> That said, the GitHub team reports that the set of users who have migrated or closed their accounts is extremely small, and this is more than made up for by the surge of new signups and new interest in GitHub this week.
It's interesting to hear this. If you were on HN the past week, it might have seemed from all the front page articles that GitHub was about to implode due to an an exodus to GitLab.
My sense is that any projects willing to move from GitHub to gitlab on a Sunday evening because of a rumour that GitHub was going to be sold were not really serious projects and losing them isn't a big loss for GitHub.
It's not unexpected. Serious projects need more than a few days to move off Github; and there's some overlap between HN users and users who would move their tiny projects off Github on a Sunday afternoon.
That being said, it's way too early to tell how this will evolve trust-wise. Microsoft has a tremendous deficit of trust in the open source community. Younger folks probably don't realize how deep it runs; most of my friends and colleagues who were involved in FOSS in the late 1990s and early 00s wouldn't touch anything with Microsoft on it with a ten-foot pole -- not just because of prejudice, but because fool me once etc etc.. And I wasn't thrilled about hosting code on someone else's computer before, either, but now I'm even less thrilled about hosting it on Microsoft's computer.
This is the standard HN effect. I also love when I think some startups are killing it based on what I read here; but then they end up shutting down soon after due to a lack of any real revenue model.
The announcement happened just 3 days ago, so it's still too early to draw any conclusions.
I personally decided to move my stuff out of GitHub, but it will take me a week or so to know where exactly as I'm still analyzing various options. And after migrating, I don't think I will close my account (even when I really distrust Microsoft) simply because too many libre software projects are currently using GitHub.
I’m more willing to believe the openly viewable GitLab migration tracker, which shows several thousand projects migrated. Just another way Gitlab is nice is the openly viewable statistics versus a generalization.
Using HackerNews reaction as a main source of information will almost always drastically skew reality. It reminds me of people shorting Facebook because of the #deletefacebook campaign, when in reality getting a few thousand people to delete Facebook in protest is offset in a few minutes by growth.
It's not about the number of the accounts that move, but the importance of the accounts. A couple of personal projects move? Whoop-di-doo. A huge, popular open source app moves? Or a GitHub rockstar leaves? That's big news.
So I don't care really care how many leave, in fact that's a clever distraction. I care about who is leaving.
Looking at HN or certain subreddits would similarly have you believe FB is quickly dying and no young person uses it. Or that a ton of people deleted their accounts as a result of the recent scandals. Yes, I’m exaggerating of course.
The number of repos that were imported to Gitlab via their GitHub importer had crosses 100K on Tuesday if my memory serves me right. GitHub has 75M repos, I believe. For now, the migration has been potentially significant, but too early to tell.
Overall, I’m sure there’s something to glean from places like HN and some parts of Reddit, and other similar places. What exactly you can take away, I’m not sure about yet.
There was a front-page article of some survey that was saying something like 40% of people were going to or already did delete Facebook. Not a correct number of course.
It’s the vocal minority. The people who don’t care and aren’t going to move don’t write angry pieces on social media.
Also remember that many of these writers are the same people who claim they are boycotting the latest company that slighted them as a way to make a statement.
Like the people who are so vocally not buying a phone without their beloved jack plug. Surprisingly the manufacturers aren’t really feeling their sting.
Github is only a high profile Git peer. If it explodes someone just pushes up to a different repo hosting site or goes back to trading chagesets some other way.
People will always put their own comfort in front of any real ideals or morals. That is, people talk the talk but don't walk the walk. You see it with all the idiots still using Facebook.
Interesting, and also...a lie? Or he thinks the 250,000 projects migrated to gitlab within 24 hours of the news that Microsoft was going anywhere near GitHub is a small number.
Ever since I heard of "Monaco" the online code editor which is used in VSCode. I always assumed Microsoft will eventually come up with a completely online IDE >> deploy toolchain like a GitHub on steroids. I think this acquisition is pretty much all about that. Nobody seems to have mentioned this yet though, at least not that I have read of.
Nat is being really smart here. It should not backfire unless he acts pedantic or insults Redditors intelligence. I think that both are unlikely.
Maybe Nat is trying to counteract any PR damage to GitHub, or maybe he just wants to see how much can skyrocket his account's karma. If I was in his situation I will be happy doing it for both reasons.
How long is it going to take Redditors / HN readers / open source advocates to realize that Nat is one of them and that being an employee of Microsoft or Microsoft's designee to lead GitHub doesn't diminish this?
