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Considering the massive debt GitHub owes to open-source, is this engine also open?
by mellosouls 4y ago
Considering the massive debt GitHub owes to open-source, is this engine also open?
- ZephyrBlu 4y agoCmon bruh.
- azangru 4y agoDoes Github owe debt to open-source, or does open-source owe debt to Github?
- VWWHFSfQ 4y agowhy would any floss owe debt to github
- cortesoft 4y agoBecause they can host their software and community for free?
- woodruffw 4y agoI think it would be accurate to say that the value GitHub extracts from the OSS community (in the form of its core VCS, network effects, ML models, etc.) substantially outstrips the value returned to the community. Which is not to say that the latter is insignificant!
- loeg 4y agoIs that a qualitative or quantitative argument? Like, would you put numbers to either/both sides of that? I'm not confident Github gets more value than it returns (but you may be right).
- ZiiS 4y agoGithub are confident though so...
- cortesoft 4y agoThe OSS projects are also confident that they are getting a better deal, though, since they continue to host on Github. Sometimes both sides win.
- woodruffw 4y agoI don't think this requires belief in a "better" deal, only a good one (or an acceptable one, given the friction and network effects involved in switching).
- blackoil 4y agoBetter measure is if GH is getting very high value in return,some competition should be there working at lesser margins (giving more value for OSS)
- replygirl 4y agoi think that would be grossly inaccurate, as the OSS _services_ market alone is worth 3-4x GitHub's valuation at the time of acquisition
- woodruffw 4y agoI don't think the OSS services market (I'm assuming you mean Red Hat, etc.) extracts disproportionate value from GitHub. If anything, I'd expect those companies to pay handsomely for their access -- mine certainly does, and we're primarily open source.
- fnordpiglet 4y ago“Symbiotic” by definition means one depends on the other. I think it’s moot who depends on who more. They both depend on each other in a substantial way. Without the other they would likely adapt, but in a suboptimal way, at least for some time. But I think folks dramatically undervalue what GitHub(Lab) brings, and how expensive it is to host such a system for everyone.
- woodruffw 4y agoYou said "symbiotic," not me :-) I would describe the relationship as mutualistic: both parties benefit, but not necessarily proportionally. And they don't need to benefit proportionally, but there's also value in highlighting the disproportionality: it behooves the OSS community to remember that extremely valuable ecosystems like GitHub and GitLab derive a significant amount of their value from the continued (and mostly passive) goodwill of the community.
- tomnipotent 4y agoGitHub had ~$1b in revenues in 2022, but I have no doubt that it created many multiples of that in value among its 90m users and communities in the same period. I would wager that the cumulative revenues of all third-party services (CircleCI, Sourcegraph etc.) that are part of the GitHub ecosystem also far exceed GitHub, value and revenues that would unlikely exist without GH (or be at an earlier phase of their evolution). I'd even go so far as to say the value created by pull requests alone exceeds $1bln annually, for the many commercial and open source teams that use it to get work done.
- dlisboa 4y agoThey are using Github for hosting, visibility and ease of contribution. A lot of projects would never have been picked up if they were hosted on other platforms.
- tetris11 4y agoWith the prior understanding that the code uploaded there would remain free and visible for all those who wished to contribute towards something greater than themselves. Microsoft sweeping in at the last minute to undermine all that wasn't exactly an act met with rapturous applause, nor was it expected by anyone who hosted on Github. The users are trapped. They've made a time (and some a financial) investment into Github, and to pack up bow and go elsewhere would kill the communities they grew there. Github owes FOSS everything for the community and buy-in fostered there, and would be nothing without it.
- pie_flavor 4y agoUndermine how?
- tetris11 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
- pie_flavor 3y agoSo in other words not really at all.
- mattnewton 4y agoI think if they did not, and another git host offered free hosting to open source it would have much of GitHub’s share of the market today. They still competed hard on UX and features but it was necessary to win over open source projects, to become the defacto solution for software.
- renewiltord 4y agoYou don't owe debts to open source. That's the point. Or at least that's the point of the free software philosophy. This is also why I think it's unbelievably lucky we had luminaries like RMS in the beginning. To think of software freedom, what a concept! Legend! Meanwhile everyone else is constantly trying to turn everything into a transactional interaction. "what are you going to give me for my code? How are you going to pay your debts?"
- geodel 4y agoIt may or may not be. But magic is in infrastructure and not search engine algorithm per se.