3 ms·

It blows my mind that we’re all fine with “the home of open source software” is closed source

bogwog 3y ago
The way I rationalize my use of Github to myself is by framing it as me stealing free compute and storage from the evil Microsoft.
- HaZeust 3y ago
  Trust me, they're making it back.
  - mdaniel 3y ago
    I'd presume if nothing else in copilot subscriptions, populated by harvesting upteen bazillion repos, issues, and maybe even CI job run logs
    - mnau 3y ago
      i am pretty sure they would just clone stuff from BitBucket or SF if they didn't have it on their own platform.
    - mdswanson 3y ago
      https://aibusiness.com/nlp/github-copilot-loses-20-a-month-per-user https://aibusiness.com/nlp/github-copilot-loses-20-a-month-p...
      - simonw 3y ago
        The accuracy of that story was vigorously denied by people in a position to know: https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1712140497127342404 https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1712140497127342404
mdaniel 3y ago
especially with the number of actual FOSS alternatives available right now, but that network effect, whew, it's strong :-(
- mnau 3y ago
  I am considering moving away because of network effect. The more popular repo is, the more work is there (issues, PRs...). It's not scalable. Using another platform/self-host would introduce a friction.
  - bmitc 3y ago
    You can disable issues.
    - mnau 3y ago
      That's not the point. I am not opposed to issues per se. The problem is dealing with the amount, it's exhausting. It's just too easy to make issue or comment on GitHub because of network effect. This sums it up pretty well: https://nolanlawson.com/2017/03/05/what-it-feels-like-to-be-an-open-source-maintainer/ https://nolanlawson.com/2017/03/05/what-it-feels-like-to-be-... (my workload is of course far smaller, but still it takes time and saps energy) Yes, that issue has been opened for 4 years and I don't consider it important and neither did any of "me too" comments to do anything about it. At best I sometimes get drive by PR, which takes far more time to deal with than if I just did it myself.
- bmitc 3y ago
  What FOSS solutions give me an editor in the web, Codespaces, free CI/CD compute, free website hosting, etc.?
  - mdaniel 3y ago
    I feel as though your question conflates FOSS with free SaaS compute, but https://salsa.debian.org/help/instance_configuration#gitlab-pages https://salsa.debian.org/help/instance_configuration#gitlab-... shows they are using the community edition (MIT https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-foss/-/blob/v16.10.0/LICENSE https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-foss/-/blob/v16.10.0/LI... ) and using GitLab Pages so that's "editor in the web", "CI/CD compute", "website hosting" right there. I believe codespaces is "we run a docker container with vscode in it" so kind of a subset of "CI compute" but since I don't use that, I can't speak to whether it's included in the FOSS side of GitLab or not

The way I rationalize my use of Github to myself is by framing it as me stealing free compute and storage from the evil Microsoft.

HaZeust 3y ago
Trust me, they're making it back.
- mdaniel 3y ago
  I'd presume if nothing else in copilot subscriptions, populated by harvesting upteen bazillion repos, issues, and maybe even CI job run logs
  - mnau 3y ago
    i am pretty sure they would just clone stuff from BitBucket or SF if they didn't have it on their own platform.
  - mdswanson 3y ago
    https://aibusiness.com/nlp/github-copilot-loses-20-a-month-per-user https://aibusiness.com/nlp/github-copilot-loses-20-a-month-p...
    - simonw 3y ago
      The accuracy of that story was vigorously denied by people in a position to know: https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1712140497127342404 https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1712140497127342404

mdaniel 3y ago

especially with the number of actual FOSS alternatives available right now, but that network effect, whew, it's strong :-(

mnau 3y ago
I am considering moving away because of network effect. The more popular repo is, the more work is there (issues, PRs...). It's not scalable. Using another platform/self-host would introduce a friction.
- bmitc 3y ago
  You can disable issues.
  - mnau 3y ago
    That's not the point. I am not opposed to issues per se. The problem is dealing with the amount, it's exhausting. It's just too easy to make issue or comment on GitHub because of network effect. This sums it up pretty well: https://nolanlawson.com/2017/03/05/what-it-feels-like-to-be-an-open-source-maintainer/ https://nolanlawson.com/2017/03/05/what-it-feels-like-to-be-... (my workload is of course far smaller, but still it takes time and saps energy) Yes, that issue has been opened for 4 years and I don't consider it important and neither did any of "me too" comments to do anything about it. At best I sometimes get drive by PR, which takes far more time to deal with than if I just did it myself.
bmitc 3y ago
What FOSS solutions give me an editor in the web, Codespaces, free CI/CD compute, free website hosting, etc.?
- mdaniel 3y ago
  I feel as though your question conflates FOSS with free SaaS compute, but https://salsa.debian.org/help/instance_configuration#gitlab-pages https://salsa.debian.org/help/instance_configuration#gitlab-... shows they are using the community edition (MIT https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-foss/-/blob/v16.10.0/LICENSE https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-foss/-/blob/v16.10.0/LI... ) and using GitLab Pages so that's "editor in the web", "CI/CD compute", "website hosting" right there. I believe codespaces is "we run a docker container with vscode in it" so kind of a subset of "CI compute" but since I don't use that, I can't speak to whether it's included in the FOSS side of GitLab or not