I can't imagine a world where anyone would care about their Reddit account karma. I periodically destroy any Reddit account I have to use as a matter of online hygiene.
(and yes, I destroyed the account I did an AMA on a while back as well.)
> We will continue to develop and support both Atom and VS Code going forward [...] for as long as there is a healthy community of people who love each of them, which I expect to be a very long time.
What are your thoughts on how GitHub can incentivize open source work financially? Perhaps by integrating something like Patreon or OpenCollective in the website.
It seems that he won't answer it. Still would be awesome if GitHub started addressing this in some way in the future.
There's a reason it's AMA and not IAA (I answer anything). Most AMAs like this one are PR stunts, where the "what's your favorite ___" are answered while the tough, controversial qeustions are ignored.
Honestly, I'd lean towards /r/AMA to get a higher signal-to-noise ratio & limit trolling. The smaller user base means you're more likely to bring genuinely interested parties into the conversation -- people watching the related twitter feeds & so on.
Until Microsoft does anything shady I'm staying put with both personal and business projects. I rather give them the opportunity to improve an already good service.
Try justifying to management moving to gitlab because Microsoft...
What is the root of all the Microsoft distrust? I’m older, and left Windows for Linux back in 1997 and haven’t really paid attention since. I wonder if this mistrust is valid? Are they any worse than Apple?
Well, there are a lot of web developers that we're saddled with supporting ie6 for many years after Microsoft won the browser war with Netscape and proceeded to let it stagnate for years. That amount of pain that was inflicted on the web dev community left a lot of lingering resentment.
Then there was their locked-down file formats, their role in killing off BeOS and preventing pre-installed Linux machines, their "embracing" of open technologies like Kerberos only to make their version subtly incompatible. For well over a decade, almost everything they did technically rubbed us tech folks the wrong way.
For me it's that they're software patent abusers, and I won't send them any money because of that. However, all I did was switch from the paid tier to the free tier, and move my private repositories to my own server.
Does anyone really believe that if an open source project hosted on Github became a serious competitor to a Microsoft project, the Microsoft management wouldn't figure out some way to undermine it?
> Is there any truth to the rumor that Clippy will be joining your team? I think "You appear to have a merge conflict. How can I help you?" is a good fit for Github.
> His name is actually Clippit, and you will address him as Mr. Clippit.
He seems to be playing the typical corporate lackey role. His comments are all full of condescension, platitudes, and corpspeak. He sounds more like a PR person than a principled leader. He's saying exactly what he thinks his audience wants to hear. It's not surprising that he thrived as a Microsoft exec.
That he's willing to make promises about GitHub's future is also telling. He's the "CEO" of a company owned by another company. He can be fired and replaced at the first hint of disagreement with Microsoft execs. He can't afford to rock the boat at all and he knows it. So he's being dishonest or naive when he makes these promises. A more honest or aware person would make this distinction clear.
Microsoft ruining GitHub over the next few years will be a good thing for open source. There was never anything ideal about relying on a highly centralized proprietary service. GitHub made it work but Microsoft will reveal the inherent weakness of this situation.
[+] [-] jameslk|7 years ago|reply
It's interesting to hear this. If you were on HN the past week, it might have seemed from all the front page articles that GitHub was about to implode due to an an exodus to GitLab.
[+] [-] notatoad|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alxlaz|7 years ago|reply
That being said, it's way too early to tell how this will evolve trust-wise. Microsoft has a tremendous deficit of trust in the open source community. Younger folks probably don't realize how deep it runs; most of my friends and colleagues who were involved in FOSS in the late 1990s and early 00s wouldn't touch anything with Microsoft on it with a ten-foot pole -- not just because of prejudice, but because fool me once etc etc.. And I wasn't thrilled about hosting code on someone else's computer before, either, but now I'm even less thrilled about hosting it on Microsoft's computer.
[+] [-] hari_seldon_|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pera|7 years ago|reply
I personally decided to move my stuff out of GitHub, but it will take me a week or so to know where exactly as I'm still analyzing various options. And after migrating, I don't think I will close my account (even when I really distrust Microsoft) simply because too many libre software projects are currently using GitHub.
[+] [-] marricks|7 years ago|reply
https://about.gitlab.com/2018/06/03/movingtogitlab/
[+] [-] austenallred|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jbob2000|7 years ago|reply
So I don't care really care how many leave, in fact that's a clever distraction. I care about who is leaving.
