A lot of people are concerned about the “what if they make me the product since I’m no longer paying.”
A few reasons I don’t think that will happen:
- private, single contributor repos tend to be pretty small. it costs Github very little to service a single account.
- Github is a growing social network for developers. Getting young engineers on the platform for free will pay off handsomely when they join a team and automatically assume Github is their code storage tool of choice.
- Microsoft gets the reputation points for running the de facto developer social network (other than Stack Overflow).
GitHub is in the strange position of being both a successful enterprise product AND a social network. What other product exists with that kind of crossover? Microsoft will continue to optimize their enterprise revenue from GH and I think this is a tremendous step forward toward building the network long term.
When GitHub's financials got leaked in 2016, GitHub's personal accounts accounted for 12.5% of their revenue. GitHub Enterprise was 50%, their organization (= business) accounts were the remaining 37.5% [1]. It's fair to say that the personal accounts are irrelevant from a revenue perspective.
> GitHub is in the strange position of being both a successful enterprise product AND a social network. What other product exists with that kind of crossover?
LinkedIn comes to mind, which was also aquired by Microsoft.
Even if Github doesn’t end up being a typical “social network”, this still allows Microsoft to push out the competition (Gitlab, Bitbucket) and become the de facto developer workbench in the industry. MS already released a hit with VSCode and won back a lot of street cred with developers who moved over from Atom/Sublime/etc. Having free private repos just makes sense in order to seal the deal with consumers, and migrate them over to the MS developer ecosystem. It’s very Google-esque. Github was already the ‘Chrome’ of the code repo world, and now it has a chance to pull further ahead. This is what MS wants, because now there is even less reason for users to look to migrate if what they used to have to pay for is now free.
> Getting young engineers on the platform for free will pay off handsomely when they join a team and automatically assume Github is their code storage tool of choice.
Microsoft isn't even trying to directly make money off GitHub Enterprise. What they're doing is plugging GitHub into a giant ecosystem of Azure-related services that they sell to large corporations for millions of dollars per year per customer. They could give away GitHub for free entirely, and might, if there's a one-click "deploy to Azure" and similar functionality that brings people into the Microsoft shop.
I really hate all the "social network" features of github, and I will eventually delete my non-work github account if they keep pushing in that direction. Adding "emoji reactions" was a really bad sign IMHO.
Personally, I think Azure DevOps is the logical progression from Github at a professional/business level. I'd be surprised if their business operations didn't merge in that direction.
Besides, Microsoft had already been offering free unlimited private repos through VSOnline for years. It's not a change for them, they are just extending it to their Github acquisition.
I'm generally pretty skeptical of these sorts of arguments. People gave similar arguments about why Facebook wouldn't turn against its users or Amazon would always have some of the lowest prices you could find.
Among other things, a private repo is a file system with full history. Anything that can be used as a file system will likely get abused.
More generally, this kind of argument basically says "this company will likely ignore this revenue stream forever", which doesn't sound very likely in the long run.
This might also be an attack on GitLab, which I believe has had unlimited free private repos for a while.
I'm confused about this definition of social network. GitHub is a place where we work. I have thousand of commits and 1 actual friend. Am I the only one or are we changing the meaning of social?
>>GitHub is in the strange position of being both a successful enterprise product AND a social network.
That's interesting to think about. Who knows, maybe GitHub will become the next LinkedIn for developers? Or for everyone? LinkedIn is nearly unusable these days, in my opinion.
GitHub already had a business model where they give a lot of stuff away for free and make it up on a premium offering. This just shifts the line between the two very slightly. I don’t see this creating any new concerns.
> GitHub is in the strange position of being both a successful enterprise product AND a social network. What other product exists with that kind of crossover?
While I think this is a great move, don't forget that private repos also means no more free Travis CI.
Gitlab CI however offers 2,000 build minutes a month with their integrated CI service.
Even if your whole set up takes 10 minutes to build on CI, that's 200 builds a month which is plenty for an individual project that's on a private repo.
In other words, I think Gitlab's free private repos + CI is still a better choice for a solo developer who wants private repos since CI is such a useful tool and other external CI services have much more limited free plans (to use with Github instead). Having everything in the same UI is also really useful, which is another win for Gitlab.
I prefer Github's UI for overall repo exploration and issues, etc.. but I'm not sure if I'll move my private repos over to Github now that's it free, because the repo itself is only 1 piece of the puzzle.
Microsoft also has a deep connection with Docker. It's kind of no surprise that Docker only has automated build support for GitHub and Bitbucket. Kind of a bummer, but with Gitlab CI you can get the same effect in the end.
One of the best uses of GitHub is being able to search for some obscure framework method name or enum constant, and find examples of working code that uses it. This has saved my life many times when trying to figure out how to configure Java frameworks to interact with each other.
When searching for this kind of code, you have to wade through an awful lot of repos containing half-baked personal projects, experiments, unmodified clones of upstream frameworks, and barely-modified boilerplate examples. It would be nice if there was less of this detritus clogging up the search results.
