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It is quite sad to see this happen to Sourceforge. IIRC Sourceforge was bought for $20M or so. I wonder how GitHub plans to repay the $100M (+ interest) VC 'loa

by ksk 11y ago

It is quite sad to see this happen to Sourceforge. IIRC Sourceforge was bought for $20M or so. I wonder how GitHub plans to repay the $100M (+ interest) VC 'loan' and generate profit without 'whoring out' to google/other advertisers.

schneidmaster 11y ago
GitHub has paid plans for private repositories and it can add up to a fair bit of MRR for enterprise organizations. https://github.com/pricing https://github.com/pricing They also make money off of their job board ($450 a listing) and could probably monetize a lot more here without angering too many users. https://jobs.github.com/ https://jobs.github.com/
- ksk 11y ago
  Yes, Hopefully it will add up to $100M+. Atleast one company must survive!
fweespeech 11y ago
Its a test bed for their SaaS & Enterprise product lines.
joshstrange 11y ago
I never paid SF a dime but I pay Github every month. I imagine that factors in heavily...
inglor 11y ago
GitHub can always monetise the same way Stack Overflow does with ADs for their free users. An unintrusive AD you get if you're a free user wouldn't be too terrible or disturbing. Another channel would be donations for hosting FOSS projects or something like that. Very hard question indeed.
- ksk 11y ago
  Well, but Stack Overflow itself is not profitable (AFAIK they have not repaid the $70M). Also, look at the scummy things that Q&A sites like Quora end up doing after they find it difficult to stay afloat. Certainly, I trust Jeff & Joel to be much more ethical, but the new owners might not be.
  - niuzeta 11y ago
    > Also, look at the scummy things that Q&A sites like Quora end up doing after they find it difficult to stay afloat. Kind of what? I'm genuinely not aware of this. People seem to be hating Quora but I've never received a concrete answer; their having to select 'preference' at the beginning annoys the hell out of me, though.
    - ksk 11y ago
      Sure, not everyone dislikes quora. I know many people that like it quite a bit. Forced sign-in for one. They used to show different versions of the the Q&A to crawlers vs people who click the search result. And then blur the answer. Also they didn't have an option to delete an account. You need to email them about that. Some previous discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4377181 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4377181 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4332978 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4332978 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8379973 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8379973 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3812092 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3812092
      - niuzeta 11y ago
        I know it's a late reply, but I wanted to thank you for the links. They are... eye-opening, to say the least.
yellowapple 11y ago
GitHub has paid plans in order for orgs to have private repos. Is that not enough?
- ksk 11y ago
  Well, they have "a way" of charging users. Sourceforge had similar plans 11 years ago. Charge a premium for some extra project features. I guess a plan is something more detailed in my head. But sure, I'll cheer for their success.

by ksk 11y ago

schneidmaster 11y ago

GitHub has paid plans for private repositories and it can add up to a fair bit of MRR for enterprise organizations. https://github.com/pricing https://github.com/pricing They also make money off of their job board ($450 a listing) and could probably monetize a lot more here without angering too many users. https://jobs.github.com/ https://jobs.github.com/

ksk 11y ago
Yes, Hopefully it will add up to $100M+. Atleast one company must survive!

fweespeech 11y ago

Its a test bed for their SaaS & Enterprise product lines.

joshstrange 11y ago

I never paid SF a dime but I pay Github every month. I imagine that factors in heavily...

inglor 11y ago

GitHub can always monetise the same way Stack Overflow does with ADs for their free users. An unintrusive AD you get if you're a free user wouldn't be too terrible or disturbing. Another channel would be donations for hosting FOSS projects or something like that. Very hard question indeed.

ksk 11y ago
Well, but Stack Overflow itself is not profitable (AFAIK they have not repaid the $70M). Also, look at the scummy things that Q&A sites like Quora end up doing after they find it difficult to stay afloat. Certainly, I trust Jeff & Joel to be much more ethical, but the new owners might not be.
- niuzeta 11y ago
  > Also, look at the scummy things that Q&A sites like Quora end up doing after they find it difficult to stay afloat. Kind of what? I'm genuinely not aware of this. People seem to be hating Quora but I've never received a concrete answer; their having to select 'preference' at the beginning annoys the hell out of me, though.
  - ksk 11y ago
    Sure, not everyone dislikes quora. I know many people that like it quite a bit. Forced sign-in for one. They used to show different versions of the the Q&A to crawlers vs people who click the search result. And then blur the answer. Also they didn't have an option to delete an account. You need to email them about that. Some previous discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4377181 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4377181 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4332978 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4332978 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8379973 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8379973 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3812092 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3812092
    - niuzeta 11y ago
      I know it's a late reply, but I wanted to thank you for the links. They are... eye-opening, to say the least.

yellowapple 11y ago

GitHub has paid plans in order for orgs to have private repos. Is that not enough?

ksk 11y ago
Well, they have "a way" of charging users. Sourceforge had similar plans 11 years ago. Charge a premium for some extra project features. I guess a plan is something more detailed in my head. But sure, I'll cheer for their success.