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It's an eye opener. Think about it - today, it was a mistake. But, what if it really happened? What if you really lost access to all your years of hard work? It

by neya 5mo ago

It's an eye opener. Think about it - today, it was a mistake. But, what if it really happened? What if you really lost access to all your years of hard work? It's a wake up call. A blessing in disguise to store what matters to you the most locally, backed up offline. Never trust any single provider. Be it MS or Google or Apple. RAID is the way.

onion2k 4mo ago
People should use something that keeps a local copy of their code and just copies it to Github and to other contributors with a sync process to push and pull changes. Some sort of 'distributed source control system' maybe. Then people would only need a 'hub' to connect to people, and it'd be easier to move somewhere else.
- coldpie 4mo ago
  This gets tiresome. Github is a lot more than a host for Git repositories. If you want to suggest that people use something else, you need to suggest a replacement that has the features people use Github for.
  - ornornor 4mo ago
    Increasingly less and less so as they “upgrade” their offering and have more and more downtime.
  - doctorpangloss 4mo ago
    yeah, #1, it is free private file storage, and #2, it's a download portal for free as in beer software replacing paid offerings. that's what it is for 99.99% of people. being a host for git repositories has never been its core competency. neither has its groupware offering. does it even serve OSS well? a very interesting criteria is, "Have mature or adopted end-user-facing OSS recently merged a large PR from an unallied contributor?" The answer is overwhelming no. This is why there is so much innovation in this space.
  - danudey 4mo ago
    I think you missed the joke, which is that the parent poster you're replying to is suggesting a 'solution' to the problem which evolved in complexity until he was just describing Github again.
- fusishch 4mo ago
  What you just described is Fossil. It has an auto-sync feature that makes everything feel distributed. Just set up a Kubernetes deployment and you’re set. But as others mention, GitHub’s primary strength is collaboration. If you want decentralized, solve this by creating a decentralized collaboration tool on top of fossil and/or git. For example, how to do pull requests and code reviews?
  - 40four 4mo ago
    Why they just described is Git :) pretty sure it was a joke
- gopalv 4mo ago
  > Some sort of 'distributed source control system' maybe The day it broke away and became centralized was when we had a PR + mandatory "Required actions" to merge to main.
  - ruszki 4mo ago
    That’s only mandatory on the “hub”. I can do that locally anytime.
- marricks 4mo ago
  I like how tech seems to be all about stacking more and more turtles on top of each other: Gosh, it's hard figuring out what changes Lorne made if only we had a system to merge those changes. Enter git Gosh it's hard figuring out what packages Rachel had to make this work. Enter rubygems/pip/npm Gosh it's hard figuring out sync these changes across a network. Enter github Gosh it's hard figuring out how to get those packages working on my operating system. Enter docker Gosh centralizing our distributed version control software system onto one website is getting really unreliable. Enter fossil(?????) If we go any further having one computer per business with a sign up sheep is starting to sound pretty fucking attractive.
- bergie 4mo ago
  I'm looking at setting up rngit mirrors of all my repos on our boat NAS. Conceivably it also allows issue tracking and collaboration without centralized infra https://reticulum.network/manual/git.html#mirroring-repositories https://reticulum.network/manual/git.html#mirroring-reposito...
corvad 4mo ago
RAID is not a backup.
- PokemonNoGo 4mo ago
  They... Didn't describe RAID? More 3-2-1.
  - filleduchaos 4mo ago
    The last sentence in the comment is literally "RAID is the way".
    - jrockway 4mo ago
      I think they were intending to evoke the image of RAID rather than literally referring to a redundant array of inexpensive disks. You host your code on Github, Gitlab, and at home, then you survive a Github outage. It's a redundant array. Not sure it's inexpensive, though.
mpaco 4mo ago
I recently got my GitHub account suspended for 4 months. When it was finally reinstated, their support just said it was a "mistake". Proudly self-hosting Forgejo since then.
- MatthiasPortzel 4mo ago
  This happened to me as well—thankfully not my personal account that I use for work, but the organization associated with an open source project I worked on was suspended. It similarly took 2 months for GitHub to restore the organization. > Our team is currently experiencing an unexpectedly high volume of tickets which has resulted in longer response times than we prefer. We acknowledge the long wait and apologize for the experience. > Sometimes our abuse detecting systems highlight accounts that need to be manually reviewed. We've cleared the restrictions from your account… Fully self-hosted IMO can be an overcorrection. The issue isn’t “relying on other people”—it’s relying on GitHub, when they’ve made it clear they don’t care about uptime and they don’t care about support turn-around-time.
  - SpaceNoodled 4mo ago
    I care about uptime and have instant support turnaround. Self-hosting sounds like a great solution.
iso1631 4mo ago
Well yes, my git repositories sit on my laptop, that's the entire point. If github banned my country because its president has a tis, I can push my entire commit history to another company. Same with anyone else who's working on it. It would be a pain as I'd have to set up a few integrations again, but github is far lower down the risk scale than the vast majority of SAAS providers
- bulbar 4mo ago
  They rely on GitHub actions, not the repository itself. I hope people here are aware that you can push your repo somewhere else if wanted. Git is a distributed system, there isn't even a server, only other git repo instances that are remote.
  - iso1631 4mo ago
    I rely on actions, but those actions are pretty much "on this type of change to this branch run these scripts" It will be a hassle to migrate to another platform, possibly a couple of hours work to do the 25 repos in my ~/git/ directory. Even highly complicated actions can be migrated quite easily -- the source is stored in .github/workflows/blah.yml
noselasd 4mo ago
I've set up a local gitea now, and configured a few local runners as we test this setup out. It's a few hours worth of work. Basic git operations and pull requests works fine for us already. The interesting part will be how much maintenance this will need, and not the least how hard it'll be to port over github actions. We have trivial workflows, but I suspect this conversion will be the painful part.