However, sometimes the code you actually want is embedded in some otherwise useless, half-baked personal project, or barely-modified boilerplate example. So if all these projects disappear behind a veil of privacy, maybe it won't be a net win.
Gives developers who have small indy projects a reason to use Github rather than a competitor (I know I use gitlab precisely because it's free for my private one-off repos).
Competition in a free market is good, but in the presence of monopolies, it's a self-destructing concept.
TechCrunch wrote[0] "This feels like a sign of goodwill on behalf of Microsoft, which closed its acquisition of GitHub last October, with former Xamarin CEO Nat Friedman taking over as GitHub’s CEO." I believe it's more of a sign of an attempt to kill GitHub's rivals by hurting their revenue streams. As Aaron Levie, co-founder and chief executive of Box once said in 2014, “These guys will drive prices to zero, [...] you do not want to wait for Google or Amazon to keep cutting prices on you. ‘Free’ is not a business model.”[1]
For those of you using GitLab, BitBucket, or <insert-other-git-host-competitor-here>, does this make you consider switching back at all? If so, why?
It may be myopic, but the only major reason I can think of is visibility if you plan on publicizing the repo at some point. But you can achieve this by using GitHub as a mirror for your main repo on another platform (at least for GitLab, I’m not familiar with BitBucket).
Edit:
Personally, I use GitLab (both .com and I've set up/maintain several sefl-hosted solutions). I originally tried out GitLab due to lack of private repos on GitHub, and I don't see a reason I should switch back at this point. The open development and attitude towards the product and community has been part of that.
While understandable, this is sad to see. The amount of interesting and useful code that is currently available due to GitHub defaulting to public will likely be seriously negatively impacted by this.
"Due to a scheduling error, we published this story one day before the embargo lifted. This feature isn’t live yet, but Github will formally unveil it tomorrow. When that happens, we’ll update this post with a link to the official announcement. "
Not even an apology in there, would have expected more from TNW.
Awesome, awesome, awesome. I know I have no right to think that anyone would care for a moment about the code I'm writing or the potentially money-making side-projects I'm working on, but I am paranoid about entities like current/future employers and third parties seeing what I'm developing in private. I often just keep those local and back them up privately to an SD card, or go with private bitbucket (which is harder because I do all my at-work development on GitHub).
This will significantly increase my use of GitHub.
So, when I go to downgrade my Pro account to the Free tier, it warns me:
> You will no longer have access to unlimited collaborators or advanced code review tools in private repositories.
> You will still have access to unlimited private repositories.
So it seems some functionality beyond just unlimited collaborators that is tied to the Pro account - but the blog post makes no mention of what these "advanced code review tools" could be. Anyone know?
That's the one of the reasons I stay with bitbucket or gitlab. If they offer this feature at the very beginning, I would never touch bitbucket/gitlab, but now both of them offering free build-in CI(public and private). I am hesitate to migrate back.
I don't understand that much awe. BitBucket offers unlimited private repos for up to 5 contributors, and GitLab has no limit. Much ado about nothing...
This is not about revenue percentage or anything revolutionary etc, this is about matching up competition offers: both gitlab and bitbucket are doing this, especially bitbucket who has unlimited private repo from the start, this is a catch-up move, nothing more than that.
This was the reason why I mostly use GitLab for several years now. I prefer to make public those code that are refactored, well crafted and documented.
I have been a vocal critic of Microsoft acquiring GitHub, but gotta give credit where credit is due - this might be enough for me to move my private repos back to GitHub.
Also, if you fork a private repo, I wonder if that’s 3 new collaborators? Could you have essentially unlimited collaborators by forking for each person and having them submit pull requests?
[+] [-] iambateman|7 years ago|reply
A few reasons I don’t think that will happen:
- private, single contributor repos tend to be pretty small. it costs Github very little to service a single account.
- Github is a growing social network for developers. Getting young engineers on the platform for free will pay off handsomely when they join a team and automatically assume Github is their code storage tool of choice.
- Microsoft gets the reputation points for running the de facto developer social network (other than Stack Overflow).
GitHub is in the strange position of being both a successful enterprise product AND a social network. What other product exists with that kind of crossover? Microsoft will continue to optimize their enterprise revenue from GH and I think this is a tremendous step forward toward building the network long term.
[+] [-] smartmic|7 years ago|reply
For some background, check this HN classic: "Commoditize your complements" (https://www.gwern.net/Complement#2)
[+] [-] moritzplassnig|7 years ago|reply
[1] https://medium.com/@moritzplassnig/github-is-doing-much-bett... (disclaimer: I wrote the article but the data is by Bloomberg)
[+] [-] drewrv|7 years ago|reply
LinkedIn comes to mind, which was also aquired by Microsoft.
[+] [-] siruncledrew|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fharding|7 years ago|reply
Github student pack was already a thing. https://education.github.com/pack
[+] [-] maxander|7 years ago|reply
If you’re not the customer you’re a product... but it doesn’t follow that, if you are the customer, you’re not also a product.
