3 ms·

Edit: Okay, sounds like you guys are pissed to the point where it seems like the pro tip here is to stop using GitHub. Pro tip: sign up for the business/enterp

by cj 7mo ago

Edit: Okay, sounds like you guys are pissed to the point where it seems like the pro tip here is to stop using GitHub. Pro tip: sign up for the business/enterprise version when reasonable in price. I do this with Google Workspace. You can also do it with GitHub. (Google doesn’t train on Workspace, Github doesn’t train on business customers, etc)

throwuxiytayq 7mo ago
It's not a pro tip if it only fucks you over slightly later. How's the weather in Stockholm?
thot_experiment 7mo ago
Probably don't reward extortion with money.
- kelnos 7mo ago
  You don't have to use their free service if you don't like its terms. "Extortion" is a bit of an exaggeration here. Yes, I know, it's dicey when people get used to a nice, friendly platform, and the platform gains lots of users, and then at some point (or several points), the terms start getting worse, and people feel misled and betrayed. I get that. But this is a corporation. Hell, this is Microsoft. It's hilarious how many people think they've actually changed since their antitrust judgment in the 90s. I guess a lot of folks here are too young to remember it, even. Companies exist to make money. If they are giving you something for free, they are either a) getting something else out of it already, or b) giving it to you for free now and looking for ways to get their own value out of it later. I don't mean that in some sort of cynical, "fuck the world" sense; that's just reality, and that's fine, for the most part. If you don't like this, don't use free services provided by corporations. Host your own. Yes, I know it can cost money. Yes, I know it's more work. But that's life. TANSTAAFL. I've had a VPS running for a couple decades on a small provider. These days it costs me a little under $200/year. Much cheaper options exist. I run a web server, gitea instance, matrix homeserver, and a slew of other things on it. It requires very little maintenance because I just run Debian stable on it, keep up with security updates, but otherwise leave it alone. It backs up the important stuff to S3 using duplicity, but -- knock on wood -- I've never had a catastrophic failure that required a restore in the ~20 years its been running.
  - thot_experiment 7mo ago
    Ehhh sort of, I see what you're saying about it maybe not meeting the technical definition of extortion but I think you're missing the forest for the trees a little bit. The whole point is that when a company tries to force you to pay them through manipulative practices, you should not do that. That when companies manipulate you even if it makes economic sense to pay you shouldn't. That's fully compatible with not using the free service if you don't like the terms. Obviously the root problem is the incentive structures created by a system that relies on scarcity to assign value to things being applied to things that effectively cost zero to duplicate. Obviously companies are not my friends, I self host everything, heck I even have a local copy of my VPS, it's on solar, I'M fine. I don't expect Github to do good things and make good choices, but that doesn't mean I can't be mad about it when they do things I don't like. Also I live in the real world and have to deal with society and there would be friction I create for myself when I try to exist in tech and refuse to use github, might be a worthwhile trade but it IS a trade.
margalabargala 7mo ago
> Google doesn’t train on Workspace, Github doesn’t train on business customers, etc ...yet
- bilbo0s 7mo ago
  This. The belief of business users that this will remain true is grounded more in hope than in cold, dispassionate, business based decision making. If it's not life or death, encrypt every byte of data you send to the cloud. If it is life or death, you should probably not be letting that data traverse the open internet in any form.
- arcanemachiner 7mo ago
  Or, they don't train on it, but who's to say they're not harvesting analytics which may or may or not code samples, prompt data, etc. Which are then laundered through some sort of anonymization pipeline, to the point where they can argue that it no longer qualifies as your data, and can be freely trained upon. Conspiratorial thinking? Sure. But if you've been around for a couple decades and seen the games these people play (and you aren't a complete sucker), then you'll at least be aware that there's at least slight possibility that these companies can get things from their customers that they (the customers) did not knowingly agree to.
  - schubidubiduba 7mo ago
    Nothing conspirational about it. Getting data that their users or customers don't actually intend to give is the bread and butter of these companies. And they will do what they can to get it.
worble 7mo ago
Pro tip: You could instead spend that money to spin up a forgejo instance for as little as $2 a month https://www.pikapods.com/apps#development https://www.pikapods.com/apps#development (not affiliated, just a happy customer) Please don't reward these companies with money.
- hirako2000 7mo ago
  I did exactly that. Containerized it and Forgejo simply became a small instance part of the fleet. UI is much snappier then GitHub. And more importantly: zero outages.
- encrypted_bird 7mo ago
  Or, alternatively, self-host a gitea instance!
  - kriops 7mo ago
    No. Money-grab incoming. Use forgejo.
    - encrypted_bird 7mo ago
      Huh? Care to elaborate how Gitea is an inevitable cashgrab? Sure, it's not strictly copyleft, but it is licensed with the MIT License, and that is also the most popular license on GitHub.
groby_b 7mo ago
Github's enterprise version "starts at" $21.99/seat, and requires you to "contact sales". And I don't see any mention that that exempts you from being trained on. (Yes, the blog says you're still covered, but at that price I'd like to see a contract saying that)
saghm 7mo ago
At the risk of stating the obvious, I don't think it makes sense to reward them with money for trying to pull a bait-and-switch on this.
Lio 7mo ago
An enterprise licence won't save you, Google, Microsoft, et al have happily been breaking copyright laws for years. If the publishing industry can't win a case against the AI firms then you don't stand a chance when you finally find out they've been training on your private data the whole time. They can tell you one thing and do the opposite and there's effectively nothing you can do about it. You'd be a fool to trust them.

