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People don't seem to realize the risk of centralizing on a single provider and solution. Currently, it's like 90% of the FOSS projects are hosted on GitHub. It

People don't seem to realize the risk of centralizing on a single provider and solution. Currently, it's like 90% of the FOSS projects are hosted on GitHub. It all seems smooth and all until one day you log in to their platform and find yourself essentially shunned-off from collaborating on FOSS scene [1] . I'm grateful Codeberg, sourcehut and other alternatives exist. One nitpick from my experience: Codeberg's static hosting gave me way too much internal server errors (probably because they are underfunded.) [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34817163 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34817163

jpe90 4y ago
Since you mentioned sourcehut, I’ll point out that their static hosting is excellent. I host my blog on there and have had no issues.
- zxwrt 4y ago
  Not that excellent. They still don't have ipv6 support in 2023
  - minus7 4y ago
    IIRC there were issues with IPv6 on the hardware, which will be replaced once services move to Europe, and IPv6 will be available.
whatyesaid 4y ago
There should always be a mirror or archive for projects that are used, yeah. It's probably easier to archive stuff when it's centralised to one platform. Collaborating on multiple platforms would make sense if not everyone used GitHub. It's the kind of thing that can be solved on a needed basis. As far as I know the only thing people hate about GitHub is it was proven copilot was stealing code from repos where it ignored licenses completely for collecting more training data. Your account being banned probably does fall under incentivised interests, aka circumventing censorship. Your country can literally say ban X or we ban your platform from our country. I'm not sure why you wouldn't do such things under a burner anyway given you're also breaking laws. The expectation should be that you don't make it.
- xigoi 4y ago
  > It's probably easier to archive stuff when it's centralised to one platform. If only all the platforms used the same protocol that allowed you to easily clone code from any of them just by changing the URL. Oh, wait…
  - whatyesaid 4y ago
    That's true, but you don't get pull request and issues discussions from just a git clone.
    - xigoi 4y ago
      Well, that's GitHub's fault for not using a standard protocol for those. The traditional GitHub way to send and discuss patches is e-mail.
pjmlp 4y ago
We do realise, Sourceforge. It turns out most don't care.
- ploum 4y ago
  Monopolies are always bad. Always. And Github is a proprietary software which is nearly a monopoly for hosting free software (how ironic, isn’t it?). Exactly like sourceforge was, you are right. Each generation must learn it the hard way. https://ploum.net/2023-02-22-leaving-github.html https://ploum.net/2023-02-22-leaving-github.html
  - hayst4ck 4y ago
    > Monopolies are always bad. Always. I don't think that's true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_utility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_utility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly When monopolies can rival/influence/corrupt the power that would otherwise regulate them, that is the point at which monopolies are definitely bad.
    - kelnos 4y ago
      I agree with your examples, but at the same time, most public utilities and other natural monopolies, despite government regulation, still act in exploitative, anti-customer ways. I don't think anyone would hold up a utility company as a paragon of customer-friendliness. Ditto for phone companies and ISPs. So while it's too simplistic to just say "monopolies are bad", we still haven't found a way to have regulated monopolies that "play nicely" in the same ways companies in a competitive industry are required to do in order to stay relevant. > When monopolies can rival/influence/corrupt the power that would otherwise regulate them, that is the point at which monopolies are definitely bad. I would argue that there's no "when" here. This happens in all cases.
      - hayst4ck 4y ago
        I think the subtly in the argument is that there are monopolies and alternative to monopolies and associated trade offs with those states. So the question is: are there cases for which a monopoly has a better cost/benefit ratio than whatever the alternative is. If you take a look at utilities, then theoretically, the upfront cost is passed on to consumers. So two different power utilities would spend twice the capital, which would then need to be passed on to consumers. Twice the repairs after a storm, twice the cost for infrastructure updates. The end state is what we see with home internet, you get a monopoly, but none of the monopoly regulation because "there's competition." Then there are mergers to watch out for, cartel behavior, etc. So my assertion is that when you apply regulation to a monopoly it might be better than the alternatives that probably need regulation anyway. > This happens in all cases. This is mildly off topic, but I think it applies here. This is a statement of inevitability about what is fundamentally a political battle. If, for example, citizens united was fixed, the tax burden for people who have over 10 mil were large, and corruption was criminal and prosecuted as such, then I think it's harder to make this argument. I think this idea of inevitability is the result of learned helplessness. I think the idea that monopolies will always exist in a state of conflict with the citizenry is true, but I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that the monopolies will definitely win. I think they are winning right now, but I think the idea that that their victory is inevitable is self defeating.
nu11ptr 4y ago
I agree, but I also like that everything is on github because it is a single place to search. Is there a meta-search engine for github/gitlab/codeberg/bitbucket/sourceforge/etc.? It would be useful and make it less essential that everything is with one provider. UPDATE: Before someone says "google" I'm specifically talking about a context-aware search engine that has knowledge of code-specific attributes like language/stars/etc. like github does, just across multiple repo providers
- yunruse 4y ago
  It seems to be it would help to have some sort of communication pattern, a la Mastodon and ActivityPub, such that these are all both interoperable, and as a bonus interchangeable when it comes to tooling.
- abdullahkhalids 4y ago
  https://zzollo.co/ https://zzollo.co/ seems to be an option that popped up after searching for a bit.
- kelnos 4y ago
  Google Code Search used to fulfill this niche, but sadly, like so many other Google products, was shut down years ago. I agree that it's nice to have a single place to search, but IMO that convenience is vastly overshadowed by the downsides of relying on a single platform.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
hayst4ck 4y ago
The flip side is economies of scale. Github can implement code search, credential scanning, malware scanning, or any other number of other things and theoretically, every code repo can get it for free. When everything is centralized, adding a new feature costs k but gives N benefit. When there are M different options adding a new feature costs k * M for N benefit. I don't think it's as black and white as centralization is bad, but I do agree that it gives microsoft undue power and that power can be a force for good or evil.
- enriquto 4y ago
  > Github can implement code search Sounds great! When are they going to do it?
  - emi2k01 4y ago
    Are you being sarcastic? If not, GitHub recently updated their search feature and it's pretty good. https://github.com/search/advanced https://github.com/search/advanced https://docs.github.com/en/search-github/github-code-search/understanding-github-code-search-syntax https://docs.github.com/en/search-github/github-code-search/...
    - 0x6c6f6c 4y ago
      I hope it's better. I've historically had searches that work best with an exact match, symbols, etc. that just DO NOT work with Haha search.
    - n0zmer 4y ago
      I think it was more of a jab at GitHubs laughable search. Somehow, in 2023, GitHubs search is so fucking terrible it fails to find exact string matches in codebases.
      - midoBB 4y ago
        I have a Github userscript so I just open my Github projects in SourceGraph and do my code search there.

