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SourceForge was founded 1999. Now, 16 years later they start to abuse their power. GitHub was launched 2008. Does this mean we can expect GitHub to start abusin

by doiwin 11y ago

SourceForge was founded 1999. Now, 16 years later they start to abuse their power. GitHub was launched 2008. Does this mean we can expect GitHub to start abusing our data by 2024?

TeMPOraL 11y ago
Quite possibly. As the market matures and gets more competitive, people are being forced to sacrifice every value, one by one, to boost short-term profits. It seems to be a common dynamic in just about every industry.
- pbhjpbhj 11y ago
  Are the people making those decisions on the poverty line or are they making them to make themselves even richer? [Yes it's literally a false dichotomy, I think my meaning is clear though.]
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    Both, actually. It doesn't even have to be a conscious choice; if you had every CEO make business decisions at random, those companies that made themselves more competitive would still thrive, while the others would die. Those who keep sacrificing values tend to outcompete the ones who don't, and so the values end up being sacrificed regardless of however humans rationalize it to themselves while making decisions.
josephg 11y ago
Github has a stable business model which depends on their reputation as a host. As I understand it, that isn't something that could ever be said of SourceForge. I'm not saying github will be around forever, but I highly doubt they'll make the same mistake sourceforge is making now.
- madaxe_again 11y ago
  SF was highly reputable back in the day - why else do you think so many projects which have roots back in the 90's are hosted there? Never say never. 15 years ago nobody would've dreamt SF would have gone this way.
  - eknkc 11y ago
    I don't think there were decent alternatives back then. Also, their business model has been based on web advertisement. It's a valid point that GitHub has a solid model and might not need to do shady stuff in the long run.
  - timtadh 11y ago
    Agreed. As a high schooler I loved sourceforge. I would talk it up to people and I had a couple of projects that I put up there. I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. Then I saw that famous talk by Linus on git in 2007 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8). Since I had never managed to get SVN working properly for me git was awesome. No server software to install. By the time I wanted to put up another project on the web Github was a thing and I used that. I never looked back, I loved how it was about the code, not how many installer downloads you had. That for me was the main problem with sourceforge. In the end it was a game (for the devs) to get the most downloads because that was how your projects were judged and ranked. The Github "game" is slightly better and there are multiple ways to play.
- netdog 11y ago
  > I'm not saying github will be around forever, but I highly doubt they'll make the same mistake sourceforge is making now. Github could be sold, just like Sourceforge was sold, and the new owners could behave very differently from the current owners.
mapt 11y ago
Build a user base with a great free product, abuse that user base for money until it leaves you for some competitor. Build social capital, spend it. The market, on average, doesn't just want profits from a tech company, it wants significant short-term growth in either revenues or userbase, and if the latter reaches saturation the former will occur.
- perlgeek 11y ago
  > The market, on average, doesn't just want profits from a tech company, it wants significant short-term growth in either revenues or userbase, and if the latter reaches saturation the former will occur. Small correction: it's not the "The market" that wants that, its the owner/investors/stock holders that want it. Which is why I have an easier time trusting a small company owned by its founders, than a big, publicly traded company. (Iirc github is still privately owned, but they have taken significant investments, so it's somewhere in between).
Grue3 11y ago
They already censor anything the Russian government doesn't like. [1] [1] https://gigaom.com/2014/12/05/github-gives-in-to-russian-censorship-demands-following-blockage/ https://gigaom.com/2014/12/05/github-gives-in-to-russian-cen...
- doiwin 11y ago
  As I understand it, they only block russian IPs from accessing it. That seems ok to me. Every country has it's own laws. There is now completely free speach anywhere around the world.
  - Grue3 11y ago
    Well, I just so happen to have a Russian IP, so this particular issue is quite important to me. I think censorship should be everyone's concern, even if it doesn't personally affect you. What if your government is next?
  - kuschku 11y ago
    But that doesn’t happen – if a repo violates US law, they remove it completely, even if it would have been completely fine under German law, for example.
    - joshuapants 11y ago
      Is that because their servers are in the US? A bit different in that case.
    - jffry 11y ago
      If GitHub is hosted in the US, and a repo that is hosted by GitHub violates US law, they probably cannot continue to host that repo in the US and serve it only to non-US clients.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]

by doiwin 11y ago

SourceForge was founded 1999. Now, 16 years later they start to abuse their power. GitHub was launched 2008. Does this mean we can expect GitHub to start abusing our data by 2024?

