[LAU] Some disturbing news

[Robin Gareus]

On 06/03/2018 09:29 AM, David Kastrup wrote:
> Robin Gareus <robin at gareus.org> writes:
> 
>> On 06/02/2018 10:00 AM, Will Godfrey wrote:
>>> I've just read on The Register that there are discussions between GitHub and
>>> Microsoft, with a possible buy-out by Microsoft. I really can't think of a
>>> worse possibility :(
>>>
>>
>> And this matters how?
>>
>> git is completely decentralized. Most git repos do already exist,
>> mirrored, in various places simultaneously. If you only push your
>> project to github.com, and mirror it nowhere else, you're doing it
>> wrong.
> 
> You don't know GitHub, right? You can clone a Git repository from 
> GitHub, but the normal workflow is to create merge requests and
> accept them,
>From a developer's POV there is effectively no difference to github
sending me a request to pull vs. any other git hosting site to do the
same. Except GH's plain-text email is a lot more convoluted.

Since github is only a *mirror* for all the projects that I'm involved
with, we can not use nor rely any of GH's features, but no matter. You
can review or comment on github issues using email, with a MUA of your
choice.  You actually can use all of github without any browser/website
interaction at all, just like if you were not using github.

I am indeed somewhat worried that Github may try for some vendor lock
in, regardless of any potential acquisition by M$.

Thankfully there is also gitlab (and bitbucket and alioth and ...)

> either of which require a GitHub account.  

Assuming you already have an account, what difference does it make who
owns the site? Github accounts only require name & email.

The somewhat sneaky part is that I can git push commits from 3rd party
developers who don't have an account on github to github. Now GH now has
a very easy way to analyze all the meta-data.

> And while you can
> readily clone a Github repository and work without GitHub on it, you
> lose access to the discussions around merge requests, the issue trackers
> and everything else regarding the project management.

Do you?  At least currently there is a very nice API for all this. The
issue tracker is indeed nice, but you can also migrate its content easily.

As for code-review, compared to git before github, the main change is
that review discussions are now public instead of private between
reviewer(s) and author. I'm not convinced that GH workflow is an
improvement.

> It sounds like being based off Git makes you avoid lock-in, but that
> only concerns the repository and there is a whole lot more.
> 

I suppose github can be addictive to some users, but pretty much all
major projects use GH only as a mirror.  It is not like there are no
alternatives to GH, is it?

The main thing that github offers is project visibility and market
presence. It's indeed popular and for better or worse allows newbies to
quickly make drive-by contributions.

For most everything else, including CI, there are better options.

Assuming the deal goes though... with some luck M$ will drive github
into the ground and we'll get something better to supersede GH.

tl;dr: I'm still not disturbed and neither should you be :)

2c,
robin