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So, aside from DOIs (which anyone can create: http://www.doi.org/faq.html http://www.doi.org/faq.html), this post is mostly about free private git repos. But t

by timr 13y ago

So, aside from DOIs (which anyone can create: http://www.doi.org/faq.html http://www.doi.org/faq.html), this post is mostly about free private git repos. But the thing is, anyone can get as many free private git repos as they like at bitbucket.org right now. You only have to pay when your team is over 5 people, and even then it's pretty cheap. So if you want hosted git but cost is an object, just use Bitbucket. There's no reason to pay a premium for hosted git. It's a commodity.

isbadawi 13y ago
GitHub is not just hosted git. There are other features like the issue tracker, pull requests, editing files and committing from the browser, etc. Also, if e.g. a research group already has a GitHub organization with their open source work (many do), then it's reasonable for them to want private repos under the same umbrella so that they can collaborate using the same tools irrespective of whether the work is open yet.
- timr 13y ago
  "There are other features like the issue tracker, pull requests, editing files and committing from the browser, etc." Yes, bitbucket also has issue tracking and pull requests. I have no idea if they have file editing from the browser (though they probably do), because I'm a programmer, and I have an editor. I know this is hard to believe, but Github really is a commodity product. There are many alternatives, and they all work pretty much the same -- particularly if you know how to use git from the command line.
  - danso 13y ago
    "I know this is hard to believe, but Facebook really is a commodity product, and Friendster and Myspace have been doing it since years ago, and Diaspora is going to do the same thing, except be private and secure" - said someone everytime FB added a controversial feature. There's definitely buy-in and momentum of established products...but sometimes, products in the same space can be differentiated in ways not directly related to their core. Github makes it substantially easier to share and collaborate. And that is why many people prefer it. If you reduce it to "Well other places have git, too"...then that's missing the point of why Github appeals to so many.
    - timr 13y ago
      "Github makes it substantially easier to share and collaborate." Unless you're using git, in which case, it's exactly the same: unlike facebook, I don't need my best friends to be in my git repo to make it useful. In any case, I'm sure there are some folks for whom pull requests or browser-based editing (again: not unique to github) make the difference. But for a team of developers who need private repositories, it's six of one, half a dozen of the other.
  - isbadawi 13y ago
    I wasn't implying that these features were unique to GitHub, just that there can be reasons why one might prefer to use GitHub beyond it just being a place to host git repositories. I don't think "hosted git" accurately captures the appeal of GitHub (or bitbucket for that matter). While this is the main premise behind both products, I don't think they're necessarily interchangeable in the way you describe.
  - sampo 13y ago
    I use the side-by-side diff view feature in Bitbucket a lot, and I am kind of amazed Github does not have that.
  - bachmeier 13y ago
    "I have no idea if they have file editing from the browser (though they probably do)" They do. It's turned out to be an awesome feature for me as an org-mode user (so I obviously have an editor). You can add to org-mode files from any web browser and then it's on all your machines with the next git pull.
cben 13y ago
Another tiny attraction of bitbucket for science is MathJax support in reStructuredText [0]. Unfortunately not implemented yet for markdown [1]. There is an unfilled niche for version control with out-of-the-box rendering of scientific formats: - mathjax everywhere - And of course full latex. This may be specialized enough to be better served by separate services, but now that sharelatex is open source a tighter integration is possible. - bibliographies (rendered as publication lists?) - Notebooks like IPython [2] and Sage; literate R. - plots of various kinds - tons of formats I never heard about (chemistry, bio, astronomy...) Third-party web renderers exist for most formats (e.g. nbviewer.ipython.org) but there would be value for doing them all in one place - making repos pretty enough to serve as poor man's website (think how Github's up-front README rendering was good enough for many projects). The obvious direction is improving[3]/forking Gitlab. I hoped Banyan.co would be that but just discovered they went down :-(. Authorea does some of this. And cloud.sagemath.com exposes an impressive amount of tools under one roof. Though it's focused on working more than browsing. [0] https://bitbucket.org/cbensf/test-math https://bitbucket.org/cbensf/test-math For some reason not working at test-math/src view (reported https://bitbucket.org/site/master/issue/9483 https://bitbucket.org/site/master/issue/9483) [1] https://bitbucket.org/site/master/issue/7908/enable-mathjax-in-markdown-bb-9086 https://bitbucket.org/site/master/issue/7908/enable-mathjax-... [2] http://nbviewer.ipython.org/urls/bitbucket.org/mforbes/paper_dvrvsho/raw/tip/docs/notebooks/DVR_Demo.ipynb http://nbviewer.ipython.org/urls/bitbucket.org/mforbes/paper... [3] http://feedback.gitlab.com/forums/176466-general/suggestions/5569530 http://feedback.gitlab.com/forums/176466-general/suggestions... BTW, Gitlab.com also has free private repos.
- guynamedloren 13y ago
  We're on the same wavelength here. This is exactly the problem I'm trying to tackle with Penflip (https://www.penflip.com/ https://www.penflip.com/). - Began as a fork of Gitlab - Hosts public and private writing projects that are backed by git repos - Git repos allow for local editing, remote access, and easy collaboration - In-browser markdown editor with syntax highlighting - MathJax support (as of yesterday - still testing and tweaking) - Extended markdown support for tables, footnotes, etc - One-click downloads in PDF / HTML / ePub / Word format Originally, Penflip was geared towards writers, but I am seeing an increased demand for scientific and academic uses. I'm exploring this right now. EDIT: wow, just realized you're the one behind mathdown.net, which I recently discovered while researching MathJax. Excellent work!
tonylampada 13y ago
And then there's gitlab.com with free unlimited private repos. I guess people just didn't find out about it yet.
- maccard 13y ago
  Which you have to host yourself. Not the same thing.