TeMPOraL 11y ago

Quite possibly. As the market matures and gets more competitive, people are being forced to sacrifice every value, one by one, to boost short-term profits. It seems to be a common dynamic in just about every industry.

pbhjpbhj 11y ago
Are the people making those decisions on the poverty line or are they making them to make themselves even richer? [Yes it's literally a false dichotomy, I think my meaning is clear though.]
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Both, actually. It doesn't even have to be a conscious choice; if you had every CEO make business decisions at random, those companies that made themselves more competitive would still thrive, while the others would die. Those who keep sacrificing values tend to outcompete the ones who don't, and so the values end up being sacrificed regardless of however humans rationalize it to themselves while making decisions.

josephg 11y ago

Github has a stable business model which depends on their reputation as a host. As I understand it, that isn't something that could ever be said of SourceForge. I'm not saying github will be around forever, but I highly doubt they'll make the same mistake sourceforge is making now.

madaxe_again 11y ago
SF was highly reputable back in the day - why else do you think so many projects which have roots back in the 90's are hosted there? Never say never. 15 years ago nobody would've dreamt SF would have gone this way.
- eknkc 11y ago
  I don't think there were decent alternatives back then. Also, their business model has been based on web advertisement. It's a valid point that GitHub has a solid model and might not need to do shady stuff in the long run.
- timtadh 11y ago
  Agreed. As a high schooler I loved sourceforge. I would talk it up to people and I had a couple of projects that I put up there. I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. Then I saw that famous talk by Linus on git in 2007 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8). Since I had never managed to get SVN working properly for me git was awesome. No server software to install. By the time I wanted to put up another project on the web Github was a thing and I used that. I never looked back, I loved how it was about the code, not how many installer downloads you had. That for me was the main problem with sourceforge. In the end it was a game (for the devs) to get the most downloads because that was how your projects were judged and ranked. The Github "game" is slightly better and there are multiple ways to play.
netdog 11y ago
> I'm not saying github will be around forever, but I highly doubt they'll make the same mistake sourceforge is making now. Github could be sold, just like Sourceforge was sold, and the new owners could behave very differently from the current owners.

mapt 11y ago

Build a user base with a great free product, abuse that user base for money until it leaves you for some competitor. Build social capital, spend it. The market, on average, doesn't just want profits from a tech company, it wants significant short-term growth in either revenues or userbase, and if the latter reaches saturation the former will occur.

perlgeek 11y ago
> The market, on average, doesn't just want profits from a tech company, it wants significant short-term growth in either revenues or userbase, and if the latter reaches saturation the former will occur. Small correction: it's not the "The market" that wants that, its the owner/investors/stock holders that want it. Which is why I have an easier time trusting a small company owned by its founders, than a big, publicly traded company. (Iirc github is still privately owned, but they have taken significant investments, so it's somewhere in between).

Grue3 11y ago

They already censor anything the Russian government doesn't like. [1] [1] https://gigaom.com/2014/12/05/github-gives-in-to-russian-censorship-demands-following-blockage/ https://gigaom.com/2014/12/05/github-gives-in-to-russian-cen...

doiwin 11y ago
As I understand it, they only block russian IPs from accessing it. That seems ok to me. Every country has it's own laws. There is now completely free speach anywhere around the world.
- Grue3 11y ago
  Well, I just so happen to have a Russian IP, so this particular issue is quite important to me. I think censorship should be everyone's concern, even if it doesn't personally affect you. What if your government is next?
- kuschku 11y ago
  But that doesn’t happen – if a repo violates US law, they remove it completely, even if it would have been completely fine under German law, for example.
  - joshuapants 11y ago
    Is that because their servers are in the US? A bit different in that case.
  - jffry 11y ago
    If GitHub is hosted in the US, and a repo that is hosted by GitHub violates US law, they probably cannot continue to host that repo in the US and serve it only to non-US clients.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]