jpe90 4y ago

Since you mentioned sourcehut, I’ll point out that their static hosting is excellent. I host my blog on there and have had no issues.

zxwrt 4y ago
Not that excellent. They still don't have ipv6 support in 2023
- minus7 4y ago
  IIRC there were issues with IPv6 on the hardware, which will be replaced once services move to Europe, and IPv6 will be available.

whatyesaid 4y ago

There should always be a mirror or archive for projects that are used, yeah. It's probably easier to archive stuff when it's centralised to one platform. Collaborating on multiple platforms would make sense if not everyone used GitHub. It's the kind of thing that can be solved on a needed basis. As far as I know the only thing people hate about GitHub is it was proven copilot was stealing code from repos where it ignored licenses completely for collecting more training data. Your account being banned probably does fall under incentivised interests, aka circumventing censorship. Your country can literally say ban X or we ban your platform from our country. I'm not sure why you wouldn't do such things under a burner anyway given you're also breaking laws. The expectation should be that you don't make it.

xigoi 4y ago
> It's probably easier to archive stuff when it's centralised to one platform. If only all the platforms used the same protocol that allowed you to easily clone code from any of them just by changing the URL. Oh, wait…
- whatyesaid 4y ago
  That's true, but you don't get pull request and issues discussions from just a git clone.
  - xigoi 4y ago
    Well, that's GitHub's fault for not using a standard protocol for those. The traditional GitHub way to send and discuss patches is e-mail.

pjmlp 4y ago

We do realise, Sourceforge. It turns out most don't care.

