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Scott Chacon had absolutely zero obligation to reach out to you. No more than a movie critic has an obligation to speak with the director before printing their

Scott Chacon had absolutely zero obligation to reach out to you. No more than a movie critic has an obligation to speak with the director before printing their review. He is comparing/contrasting GitHub with Google Code, the product you released. That is all. As for his claims, I don't even see how the linked article significantly contradicts what you yourself have said about the genesis and goals of Google Code. You claim that the purpose of Google Code was mainly just to break the SourceForge monoculture. In other words, it wasn't a product intended to be a polished worldbeater. Not something great. Not the next Gmail. Just something functional. A monoculture-preventer. Okay. (I am a software engineer as well, so I understand that even this level of creation involves many thousands of engineer-hours of blood, sweat, and tears. Not a knock.) So yeah, it doesn't sound like you created Google Code with "taste" which the linked article seems to be using as shorthand for "lots of product passion and UX polish." While the tone of the linked article seems a little more aggressive than it needs to be it... seems correct, based on what you've said?

tptacek 2y ago
He had an obligation not to assert as fact things he didn't know to be facts. I'm not going to high-horse it; it's a character fault I share, and I think we all do at times. But at the same time, you can't flip it around on the person who knew he was wrong, and publicly cleared the air. Chacon was wrong about something. That's his problem, his fault, nobody else's.
- JohnBooty 2y ago
  Specifically, what "facts" did Chacon get wrong? From the article I'm going to quote Google Code mentions. There are other assertions about Google's internal adoption of Git, but these seem to be backed up by e.g. the email he screenshotted. Furthermore, the players (Sourceforge, Google Code, etc) who eventually did care, after seeing Git and GitHub rising in popularity, simply had no taste. This is a subjective and opinionated statement, for sure. It doesn't seem like an assertion of fact to me. In 2011, both Google Code and BitBucket added Git support, which I’ll mark as the year that the nail was in the Mercurial coffin. First part fact, second part clearly opinion. Just 4 years later, in 2015, Google Code just completely gave up and shut it’s service down. In the email they sent out, they basically said “just move to GitHub”. What is non-factual here? He screencaps the email. So, Why Not Google Code? This section is really about what Github achieved, no direct Google Code assertions. The original article is correct, the other hosts focused on distribution and revenue streams. We cared about developers. Well, this is a speculation that (according to one Google Code member) is not correct - "DannyBee" claims they just wanted to avoid a SourceForge monoculture. Is this really the point of contention? I read the article in the context of "a guy who worked at Github talking about his experience at Github, which unavoidably will also mention externalities like the competition" and not at all in the context of "hey! this is the inside scoop on google! I got facts about Google's inner workings!" I just don't think there's a reasonable assumption that this should have been like, a rigorously fact-checked statement. Expecting a personal blog to adhere to the standards of some other kind of publishing is misguided and unrealistic. This is clearly a personal account and I'm just baffled that anybody would confuse a personal account like this with capital-j Journalism. This probably reads as pedantry (if anybody actually reads this post) but it's really, an honest attempt to understand.

tptacek 2y ago

He had an obligation not to assert as fact things he didn't know to be facts. I'm not going to high-horse it; it's a character fault I share, and I think we all do at times. But at the same time, you can't flip it around on the person who knew he was wrong, and publicly cleared the air. Chacon was wrong about something. That's his problem, his fault, nobody else's.

JohnBooty 2y ago
Specifically, what "facts" did Chacon get wrong? From the article I'm going to quote Google Code mentions. There are other assertions about Google's internal adoption of Git, but these seem to be backed up by e.g. the email he screenshotted. Furthermore, the players (Sourceforge, Google Code, etc) who eventually did care, after seeing Git and GitHub rising in popularity, simply had no taste. This is a subjective and opinionated statement, for sure. It doesn't seem like an assertion of fact to me. In 2011, both Google Code and BitBucket added Git support, which I’ll mark as the year that the nail was in the Mercurial coffin. First part fact, second part clearly opinion. Just 4 years later, in 2015, Google Code just completely gave up and shut it’s service down. In the email they sent out, they basically said “just move to GitHub”. What is non-factual here? He screencaps the email. So, Why Not Google Code? This section is really about what Github achieved, no direct Google Code assertions. The original article is correct, the other hosts focused on distribution and revenue streams. We cared about developers. Well, this is a speculation that (according to one Google Code member) is not correct - "DannyBee" claims they just wanted to avoid a SourceForge monoculture. Is this really the point of contention? I read the article in the context of "a guy who worked at Github talking about his experience at Github, which unavoidably will also mention externalities like the competition" and not at all in the context of "hey! this is the inside scoop on google! I got facts about Google's inner workings!" I just don't think there's a reasonable assumption that this should have been like, a rigorously fact-checked statement. Expecting a personal blog to adhere to the standards of some other kind of publishing is misguided and unrealistic. This is clearly a personal account and I'm just baffled that anybody would confuse a personal account like this with capital-j Journalism. This probably reads as pedantry (if anybody actually reads this post) but it's really, an honest attempt to understand.