16 ms·

I've been on GitHub since the earliest days, and I've definitely noticed that there's something going on -- or the lack of anything going on more like it. When

by devinus 11y ago

I've been on GitHub since the earliest days, and I've definitely noticed that there's something going on -- or the lack of anything going on more like it. When was the last time a big feature that people are actually clamoring for was added to GitHub (and let's not pretend LFS fits that description)? Meanwhile you have the maintainers of the most popular projects publicly begging for changes they've been waiting years for, startups like ZenHub innovating on TOP of GitHub in the form of browser extensions, and then startups like GitLab poised to eat GitHub's lunch as soon as they figure out how to capture the social aspect. I'm not sure what GitHub is spending the money on, but it sure as hell isn't on the core platform itself or keeping it's most active users happy.

xenadu02 11y ago
Agreed. There seems to be a lot of low-hanging fruit just... hanging there still waiting. That seems to be a common theme when startups try to grow.
seiji 11y ago
The trick is, I think GitHub stopped being a software company. At some point (after Tom left), GitHub was taken over by finance people to just pump money out of the VC system. Is there any other explanation for why GitHub The Corporation has completely stopped interacting with GitHub The Community? GitHub raised $250 million last year and, as you mentioned, there's nothing externally visible to show for it (as consumers of their public platform). (random guess: the $250 million could have been $150-$200 million in cashing out stock to individuals (like crooked groupon shenanigans) then maybe $50 million for operations? How many billions of dollars does it take to write an issue tracker with more features than redmine from ten years ago?) Same comments were making the rounds months ago too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10165681#up_10166913 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10165681#up_10166913 All this gets back to a bigger trend we see these days: closed platforms are like governments (google, apple, github, twitter). We don't allow (sane, first-world) governments to exist without citizen representation. We must demand user-level representation in corporations running global scale closed platforms everybody relies on. Community powered social platforms don't exist without the community, and private corporations exercising extended "we don't give a crap about the users even though we have millions (or hundreds of millions) of them" patterns must be... corrected. No Computation Without Representation.
- forgotpwtomain 11y ago
  > GitHub raised $250 million last year and, as you mentioned, there's nothing externally visible to show for it I completely agree, I've never been able to take github seriously as a GUI -- (e.g. there is still no way to search commits). > All this gets back to a bigger trend we see these days: closed platforms are like governments (google, apple, github, twitter). I don't think it's the same to include Github into these, the main facility provided by github is simply a centralized host for your git repo, Git is FOSS and there are a number of alternatives.
  - sdesol 11y ago
    > there is still no way to search commits Just an FYI. I've implemented commits search among other things for GitHub. You can learn more about it here: http://gitsense.github.io/ http://gitsense.github.io/ Note the latest GitSense version doesn't include branch level code searching. I'm still testing this out, and I'll be releasing another GitSense update very soon, which also includes support for BitBucket. And sometime next week, I'm going to start looking for beta testers for my indexing engine, which is what makes all of this possible. If you have 10,000 or less commits in your repository, you'll be able to install and use the indexing engine for free. However the free version won't include diff indexing, as that greatly increases the number of moving parts.
    - alphapapa 11y ago
      I don't want to pooh-pooh anyone's hard work--please don't misunderstand me--but I am legitimately curious: why put so much effort into building a house of cards upon a foundation of shifting sand? Your project is completely dependent on GitHub's reliability, integrity, and goodwill. It could implement its own version of your enhancements and render yours obsolete. Arguably, it should do that, because what's the point of relegating useful enhancements to third-party products? So doesn't that mean that your project is living on borrowed time? Why not build upon an open platform instead, one that you can control, one that can't be ripped out from under you? Again, I don't mean this as criticism, I'm just very curious, because I don't understand.
dlandis 11y ago
Whenever a company stops communicating frequently and candidly with its core user base (even if they are free tier users), then you know they are suffering from systemic issues internally and probably are or will be on the decline.
- randycupertino 11y ago
  > you know they are suffering from systemic issues internally I mean, when hasn't github been suffering from systemic internal issues? Drama is practically their whole schtick.
  - _ak 11y ago
    When I went to a GitHub-organized meetup in Berlin a few years back, they bragged how a bunch of them decided to rent a place in the city for a few months, to work at day and party at night, I realized they were maybe a bit too chillaxed.
    - ryanlol 11y ago
      What's wrong with that?
    - ionised 11y ago
      Would you prefer they worked all day and all night as well?
dbeardsl 11y ago
For my team's (~20 people) uses, Github (and the tools we and others develop ontop of it) meets our needs amazingly well and literally would be 100% worth the price at 10X the cost. I don't think the fact that others have built tools on top of github means that github is lacking features, in the same way that the existence of github doesn't mean that git is lacking features. On the other hand, seemingly ignoring your adoring fans asking for small changes is a bad move.
- danpalmer 11y ago
  It's funny you mention that, because I'm on a team of 7 who are really struggling with GitHub now. There are so many things that we know don't work, or could be better (which I have reported). That said, still worth the money.
  - dkhgh 11y ago
    Can you give some examples?
Lawtonfogle 11y ago
Maybe they are completely unrelated, but when ever I hear about GitHub being in trouble, I first think back to meritocracy being divisive issue. Of course, removing a rug shouldn't have any direct impact, but the top level management mentality that will do something like that may not be the best type of management for being innovative or getting things done. Getting things done is divisive in the same way that meritocracy is divisive.