by cj 7mo ago

throwuxiytayq 7mo ago

It's not a pro tip if it only fucks you over slightly later. How's the weather in Stockholm?

thot_experiment 7mo ago

Probably don't reward extortion with money.

kelnos 7mo ago
You don't have to use their free service if you don't like its terms. "Extortion" is a bit of an exaggeration here. Yes, I know, it's dicey when people get used to a nice, friendly platform, and the platform gains lots of users, and then at some point (or several points), the terms start getting worse, and people feel misled and betrayed. I get that. But this is a corporation. Hell, this is Microsoft. It's hilarious how many people think they've actually changed since their antitrust judgment in the 90s. I guess a lot of folks here are too young to remember it, even. Companies exist to make money. If they are giving you something for free, they are either a) getting something else out of it already, or b) giving it to you for free now and looking for ways to get their own value out of it later. I don't mean that in some sort of cynical, "fuck the world" sense; that's just reality, and that's fine, for the most part. If you don't like this, don't use free services provided by corporations. Host your own. Yes, I know it can cost money. Yes, I know it's more work. But that's life. TANSTAAFL. I've had a VPS running for a couple decades on a small provider. These days it costs me a little under $200/year. Much cheaper options exist. I run a web server, gitea instance, matrix homeserver, and a slew of other things on it. It requires very little maintenance because I just run Debian stable on it, keep up with security updates, but otherwise leave it alone. It backs up the important stuff to S3 using duplicity, but -- knock on wood -- I've never had a catastrophic failure that required a restore in the ~20 years its been running.
- thot_experiment 7mo ago
  Ehhh sort of, I see what you're saying about it maybe not meeting the technical definition of extortion but I think you're missing the forest for the trees a little bit. The whole point is that when a company tries to force you to pay them through manipulative practices, you should not do that. That when companies manipulate you even if it makes economic sense to pay you shouldn't. That's fully compatible with not using the free service if you don't like the terms. Obviously the root problem is the incentive structures created by a system that relies on scarcity to assign value to things being applied to things that effectively cost zero to duplicate. Obviously companies are not my friends, I self host everything, heck I even have a local copy of my VPS, it's on solar, I'M fine. I don't expect Github to do good things and make good choices, but that doesn't mean I can't be mad about it when they do things I don't like. Also I live in the real world and have to deal with society and there would be friction I create for myself when I try to exist in tech and refuse to use github, might be a worthwhile trade but it IS a trade.

margalabargala 7mo ago

> Google doesn’t train on Workspace, Github doesn’t train on business customers, etc ...yet

bilbo0s 7mo ago
This. The belief of business users that this will remain true is grounded more in hope than in cold, dispassionate, business based decision making. If it's not life or death, encrypt every byte of data you send to the cloud. If it is life or death, you should probably not be letting that data traverse the open internet in any form.
arcanemachiner 7mo ago
Or, they don't train on it, but who's to say they're not harvesting analytics which may or may or not code samples, prompt data, etc. Which are then laundered through some sort of anonymization pipeline, to the point where they can argue that it no longer qualifies as your data, and can be freely trained upon. Conspiratorial thinking? Sure. But if you've been around for a couple decades and seen the games these people play (and you aren't a complete sucker), then you'll at least be aware that there's at least slight possibility that these companies can get things from their customers that they (the customers) did not knowingly agree to.
- schubidubiduba 7mo ago
  Nothing conspirational about it. Getting data that their users or customers don't actually intend to give is the bread and butter of these companies. And they will do what they can to get it.

worble 7mo ago

Pro tip: You could instead spend that money to spin up a forgejo instance for as little as $2 a month https://www.pikapods.com/apps#development https://www.pikapods.com/apps#development (not affiliated, just a happy customer) Please don't reward these companies with money.

hirako2000 7mo ago
I did exactly that. Containerized it and Forgejo simply became a small instance part of the fleet. UI is much snappier then GitHub. And more importantly: zero outages.
encrypted_bird 7mo ago
Or, alternatively, self-host a gitea instance!
- kriops 7mo ago
  No. Money-grab incoming. Use forgejo.
  - encrypted_bird 7mo ago
    Huh? Care to elaborate how Gitea is an inevitable cashgrab? Sure, it's not strictly copyleft, but it is licensed with the MIT License, and that is also the most popular license on GitHub.

groby_b 7mo ago

Github's enterprise version "starts at" $21.99/seat, and requires you to "contact sales". And I don't see any mention that that exempts you from being trained on. (Yes, the blog says you're still covered, but at that price I'd like to see a contract saying that)

saghm 7mo ago

At the risk of stating the obvious, I don't think it makes sense to reward them with money for trying to pull a bait-and-switch on this.

Lio 7mo ago

An enterprise licence won't save you, Google, Microsoft, et al have happily been breaking copyright laws for years. If the publishing industry can't win a case against the AI firms then you don't stand a chance when you finally find out they've been training on your private data the whole time. They can tell you one thing and do the opposite and there's effectively nothing you can do about it. You'd be a fool to trust them.