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Are you guys fine with these new shenanigans from Github. I found a bug and wanted to check what has been the development on that, only to find out most of the discussion was hidden by github and requesting me to sign-in to view it.
It threw me straight back to when Microsoft acquired Github and the discussions around the future of opensource on a microsoft owned infrastructure, now microsoft is exploiting free work from the community to train its AI, and building walls around its product, are open source contributors fine with that ?
No, that is actually useful. Blocking access for anonymous users is not
If anything, the boom of LLMs like copilot and chatgpt actually shows the power of open source and open access to information. Underlying algorithms would mean nothing without open source, open access to stackoverflow, forums, etc
This is exactly why I add a non-commercial license to my comments. If courts decide that Github was in the wrong, then there's a chance commercial AI makers just scraping the web might be on the hook too.
Honestly I don't think there's a truly good git hosting website right now.
GitLab works if you wanna get away from Micro$oft but the UI is all over the place. Every other alternative either has an infinitely worse UI or charges money to use
Yeah, Codeberg's UI is almost the same as github, its good tbh.
P.S. i came to the conclusion that codeberg/github UI is good, when i went to sourcehut. Holy crap, my mind couldnt comprehend what am i looking at. (Could be a skill issue tho)
The biggest issue with gitlab is the web editor. They swapped out a really fast and light-feeling one for this frankenstein monster that looks like whatever the hell the barbies and kens writing powershell are using. It's so slow, and so ugly.
Everything else about gitlab, so far, has been great. From v9 to here, it's been easy to use and easy to upgrade; but we can debate the capricious worsening of the sidebar for something surprisingly worse each time .
Who even uses the web editor on any git website though? For anything besides micro fixes for projects I don't already have cloned, I find it easier to just update things locally and push.
Don't even get me started on github rendering tabs as EIGHT spaces.
I went from a company that used github to one that uses gitlab. I thought it was going to be great and was excited for using a new thing. But it’s really clunky in comparison.
I'm not as optimistic. Some people will complain and move to alternative platforms. But the vast majority won't care and continue using the abusive platform, forcing the rest to use it sometimes. The best example for this is Reddit and Lemmy.
I'm not forced into anything, i can choose to not contribute anything to Reddit and still read it via alternative frontends to keep user number measurement low.
I found a place here and i choose to contribute here with people like me going the extra mile just because we can and we have the options.
The majority can stay over there, some of these people made my blood boil too often anyway and i'm far better off with like minded people.
I'm using Lemmy and Mastodon and so many open source projects because i believe in it and want to support the cause.
if buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing. How can you steal something that the customer cannot own?
By stealing it? You dont have to own something to steal it. Or maybe I'm reading that wrong. Lol it's a very interesting take but I like the spirit of it... And it made me laugh. Cool 😎
Or Forgejo, or cgit, or Aylla, or Radicle, or SSH+HTTP server. There’s loads of options to try. And this is just the options for Git—not to mention the other DVCSs worth looking into.
Anyone else remember when MS bought github and a LOT of folks were saying this is where we'd see that they have changed and won't fuck things up this time because Nadella is so much cooler than Balmer? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
I know people don't like sending patches to mailing lists and prefer the zoomer PR UI but god damn if you look only at the protocol openness perspective nothing comes close. sr.ht is great in that regard
Just another silly thing related. I tried to view the magnolia bypass paywall clean on gitlab the other day (after it had the DMCA takedown) and my gitlab account got "blocked". Maybe because I was also on my VPN? Or was it because I viewed that repo? I have no idea. Total shit.
Please mirror your stuff on forgejo or another open source git forge. They‘re working on federation and this might just be the best thing ever. Being able to not make an account on another one‘s forge would be awesome. I have like 6 plus accounts and its driving me nuts.
My hot take is the quickest way out of this quagmire is to abandon Git. With the education system & bootcamps raising the next generation to think MS GitHub is Git, it would probably be less work to start rolling with another VCS as megacorp Microsoft won’t have the agility to pivot away from Git. Git isn’t even that great—arcane CLI, patches don’t commute, basically permanently locks in your name & email, large files require a separate tool, etc. And most of the popular alternative forges are literally just trying to clone MS GitHub rather than invent something new or solve the shit problems it doesn’t like threading, pull request model sucks, source code doesn’t need to be a social media platform with gamified stars & anxiety-inducing activity charts to encourage that MIT code in your free time the corpos will use & never contribute back while demanding you use it to build your résumé… or it’s built on email as the common denominator with fingers in ears as if mailing lists are the optimal workflow for all projects when a majority of folks don’t even know how to bottom post & keep their mail with the same evil Microsoft or the other evil Google. Nothing is being bold enough to actually have a better user experience—currently the best lure is… free software, but worse UX? Being a better UX the Microsoft GitHub is not a even that high of a bar. Some folks claim “network effect” but it seems clear that a lot of folks already want out.
Nah. Start anew. Check out Darcs, Pijul, Fossil, Mercurial, Bazaar, or whatever else is out there. Build on the ideas that improve version control.
Your project will inevitably get forked onto MS GitHub & the SEO will rank that fork above you—changing VCS adds a layer of friction that discourages forking back onto MS GitHub. Best you see is these pretty please attempts to encourage not forking to Microsoft’s platform. Microsoft has a massive pull in the direction Git goes, & whatever MS GitHub does, the alternative forges seems to want to clone even if it’s bad (look at Forgejo diverging from Gitea to copy Actions verbatim even tho we all know working with YAML for CI is a bad idea that scales poorly). When you look at the latest release notes for Git, often the first publisher is GitHub’s blog—this is what gets shared around the link aggregators. Part of the strategic purchase of GitHub on Microsoft’s part was getting access to that project sway (& upselling services—it’s not pure conspiracy—with some of the changes definitely being for the better).
And again, Git is not the best DVCS—but folks are hesitant to try other platforms since there is less forges & tooling. If Microsoft is controlling the Git ecosystem like it is, that effort, in my opinion, would be better spent choosing a better DVCS system that isn’t already infected by Microsoft or Google or Apple or similar.
Have you tried anything contemporary to or newer than Git (i.e. not CVS or Subversion)? It’s quite an anomaly that Git has held it’s reign as long as it has compared to other software & to assume it’s not worthy of criticism or isn’t regularly criticized online is delusional. There has been a lot of interesting work in VCS space that many have ignored since their heads are just stuck in the Git bubble. Was Git better than things before it? Mostly yes, but there are options now (& around the same time frame) with more ergonomic CLI, better conflict resolution, handling of large file blobs, better project management, & so on.
You didn’t even read to sentence #2? That is the whole point—at this point with a sizeable portion folks thinking they are one in the same & Microsoft with one hand reaching across the driver to steer the Git project while basically defining how Git forges should look with every big alternative trying to clone MS Github, it could be easier to get out of the vehicle directed by Microsoft & create a new future where Microsoft doesn’t have its sticky hands already in everything.