[+] [-] skinnymuch|7 years ago|reply
The number of repos that were imported to Gitlab via their GitHub importer had crosses 100K on Tuesday if my memory serves me right. GitHub has 75M repos, I believe. For now, the migration has been potentially significant, but too early to tell.
Overall, I’m sure there’s something to glean from places like HN and some parts of Reddit, and other similar places. What exactly you can take away, I’m not sure about yet.
There was a front-page article of some survey that was saying something like 40% of people were going to or already did delete Facebook. Not a correct number of course.
[+] [-] the-dude|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tinus_hn|7 years ago|reply
Also remember that many of these writers are the same people who claim they are boycotting the latest company that slighted them as a way to make a statement.
Like the people who are so vocally not buying a phone without their beloved jack plug. Surprisingly the manufacturers aren’t really feeling their sting.
[+] [-] Deadron|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] everdev|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grakker|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] superflyguy|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eklavya|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darzu|7 years ago|reply
I suspect acquiring GitHub was more about the developer mind-share than the technology.
[+] [-] qz3|7 years ago|reply
Online IDEs still eat up a lot more resources.
[+] [-] WorldMaker|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kartan|7 years ago|reply
Maybe Nat is trying to counteract any PR damage to GitHub, or maybe he just wants to see how much can skyrocket his account's karma. If I was in his situation I will be happy doing it for both reasons.
[+] [-] mikece|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codinghorror|7 years ago|reply
(and yes, I destroyed the account I did an AMA on a while back as well.)
[+] [-] baby|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrei_says_|7 years ago|reply
He may even be interested in taking the pulse of some of the community and learning from interesting questions.
I know I would.
[+] [-] dymk|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asdsa5325|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] alexwebb2|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] emilsedgh|7 years ago|reply
It would be a great PR move and an amazing build of trust.
I don't know why Github was not open source to begin with.
Why do companies still think source code is a big deal? This is not Google Search or some advanced AI.
[+] [-] loco5niner|7 years ago|reply
>Fear
Well, that's a pretty brazen answer.
[+] [-] nikivi|7 years ago|reply
What are your thoughts on how GitHub can incentivize open source work financially? Perhaps by integrating something like Patreon or OpenCollective in the website.
It seems that he won't answer it. Still would be awesome if GitHub started addressing this in some way in the future.
EDIT: He answered it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/8pc8mf/im_nat_friedman...
[+] [-] craftyguy|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lucb1e|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] briandoll|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] minimaxir|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alexwebb2|7 years ago|reply
There's really no reason that a CEO currently making headlines should be on /r/AMA instead of r/IAMA (70x more users).
[+] [-] thomasmeeks|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bwb|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] euroclydon|7 years ago|reply
LinkedIn: $26b
MineCraft: $2.5b
Github: $7.5b
[+] [-] systematical|7 years ago|reply
Try justifying to management moving to gitlab because Microsoft...
[+] [-] ishbits|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] curun1r|7 years ago|reply
Then there was their locked-down file formats, their role in killing off BeOS and preventing pre-installed Linux machines, their "embracing" of open technologies like Kerberos only to make their version subtly incompatible. For well over a decade, almost everything they did technically rubbed us tech folks the wrong way.
[+] [-] mortehu|7 years ago|reply
Example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11323942
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] woodandsteel|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cbayram|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jaimex2|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] handbanana|7 years ago|reply
> His name is actually Clippit, and you will address him as Mr. Clippit.
Classic
Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/8pc8mf/im_nat_friedman...
[+] [-] ajeet_dhaliwal|7 years ago|reply
Hope he answers that one.
[+] [-] staunch|7 years ago|reply
He seems to be playing the typical corporate lackey role. His comments are all full of condescension, platitudes, and corpspeak. He sounds more like a PR person than a principled leader. He's saying exactly what he thinks his audience wants to hear. It's not surprising that he thrived as a Microsoft exec.
That he's willing to make promises about GitHub's future is also telling. He's the "CEO" of a company owned by another company. He can be fired and replaced at the first hint of disagreement with Microsoft execs. He can't afford to rock the boat at all and he knows it. So he's being dishonest or naive when he makes these promises. A more honest or aware person would make this distinction clear.
Microsoft ruining GitHub over the next few years will be a good thing for open source. There was never anything ideal about relying on a highly centralized proprietary service. GitHub made it work but Microsoft will reveal the inherent weakness of this situation.