by neya 5mo ago

onion2k 4mo ago

People should use something that keeps a local copy of their code and just copies it to Github and to other contributors with a sync process to push and pull changes. Some sort of 'distributed source control system' maybe. Then people would only need a 'hub' to connect to people, and it'd be easier to move somewhere else.

coldpie 4mo ago
This gets tiresome. Github is a lot more than a host for Git repositories. If you want to suggest that people use something else, you need to suggest a replacement that has the features people use Github for.
- ornornor 4mo ago
  Increasingly less and less so as they “upgrade” their offering and have more and more downtime.
- doctorpangloss 4mo ago
  yeah, #1, it is free private file storage, and #2, it's a download portal for free as in beer software replacing paid offerings. that's what it is for 99.99% of people. being a host for git repositories has never been its core competency. neither has its groupware offering. does it even serve OSS well? a very interesting criteria is, "Have mature or adopted end-user-facing OSS recently merged a large PR from an unallied contributor?" The answer is overwhelming no. This is why there is so much innovation in this space.
- danudey 4mo ago
  I think you missed the joke, which is that the parent poster you're replying to is suggesting a 'solution' to the problem which evolved in complexity until he was just describing Github again.
fusishch 4mo ago
What you just described is Fossil. It has an auto-sync feature that makes everything feel distributed. Just set up a Kubernetes deployment and you’re set. But as others mention, GitHub’s primary strength is collaboration. If you want decentralized, solve this by creating a decentralized collaboration tool on top of fossil and/or git. For example, how to do pull requests and code reviews?
- 40four 4mo ago
  Why they just described is Git :) pretty sure it was a joke
gopalv 4mo ago
> Some sort of 'distributed source control system' maybe The day it broke away and became centralized was when we had a PR + mandatory "Required actions" to merge to main.
- ruszki 4mo ago
  That’s only mandatory on the “hub”. I can do that locally anytime.
marricks 4mo ago
I like how tech seems to be all about stacking more and more turtles on top of each other: Gosh, it's hard figuring out what changes Lorne made if only we had a system to merge those changes. Enter git Gosh it's hard figuring out what packages Rachel had to make this work. Enter rubygems/pip/npm Gosh it's hard figuring out sync these changes across a network. Enter github Gosh it's hard figuring out how to get those packages working on my operating system. Enter docker Gosh centralizing our distributed version control software system onto one website is getting really unreliable. Enter fossil(?????) If we go any further having one computer per business with a sign up sheep is starting to sound pretty fucking attractive.
bergie 4mo ago
I'm looking at setting up rngit mirrors of all my repos on our boat NAS. Conceivably it also allows issue tracking and collaboration without centralized infra https://reticulum.network/manual/git.html#mirroring-repositories https://reticulum.network/manual/git.html#mirroring-reposito...

corvad 4mo ago

RAID is not a backup.

PokemonNoGo 4mo ago
They... Didn't describe RAID? More 3-2-1.
- filleduchaos 4mo ago
  The last sentence in the comment is literally "RAID is the way".
  - jrockway 4mo ago
    I think they were intending to evoke the image of RAID rather than literally referring to a redundant array of inexpensive disks. You host your code on Github, Gitlab, and at home, then you survive a Github outage. It's a redundant array. Not sure it's inexpensive, though.

mpaco 4mo ago

I recently got my GitHub account suspended for 4 months. When it was finally reinstated, their support just said it was a "mistake". Proudly self-hosting Forgejo since then.

MatthiasPortzel 4mo ago
This happened to me as well—thankfully not my personal account that I use for work, but the organization associated with an open source project I worked on was suspended. It similarly took 2 months for GitHub to restore the organization. > Our team is currently experiencing an unexpectedly high volume of tickets which has resulted in longer response times than we prefer. We acknowledge the long wait and apologize for the experience. > Sometimes our abuse detecting systems highlight accounts that need to be manually reviewed. We've cleared the restrictions from your account… Fully self-hosted IMO can be an overcorrection. The issue isn’t “relying on other people”—it’s relying on GitHub, when they’ve made it clear they don’t care about uptime and they don’t care about support turn-around-time.
- SpaceNoodled 4mo ago
  I care about uptime and have instant support turnaround. Self-hosting sounds like a great solution.

iso1631 4mo ago

Well yes, my git repositories sit on my laptop, that's the entire point. If github banned my country because its president has a tis, I can push my entire commit history to another company. Same with anyone else who's working on it. It would be a pain as I'd have to set up a few integrations again, but github is far lower down the risk scale than the vast majority of SAAS providers

bulbar 4mo ago
They rely on GitHub actions, not the repository itself. I hope people here are aware that you can push your repo somewhere else if wanted. Git is a distributed system, there isn't even a server, only other git repo instances that are remote.
- iso1631 4mo ago
  I rely on actions, but those actions are pretty much "on this type of change to this branch run these scripts" It will be a hassle to migrate to another platform, possibly a couple of hours work to do the 25 repos in my ~/git/ directory. Even highly complicated actions can be migrated quite easily -- the source is stored in .github/workflows/blah.yml

noselasd 4mo ago

I've set up a local gitea now, and configured a few local runners as we test this setup out. It's a few hours worth of work. Basic git operations and pull requests works fine for us already. The interesting part will be how much maintenance this will need, and not the least how hard it'll be to port over github actions. We have trivial workflows, but I suspect this conversion will be the painful part.