by devinus 11y ago

xenadu02 11y ago

Agreed. There seems to be a lot of low-hanging fruit just... hanging there still waiting. That seems to be a common theme when startups try to grow.

seiji 11y ago

The trick is, I think GitHub stopped being a software company. At some point (after Tom left), GitHub was taken over by finance people to just pump money out of the VC system. Is there any other explanation for why GitHub The Corporation has completely stopped interacting with GitHub The Community? GitHub raised $250 million last year and, as you mentioned, there's nothing externally visible to show for it (as consumers of their public platform). (random guess: the $250 million could have been $150-$200 million in cashing out stock to individuals (like crooked groupon shenanigans) then maybe $50 million for operations? How many billions of dollars does it take to write an issue tracker with more features than redmine from ten years ago?) Same comments were making the rounds months ago too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10165681#up_10166913 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10165681#up_10166913 All this gets back to a bigger trend we see these days: closed platforms are like governments (google, apple, github, twitter). We don't allow (sane, first-world) governments to exist without citizen representation. We must demand user-level representation in corporations running global scale closed platforms everybody relies on. Community powered social platforms don't exist without the community, and private corporations exercising extended "we don't give a crap about the users even though we have millions (or hundreds of millions) of them" patterns must be... corrected. No Computation Without Representation.

forgotpwtomain 11y ago
> GitHub raised $250 million last year and, as you mentioned, there's nothing externally visible to show for it I completely agree, I've never been able to take github seriously as a GUI -- (e.g. there is still no way to search commits). > All this gets back to a bigger trend we see these days: closed platforms are like governments (google, apple, github, twitter). I don't think it's the same to include Github into these, the main facility provided by github is simply a centralized host for your git repo, Git is FOSS and there are a number of alternatives.
- sdesol 11y ago
  > there is still no way to search commits Just an FYI. I've implemented commits search among other things for GitHub. You can learn more about it here: http://gitsense.github.io/ http://gitsense.github.io/ Note the latest GitSense version doesn't include branch level code searching. I'm still testing this out, and I'll be releasing another GitSense update very soon, which also includes support for BitBucket. And sometime next week, I'm going to start looking for beta testers for my indexing engine, which is what makes all of this possible. If you have 10,000 or less commits in your repository, you'll be able to install and use the indexing engine for free. However the free version won't include diff indexing, as that greatly increases the number of moving parts.
  - alphapapa 11y ago
    I don't want to pooh-pooh anyone's hard work--please don't misunderstand me--but I am legitimately curious: why put so much effort into building a house of cards upon a foundation of shifting sand? Your project is completely dependent on GitHub's reliability, integrity, and goodwill. It could implement its own version of your enhancements and render yours obsolete. Arguably, it should do that, because what's the point of relegating useful enhancements to third-party products? So doesn't that mean that your project is living on borrowed time? Why not build upon an open platform instead, one that you can control, one that can't be ripped out from under you? Again, I don't mean this as criticism, I'm just very curious, because I don't understand.

dlandis 11y ago

Whenever a company stops communicating frequently and candidly with its core user base (even if they are free tier users), then you know they are suffering from systemic issues internally and probably are or will be on the decline.

randycupertino 11y ago
> you know they are suffering from systemic issues internally I mean, when hasn't github been suffering from systemic internal issues? Drama is practically their whole schtick.
- _ak 11y ago
  When I went to a GitHub-organized meetup in Berlin a few years back, they bragged how a bunch of them decided to rent a place in the city for a few months, to work at day and party at night, I realized they were maybe a bit too chillaxed.
  - ryanlol 11y ago
    What's wrong with that?
  - ionised 11y ago
    Would you prefer they worked all day and all night as well?

dbeardsl 11y ago

For my team's (~20 people) uses, Github (and the tools we and others develop ontop of it) meets our needs amazingly well and literally would be 100% worth the price at 10X the cost. I don't think the fact that others have built tools on top of github means that github is lacking features, in the same way that the existence of github doesn't mean that git is lacking features. On the other hand, seemingly ignoring your adoring fans asking for small changes is a bad move.

danpalmer 11y ago
It's funny you mention that, because I'm on a team of 7 who are really struggling with GitHub now. There are so many things that we know don't work, or could be better (which I have reported). That said, still worth the money.
- dkhgh 11y ago
  Can you give some examples?

Lawtonfogle 11y ago

Maybe they are completely unrelated, but when ever I hear about GitHub being in trouble, I first think back to meritocracy being divisive issue. Of course, removing a rug shouldn't have any direct impact, but the top level management mentality that will do something like that may not be the best type of management for being innovative or getting things done. Getting things done is divisive in the same way that meritocracy is divisive.