that is the one thing that web3 skeptics always fail to acknowledge is how the current web is broken in that regard. We were promised open protocols, and we end up with a handful of companies building their own walled gardens) The only way that Github would get any modicum of credibility would be if they joined the effort from codeberg/forgefed and integrated with activitypub. As it is now, github will be nothing but a mirror for my repositories that I will be hosting on gitlab and/or my own gitea.
quadrifoliate 4y ago
> As a leader of a FOSS project that is on github...Do I have that reasoning correct? The way I read the article was that by being on GitHub, you are implicitly agreeing to no longer be a FOSS project as regards licensing. GitHub customers can use Copilot to generate proprietary code that's identical to your project's code (several articles I have read call this overall idea "laundering through Copilot", which sounds incendiary but accurate to me) without needing to respect your license. The other stuff you said is...kind of irrelevant. Sure, you get a lot of convenience from GitHub. If you don't care about software freedoms in the libre/copyleft sense and regard a "do whatever you want" license as the best, then it's probably fine to keep using GitHub.
- natefinch 4y ago
  Anyone can already generate proprietary code that is identical to your GitHub project's code just using copy and paste. For people that care to respect copyright, there's a copilot setting to block exact copies of code in the training set (which only happens a tiny percentage of the time, unless you're actually trying to make it happen). For people that don't care to respect copyright, git clone is a way more efficient way to violate your license.
- dark-star 4y ago
  > GitHub customers can use Copilot to generate proprietary code that's identical to your project's code How is that different/new? Anyone has always been able to just take your code and put it into their proprietary projects...
  - notpushkin 4y ago
    Difference is, GitHub encourages this behaviour, and profits off of it.
- seadan83 4y ago
  > The way I read the article was that by being on GitHub, you are implicitly agreeing to no longer be a FOSS project as regards licensing. In this case, they have violated our license. The license states how it cannot be changed, and implicit changes by the hosting company is not one of them. Isn't there a legal case here? If no, then the license is not violated. This makes me wonder why not take Github to court vs a tamper tantrum (we're taking our marbles and going home!) > the other stuff you said is...kind of irrelevant. It goes to show that Github is providing really, an excellent service to FOSS. We could migrate to GitLab, though, why? I know that sounds like 'fan-boy', but the list is large, useful, and all highly available and free to FOSS. By those measure, it's a good service. > Sure, you get a lot of convenience from GitHub. The items are more than convenience, they are core to our application and project. Uprooting them is not a small task. The automatic integration with issues is excellent for example, before we did that - we had no idea how many users were seeing errors. We run a thick client that is downloaded and added an integration to upload error reports to github issues. That has been pretty invaluable. So, we have to move all that, to another host: who is to say that other host will always be a better FOSS steward? who is to say that other host has anyone near the level of features? An integrated CI/CD and hosting of release artifacts is huge. So, on the premise that our license has been violated, instead of sue'ing, we should take our FOSS somewhere else? Again, the list is large, we need to migrate all of that. It took a long time to get out of sourceforge, it's not even more work to get out of github because we automated so much (to allow our team to scale better). It's not just a matter of 'convenience' to go somewhere that is feature-sub-par and spend the better part of a year to do that and nothing else. [edits] Clarity, conciseness
Uninen 4y ago
That list is a perfect example why GitHub is so problematic. Forget Copilot. Even without that you’ve put all of those services in one centralized basket, fully controlled by a for-profit company (with proven track record of unethical behavior). And not only that, but this is true for the vast majority of FOSS projects!
- Aeolun 4y ago
  > fully controlled by a for-profit company This is only a serious problem if you are not paying them for it. The current situation is how 99% of thr world works everywhere.
  - danuker 4y ago
    As if paying MS will stop them from deprecating services.
- nunez 4y ago
  I guess we should cancel Level3, Equinix, AT&T and Verizon while we're at it?
- seadan83 4y ago
  I see your point. The disagreement I have is I would not at all consider copilot as putting MSFT into the evil empire category yet. While it was very unnerving for the ownership to change, MSFT has really had a pretty hands-off approach on Github. I touched on it, but I still see this for-profit model as being compatible with FOSS. Specifically, make it free to FOSS so that those professional software developers then move to adopt the same platform at their private companies. There are lots of examples of for-profit companies that provide free-to-foss platforms. For example, just considering code scanners, Codacy, CodeClimate, Snyk, LGTM, all used by this project and all have the same for-profit model (but free to FOSS). We also use 'install4j', which has the same free-for-foss model and is a for-profit company. I think the heart of it is the argument that MSFT is going to expand that for-profit model and leverage data in a way that violates FOSS licenses? Is copilot an example of that? Should this all be taken to the extreme and declare that MSFT is the evil empire for this and by extension so is Github?

npteljes 4y ago

>What else to add to this pile.. and all because co-pilot smells?? You are absolutely right that this all is a huge pain in the ass. GitHub, and later Microsoft, played their cards well. The product both works well, and also creates such a moat of vendor lock-in that it won't make sense to leave.