by timr 13y ago

isbadawi 13y ago

GitHub is not just hosted git. There are other features like the issue tracker, pull requests, editing files and committing from the browser, etc. Also, if e.g. a research group already has a GitHub organization with their open source work (many do), then it's reasonable for them to want private repos under the same umbrella so that they can collaborate using the same tools irrespective of whether the work is open yet.

timr 13y ago
"There are other features like the issue tracker, pull requests, editing files and committing from the browser, etc." Yes, bitbucket also has issue tracking and pull requests. I have no idea if they have file editing from the browser (though they probably do), because I'm a programmer, and I have an editor. I know this is hard to believe, but Github really is a commodity product. There are many alternatives, and they all work pretty much the same -- particularly if you know how to use git from the command line.
- danso 13y ago
  "I know this is hard to believe, but Facebook really is a commodity product, and Friendster and Myspace have been doing it since years ago, and Diaspora is going to do the same thing, except be private and secure" - said someone everytime FB added a controversial feature. There's definitely buy-in and momentum of established products...but sometimes, products in the same space can be differentiated in ways not directly related to their core. Github makes it substantially easier to share and collaborate. And that is why many people prefer it. If you reduce it to "Well other places have git, too"...then that's missing the point of why Github appeals to so many.
  - timr 13y ago
    "Github makes it substantially easier to share and collaborate." Unless you're using git, in which case, it's exactly the same: unlike facebook, I don't need my best friends to be in my git repo to make it useful. In any case, I'm sure there are some folks for whom pull requests or browser-based editing (again: not unique to github) make the difference. But for a team of developers who need private repositories, it's six of one, half a dozen of the other.
- isbadawi 13y ago
  I wasn't implying that these features were unique to GitHub, just that there can be reasons why one might prefer to use GitHub beyond it just being a place to host git repositories. I don't think "hosted git" accurately captures the appeal of GitHub (or bitbucket for that matter). While this is the main premise behind both products, I don't think they're necessarily interchangeable in the way you describe.
- sampo 13y ago
  I use the side-by-side diff view feature in Bitbucket a lot, and I am kind of amazed Github does not have that.
- bachmeier 13y ago
  "I have no idea if they have file editing from the browser (though they probably do)" They do. It's turned out to be an awesome feature for me as an org-mode user (so I obviously have an editor). You can add to org-mode files from any web browser and then it's on all your machines with the next git pull.

cben 13y ago

Another tiny attraction of bitbucket for science is MathJax support in reStructuredText [0]. Unfortunately not implemented yet for markdown [1]. There is an unfilled niche for version control with out-of-the-box rendering of scientific formats: - mathjax everywhere - And of course full latex. This may be specialized enough to be better served by separate services, but now that sharelatex is open source a tighter integration is possible. - bibliographies (rendered as publication lists?) - Notebooks like IPython [2] and Sage; literate R. - plots of various kinds - tons of formats I never heard about (chemistry, bio, astronomy...) Third-party web renderers exist for most formats (e.g. nbviewer.ipython.org) but there would be value for doing them all in one place - making repos pretty enough to serve as poor man's website (think how Github's up-front README rendering was good enough for many projects). The obvious direction is improving[3]/forking Gitlab. I hoped Banyan.co would be that but just discovered they went down :-(. Authorea does some of this. And cloud.sagemath.com exposes an impressive amount of tools under one roof. Though it's focused on working more than browsing. [0] https://bitbucket.org/cbensf/test-math https://bitbucket.org/cbensf/test-math For some reason not working at test-math/src view (reported https://bitbucket.org/site/master/issue/9483 https://bitbucket.org/site/master/issue/9483) [1] https://bitbucket.org/site/master/issue/7908/enable-mathjax-in-markdown-bb-9086 https://bitbucket.org/site/master/issue/7908/enable-mathjax-... [2] http://nbviewer.ipython.org/urls/bitbucket.org/mforbes/paper_dvrvsho/raw/tip/docs/notebooks/DVR_Demo.ipynb http://nbviewer.ipython.org/urls/bitbucket.org/mforbes/paper... [3] http://feedback.gitlab.com/forums/176466-general/suggestions/5569530 http://feedback.gitlab.com/forums/176466-general/suggestions... BTW, Gitlab.com also has free private repos.

guynamedloren 13y ago
We're on the same wavelength here. This is exactly the problem I'm trying to tackle with Penflip (https://www.penflip.com/ https://www.penflip.com/). - Began as a fork of Gitlab - Hosts public and private writing projects that are backed by git repos - Git repos allow for local editing, remote access, and easy collaboration - In-browser markdown editor with syntax highlighting - MathJax support (as of yesterday - still testing and tweaking) - Extended markdown support for tables, footnotes, etc - One-click downloads in PDF / HTML / ePub / Word format Originally, Penflip was geared towards writers, but I am seeing an increased demand for scientific and academic uses. I'm exploring this right now. EDIT: wow, just realized you're the one behind mathdown.net, which I recently discovered while researching MathJax. Excellent work!

tonylampada 13y ago

And then there's gitlab.com with free unlimited private repos. I guess people just didn't find out about it yet.

maccard 13y ago
Which you have to host yourself. Not the same thing.