ploum 4y ago
Monopolies are always bad. Always. And Github is a proprietary software which is nearly a monopoly for hosting free software (how ironic, isn’t it?). Exactly like sourceforge was, you are right. Each generation must learn it the hard way. https://ploum.net/2023-02-22-leaving-github.html https://ploum.net/2023-02-22-leaving-github.html
- hayst4ck 4y ago
  > Monopolies are always bad. Always. I don't think that's true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_utility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_utility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly When monopolies can rival/influence/corrupt the power that would otherwise regulate them, that is the point at which monopolies are definitely bad.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    I agree with your examples, but at the same time, most public utilities and other natural monopolies, despite government regulation, still act in exploitative, anti-customer ways. I don't think anyone would hold up a utility company as a paragon of customer-friendliness. Ditto for phone companies and ISPs. So while it's too simplistic to just say "monopolies are bad", we still haven't found a way to have regulated monopolies that "play nicely" in the same ways companies in a competitive industry are required to do in order to stay relevant. > When monopolies can rival/influence/corrupt the power that would otherwise regulate them, that is the point at which monopolies are definitely bad. I would argue that there's no "when" here. This happens in all cases.
    - hayst4ck 4y ago
      I think the subtly in the argument is that there are monopolies and alternative to monopolies and associated trade offs with those states. So the question is: are there cases for which a monopoly has a better cost/benefit ratio than whatever the alternative is. If you take a look at utilities, then theoretically, the upfront cost is passed on to consumers. So two different power utilities would spend twice the capital, which would then need to be passed on to consumers. Twice the repairs after a storm, twice the cost for infrastructure updates. The end state is what we see with home internet, you get a monopoly, but none of the monopoly regulation because "there's competition." Then there are mergers to watch out for, cartel behavior, etc. So my assertion is that when you apply regulation to a monopoly it might be better than the alternatives that probably need regulation anyway. > This happens in all cases. This is mildly off topic, but I think it applies here. This is a statement of inevitability about what is fundamentally a political battle. If, for example, citizens united was fixed, the tax burden for people who have over 10 mil were large, and corruption was criminal and prosecuted as such, then I think it's harder to make this argument. I think this idea of inevitability is the result of learned helplessness. I think the idea that monopolies will always exist in a state of conflict with the citizenry is true, but I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that the monopolies will definitely win. I think they are winning right now, but I think the idea that that their victory is inevitable is self defeating.

nu11ptr 4y ago

I agree, but I also like that everything is on github because it is a single place to search. Is there a meta-search engine for github/gitlab/codeberg/bitbucket/sourceforge/etc.? It would be useful and make it less essential that everything is with one provider. UPDATE: Before someone says "google" I'm specifically talking about a context-aware search engine that has knowledge of code-specific attributes like language/stars/etc. like github does, just across multiple repo providers

yunruse 4y ago
It seems to be it would help to have some sort of communication pattern, a la Mastodon and ActivityPub, such that these are all both interoperable, and as a bonus interchangeable when it comes to tooling.
abdullahkhalids 4y ago
https://zzollo.co/ https://zzollo.co/ seems to be an option that popped up after searching for a bit.
kelnos 4y ago
Google Code Search used to fulfill this niche, but sadly, like so many other Google products, was shut down years ago. I agree that it's nice to have a single place to search, but IMO that convenience is vastly overshadowed by the downsides of relying on a single platform.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

hayst4ck 4y ago

The flip side is economies of scale. Github can implement code search, credential scanning, malware scanning, or any other number of other things and theoretically, every code repo can get it for free. When everything is centralized, adding a new feature costs k but gives N benefit. When there are M different options adding a new feature costs k * M for N benefit. I don't think it's as black and white as centralization is bad, but I do agree that it gives microsoft undue power and that power can be a force for good or evil.

enriquto 4y ago
> Github can implement code search Sounds great! When are they going to do it?
- emi2k01 4y ago
  Are you being sarcastic? If not, GitHub recently updated their search feature and it's pretty good. https://github.com/search/advanced https://github.com/search/advanced https://docs.github.com/en/search-github/github-code-search/understanding-github-code-search-syntax https://docs.github.com/en/search-github/github-code-search/...
  - 0x6c6f6c 4y ago
    I hope it's better. I've historically had searches that work best with an exact match, symbols, etc. that just DO NOT work with Haha search.
  - n0zmer 4y ago
    I think it was more of a jab at GitHubs laughable search. Somehow, in 2023, GitHubs search is so fucking terrible it fails to find exact string matches in codebases.
    - midoBB 4y ago
      I have a Github userscript so I just open my Github projects in SourceGraph and do my code search there.