rv77ax 4y ago

This is called "vendor lock-in" [1]. I believe you have heard it before. If the article's writer read this, please add this as one of the reason why FOSS need to move from GitHub. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in

CRConrad 4y ago

> I'm a bit confused by this article. Obviously. > Co-pilot has issues, ergo github is going the way of sourceforge, and so now we must abandon github? Do I have that reasoning correct? No, you don't. If you had actually read the whole article[1], you would have noticed that they also listed several other issues which far predate Copilot. ___ [1]: You need to correct this part of the guidelines, dang. Some times -- like here -- the injunction against saying this is just fucking wrong.

seadan83 4y ago
TL;DR: The rest of the article is vacuous, the list of other reasons is a link of bothersome but not compelling other reasons. In sum, it's not a compelling argument to give up github. I disagree that the correct course of action based on the arguments presented would be to boycott Github rather than take any of course of action that would lobby them to change. If this is just fucking wrong, I wonder about the implication. Would you say, I am just fucking right? I would be careful whenever having any such conviction. If I were already a hater of github, this article would have resonated with me a lot more. Perhaps there is some kool-aid drinking happening here? Maybe not and everything is totally reason to abandon Github as a hosting platform. > you would have noticed that they also listed several other issues which far predate Copilot. I don't quite see that list. I do see this article as quite focused on co-pilot. Though, I do see this: > There are so many good reasons to give up on GitHub, and we list the major ones on our Give Up On GitHub site. We were already considering this action ourselves for some time, but last week's event showed that this action is overdue. Which links to this https://sfconservancy.org/GiveUpGitHub/ https://sfconservancy.org/GiveUpGitHub/ (I'll point out here, linking to a list is different from listing the other points, so.. 'fucking right?') Re-capping that list from sfconservancy: (1) co-pilot (2) contracts with ice (3) githubs hosting code itself is not FOSS (4) no self-hosting with github code options (again, github hosting is itself not FOSS) (5) work to discredit copyleft (6) wholly owned by MSFT In this article, it essentially says that co-pilot was the last straw, and a decisively large one at that. So my response is still, this is the last straw where we need to abandon github? If you are fully vested in the other reasons, then I think that this article would be preaching to the choir. For me, points 1-6 are bothersome, but still just 2s and 4s on the 1-10 scale of fire alarms. My personal take on this list: (1) co-pilot: seems problematic, perhaps github can fix it. Maybe a better solution is to lobby github first before doing a cancel campaign (2) ice contracts: this is bothersome; but I can see how it could be a bit complicated given ownership by MSFT and the complexity of government contracts. It is bothersome though. (3) closed source: I don't put a lot of weight to this criticism. Just because I can't run Githubs code for myself.. I mostly shrug. Yes, I'd prefer for it to be open source too, but I respect there are various for-profit models out there (and holy-hell I wish I was payed market-rate for FOSS work). (4) no self-hosting option: Seems like the same point as (3) (5) CEO leadership discrediting copyleft: bothersome, but without concrete examples, for me it is not fully substantive and just bothersome (but not major, like, wow, they are shutting down FOSS projects, or aiding in getting them taken down by ginning up BS charges, etc..). So, yes, the CEOs of Github were at times discouraging to copyleft. Are they evil incarnate here where those bad actors needs to spurn everything Github? Did the CEOs of Github personally oversee any FOSS projects being sued, or made into non-FOSS? Did they personally increase the cost on FOSS? (6) owned by MSFT: big companies are big companies and they are really hard to avoid completely... MSFT has had a big culture shift in the last 5, 10 and 15 years. It's not the same company it once was. That is not to say this is not a concern. Though, until I have specifics around how/why I thnk MSFT has become actively evil, this remains just a notable concern. > If you had actually read the whole article[1] Apologies for seeming like I only commented on the first paragraph. A lot of the article seems vacuous to me and generally trying to gin up a mountain out of what might just be a gnarly hill.

nunez 4y ago

Teaching people how to use Git is a BIG one. Git is confusing for just about everyone. It is really easy to shoot yourself in the foot once you step away from git add/git commit/git push. Hell, you can foot-gun yourself even with the usual workflow. GUIs help with bridging the gap, but because the GUIs make everything that's actually happening opaque, troubleshooting gets really complicated when something goes wrong (GitHub also sells professional services). Github and Gitlab have done a lot to make Git easier.

rglullis 4y ago

Forget Copilot for a second. Do you think it is healthy for the industry to be so dependent on one single service provider, and a closed one on top of that?

