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> voluntarily want to use No. As an open source user, developer and maintainer, I'm in perpetuity forced to use GitHub because open source companies and projec

by jraph 4y ago

> voluntarily want to use No. As an open source user, developer and maintainer, I'm in perpetuity forced to use GitHub because open source companies and projects choose GitHub because they believe GitHub is the place to be / they won't have a community if they are elsewhere (even if they'd otherwise be inclined to use something else). Which I believe is false, but it does not matter, GitHub succeeded in creating this social network with this network effect. > What do you want Github to do? Stop buding useful things so that they're not better than alternatives? I want open source infrastructure for the open source world [1]. GitHub could put their actions where their mouth is and be and actually open source company. [1] https://drewdevault.com/2022/03/29/free-software-free-infrastructure.html https://drewdevault.com/2022/03/29/free-software-free-infras...

FooBarWidget 4y ago
> I'm in perpetuity forced to use GitHub because open source companies and projects choose Frankly, calling this "forced" comes over to me as a selfish and entitled view of "freedom". Freedom is not unlimited or without conflict. Someone else's freedom to park at a spot means that you can't park there. Someone else's freedom to choose Github means that you can't choose it for them. > I want open source infrastructure for the open source world [1]. GitHub could put their actions where their mouth is and be and actually open source company. Okay. Great aspiration. But someone has to do it, and there must be sufficient political power from multiple parties to do it. Github owes you nothing. Unless you pay, in which case they owe you what is specified in the contract. The alternative is that either you build this open source infrastructure yourself, or you fund someone to do it. That seems to me like a much better use of your time than complaining that Github isn't doing it for free. There's a reason why such an open source infra that's superior to the Github ecosystem doesn't exist: because it's hard to build and it takes time and resources. Nobody owes the community this: the community has to be lucky that enough people happen to have the right scratch that they're itching for themselves.
- jraph 4y ago
  > That seems to me like a much better use of your time than complaining that Github isn't doing it for free Advocacy, raising issues and awareness is one of the necessary steps towards such a thing. If I'm helping build such an infra / ecosystem, I want people to use it because they think it's the right thing, not because it's technically better. Now, of course it would be nice if it is technically better and that's also necessary. I also can't be everywhere. I'm already giving my time to other stuff, including in the open source ecosystem. "Build it yourself" is not an acceptable / sufficient answer to a raised issue if you think it is legitimate. It's only a way to dismiss it if you don't care. FWIW, there are good alternatives to GitHub, like codeberg.org / forgejo. Worth checking out. There, here's my second constructive contribution toward this goal in this thread.
  - FooBarWidget 4y ago
    I've participated in the open source community for 20 years and it seems to me that many people hold an opinion out of selfish reasons. Nothing wrong per se with being selfish, but it bothers me that people dress this up as something else. Your attitude reminds me of the GPL vs BSD discussion. The philosophy behind Free Software is that all software should be Free (libre), hence the "viral" nature of GPL. But in the 2000s people started building companies based on open source technology, and many people started complaining about the GPL's "virality" as being a bad thing. They argued that this is not "truly free" because it demanded something in return, namely that your own work is also GPL-compatible. They argued that the BSD license is "truly free" but it didn't demand anything in return. Now, 15-20 years later, the Free Software philosophy has declined in popularity, and the use of GPL has declined greatly. Nearly everything uses some sort of BSD license. But what we also see is that lots of companies build proprietary technology based on BSD-like open source technology. These companies capture a lot of value without releasing that value back to the open source community under open source terms. And now we see an increasing number of people complaining about that. Guys... what did you expect? Then why did people complain so loudly about the GPL's virality? Looks like "freedom" and "virality" were just rationalizations behind more selfish thoughts: "I want the world to be like whatever benefits me most". Rather than true believers in certain principles due to philosophy, many merely support these principles for their own benefit. A lot of people are not being honest with themselves.

by jraph 4y ago

FooBarWidget 4y ago

> I'm in perpetuity forced to use GitHub because open source companies and projects choose Frankly, calling this "forced" comes over to me as a selfish and entitled view of "freedom". Freedom is not unlimited or without conflict. Someone else's freedom to park at a spot means that you can't park there. Someone else's freedom to choose Github means that you can't choose it for them. > I want open source infrastructure for the open source world [1]. GitHub could put their actions where their mouth is and be and actually open source company. Okay. Great aspiration. But someone has to do it, and there must be sufficient political power from multiple parties to do it. Github owes you nothing. Unless you pay, in which case they owe you what is specified in the contract. The alternative is that either you build this open source infrastructure yourself, or you fund someone to do it. That seems to me like a much better use of your time than complaining that Github isn't doing it for free. There's a reason why such an open source infra that's superior to the Github ecosystem doesn't exist: because it's hard to build and it takes time and resources. Nobody owes the community this: the community has to be lucky that enough people happen to have the right scratch that they're itching for themselves.

jraph 4y ago
> That seems to me like a much better use of your time than complaining that Github isn't doing it for free Advocacy, raising issues and awareness is one of the necessary steps towards such a thing. If I'm helping build such an infra / ecosystem, I want people to use it because they think it's the right thing, not because it's technically better. Now, of course it would be nice if it is technically better and that's also necessary. I also can't be everywhere. I'm already giving my time to other stuff, including in the open source ecosystem. "Build it yourself" is not an acceptable / sufficient answer to a raised issue if you think it is legitimate. It's only a way to dismiss it if you don't care. FWIW, there are good alternatives to GitHub, like codeberg.org / forgejo. Worth checking out. There, here's my second constructive contribution toward this goal in this thread.
- FooBarWidget 4y ago
  I've participated in the open source community for 20 years and it seems to me that many people hold an opinion out of selfish reasons. Nothing wrong per se with being selfish, but it bothers me that people dress this up as something else. Your attitude reminds me of the GPL vs BSD discussion. The philosophy behind Free Software is that all software should be Free (libre), hence the "viral" nature of GPL. But in the 2000s people started building companies based on open source technology, and many people started complaining about the GPL's "virality" as being a bad thing. They argued that this is not "truly free" because it demanded something in return, namely that your own work is also GPL-compatible. They argued that the BSD license is "truly free" but it didn't demand anything in return. Now, 15-20 years later, the Free Software philosophy has declined in popularity, and the use of GPL has declined greatly. Nearly everything uses some sort of BSD license. But what we also see is that lots of companies build proprietary technology based on BSD-like open source technology. These companies capture a lot of value without releasing that value back to the open source community under open source terms. And now we see an increasing number of people complaining about that. Guys... what did you expect? Then why did people complain so loudly about the GPL's virality? Looks like "freedom" and "virality" were just rationalizations behind more selfish thoughts: "I want the world to be like whatever benefits me most". Rather than true believers in certain principles due to philosophy, many merely support these principles for their own benefit. A lot of people are not being honest with themselves.