natefinch 4y ago
I think it's like any social network. It grows in value with how many people use it. Yes, you can host your own public git repo or even your own gitlab, but then there's a barrier of entry to contribute to your code, and it's a lot harder for others to discover it. disclosure: I work for github
- alcover 4y ago
  > barrier of entry to contribute to your code What barrier, may I ask ? > it's a lot harder for others to discover it. The vast majority of stars I got was from a HN submission, not from organic discovery through GH search.
  - natefinch 4y ago
    Familiarity with the UX and conventions on that platform. Almost everyone knows how to make a PR against a GitHub repo. But some random other code hosting site? It would be a lot less familiar, and people would have to spend time making an account and figuring out how to contribute. Even low barriers of entry can cause a big drop in user engagement.
- rglullis 4y ago
  The network grows in value with the size of the protocol, not just with a platform. Social networks can and should operate like email, not like siloed platforms. All the value ends up being captured and controlled by one single entity. (I will not get in a tangent about web3, but that is the one thing that web3 skeptics always fail to acknowledge is how the current web is broken in that regard. We were promised open protocols, and we end up with a handful of companies building their own walled gardens) The only way that Github would get any modicum of credibility would be if they joined the effort from codeberg/forgefed and integrated with activitypub. As it is now, github will be nothing but a mirror for my repositories that I will be hosting on gitlab and/or my own gitea.

quadrifoliate 4y ago

> As a leader of a FOSS project that is on github...Do I have that reasoning correct? The way I read the article was that by being on GitHub, you are implicitly agreeing to no longer be a FOSS project as regards licensing. GitHub customers can use Copilot to generate proprietary code that's identical to your project's code (several articles I have read call this overall idea "laundering through Copilot", which sounds incendiary but accurate to me) without needing to respect your license. The other stuff you said is...kind of irrelevant. Sure, you get a lot of convenience from GitHub. If you don't care about software freedoms in the libre/copyleft sense and regard a "do whatever you want" license as the best, then it's probably fine to keep using GitHub.

natefinch 4y ago
Anyone can already generate proprietary code that is identical to your GitHub project's code just using copy and paste. For people that care to respect copyright, there's a copilot setting to block exact copies of code in the training set (which only happens a tiny percentage of the time, unless you're actually trying to make it happen). For people that don't care to respect copyright, git clone is a way more efficient way to violate your license.
dark-star 4y ago
> GitHub customers can use Copilot to generate proprietary code that's identical to your project's code How is that different/new? Anyone has always been able to just take your code and put it into their proprietary projects...
- notpushkin 4y ago
  Difference is, GitHub encourages this behaviour, and profits off of it.
seadan83 4y ago
> The way I read the article was that by being on GitHub, you are implicitly agreeing to no longer be a FOSS project as regards licensing. In this case, they have violated our license. The license states how it cannot be changed, and implicit changes by the hosting company is not one of them. Isn't there a legal case here? If no, then the license is not violated. This makes me wonder why not take Github to court vs a tamper tantrum (we're taking our marbles and going home!) > the other stuff you said is...kind of irrelevant. It goes to show that Github is providing really, an excellent service to FOSS. We could migrate to GitLab, though, why? I know that sounds like 'fan-boy', but the list is large, useful, and all highly available and free to FOSS. By those measure, it's a good service. > Sure, you get a lot of convenience from GitHub. The items are more than convenience, they are core to our application and project. Uprooting them is not a small task. The automatic integration with issues is excellent for example, before we did that - we had no idea how many users were seeing errors. We run a thick client that is downloaded and added an integration to upload error reports to github issues. That has been pretty invaluable. So, we have to move all that, to another host: who is to say that other host will always be a better FOSS steward? who is to say that other host has anyone near the level of features? An integrated CI/CD and hosting of release artifacts is huge. So, on the premise that our license has been violated, instead of sue'ing, we should take our FOSS somewhere else? Again, the list is large, we need to migrate all of that. It took a long time to get out of sourceforge, it's not even more work to get out of github because we automated so much (to allow our team to scale better). It's not just a matter of 'convenience' to go somewhere that is feature-sub-par and spend the better part of a year to do that and nothing else. [edits] Clarity, conciseness

Uninen 4y ago

That list is a perfect example why GitHub is so problematic. Forget Copilot. Even without that you’ve put all of those services in one centralized basket, fully controlled by a for-profit company (with proven track record of unethical behavior). And not only that, but this is true for the vast majority of FOSS projects!

Aeolun 4y ago
> fully controlled by a for-profit company This is only a serious problem if you are not paying them for it. The current situation is how 99% of thr world works everywhere.
- danuker 4y ago
  As if paying MS will stop them from deprecating services.
nunez 4y ago
I guess we should cancel Level3, Equinix, AT&T and Verizon while we're at it?
seadan83 4y ago
I see your point. The disagreement I have is I would not at all consider copilot as putting MSFT into the evil empire category yet. While it was very unnerving for the ownership to change, MSFT has really had a pretty hands-off approach on Github. I touched on it, but I still see this for-profit model as being compatible with FOSS. Specifically, make it free to FOSS so that those professional software developers then move to adopt the same platform at their private companies. There are lots of examples of for-profit companies that provide free-to-foss platforms. For example, just considering code scanners, Codacy, CodeClimate, Snyk, LGTM, all used by this project and all have the same for-profit model (but free to FOSS). We also use 'install4j', which has the same free-for-foss model and is a for-profit company. I think the heart of it is the argument that MSFT is going to expand that for-profit model and leverage data in a way that violates FOSS licenses? Is copilot an example of that? Should this all be taken to the extreme and declare that MSFT is the evil empire for this and by extension so is Github?