[+] [-] ihuman|7 years ago|reply
But in a social network I am the product
[+] [-] fipple|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] archon810|7 years ago|reply
Small but important correction, Github is letting up to 3 contributors use these free private repos.
"For the first time, developers can use GitHub for their private projects with up to three collaborators per repository for free."
[+] [-] ForHackernews|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tracker1|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] partiallypro|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SquishyPanda23|7 years ago|reply
Among other things, a private repo is a file system with full history. Anything that can be used as a file system will likely get abused.
More generally, this kind of argument basically says "this company will likely ignore this revenue stream forever", which doesn't sound very likely in the long run.
This might also be an attack on GitLab, which I believe has had unlimited free private repos for a while.
[+] [-] emmelaich|7 years ago|reply
Free is pretty cheap though. Is there going to be a size limit? If not I can see people uploading all sorts of "interesting" data to github.
[+] [-] mcs_|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sgt|7 years ago|reply
That's interesting to think about. Who knows, maybe GitHub will become the next LinkedIn for developers? Or for everyone? LinkedIn is nearly unusable these days, in my opinion.
[+] [-] mikeash|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nkkollaw|7 years ago|reply
I mean, it costs them peanuts to run them, but a lot of people will cancel their premium accounts (including me).
[+] [-] thaumasiotes|7 years ago|reply
...Facebook? WeChat?
Those aren't exactly little-known products.
[+] [-] mpweiher|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] profalseidol|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] nickjj|7 years ago|reply
Gitlab CI however offers 2,000 build minutes a month with their integrated CI service.
Even if your whole set up takes 10 minutes to build on CI, that's 200 builds a month which is plenty for an individual project that's on a private repo.
In other words, I think Gitlab's free private repos + CI is still a better choice for a solo developer who wants private repos since CI is such a useful tool and other external CI services have much more limited free plans (to use with Github instead). Having everything in the same UI is also really useful, which is another win for Gitlab.
I prefer Github's UI for overall repo exploration and issues, etc.. but I'm not sure if I'll move my private repos over to Github now that's it free, because the repo itself is only 1 piece of the puzzle.
Microsoft also has a deep connection with Docker. It's kind of no surprise that Docker only has automated build support for GitHub and Bitbucket. Kind of a bummer, but with Gitlab CI you can get the same effect in the end.
[+] [-] stupidcar|7 years ago|reply
When searching for this kind of code, you have to wade through an awful lot of repos containing half-baked personal projects, experiments, unmodified clones of upstream frameworks, and barely-modified boilerplate examples. It would be nice if there was less of this detritus clogging up the search results.
However, sometimes the code you actually want is embedded in some otherwise useless, half-baked personal project, or barely-modified boilerplate example. So if all these projects disappear behind a veil of privacy, maybe it won't be a net win.
[+] [-] balls187|7 years ago|reply
Gives developers who have small indy projects a reason to use Github rather than a competitor (I know I use gitlab precisely because it's free for my private one-off repos).
[+] [-] boramalper|7 years ago|reply
TechCrunch wrote[0] "This feels like a sign of goodwill on behalf of Microsoft, which closed its acquisition of GitHub last October, with former Xamarin CEO Nat Friedman taking over as GitHub’s CEO." I believe it's more of a sign of an attempt to kill GitHub's rivals by hurting their revenue streams. As Aaron Levie, co-founder and chief executive of Box once said in 2014, “These guys will drive prices to zero, [...] you do not want to wait for Google or Amazon to keep cutting prices on you. ‘Free’ is not a business model.”[1]
[0]: https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/07/github-free-users-now-get-...
[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/25/technology/box-dropbox-an...
[+] [-] mroche|7 years ago|reply
It may be myopic, but the only major reason I can think of is visibility if you plan on publicizing the repo at some point. But you can achieve this by using GitHub as a mirror for your main repo on another platform (at least for GitLab, I’m not familiar with BitBucket).
Edit: Personally, I use GitLab (both .com and I've set up/maintain several sefl-hosted solutions). I originally tried out GitLab due to lack of private repos on GitHub, and I don't see a reason I should switch back at this point. The open development and attitude towards the product and community has been part of that.
[+] [-] klinskyc|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neom|7 years ago|reply
Not even an apology in there, would have expected more from TNW.
[+] [-] grepthisab|7 years ago|reply
This will significantly increase my use of GitHub.
[+] [-] apetresc|7 years ago|reply
> You will no longer have access to unlimited collaborators or advanced code review tools in private repositories. > You will still have access to unlimited private repositories.
So it seems some functionality beyond just unlimited collaborators that is tied to the Pro account - but the blog post makes no mention of what these "advanced code review tools" could be. Anyone know?
[+] [-] siminuk|7 years ago|reply
All the details are listed on the official pricing page in the feature comparison section: https://github.com/pricing and in the docs: https://help.github.com/articles/github-s-billing-plans/#bil...
[+] [-] pier25|7 years ago|reply
> If you downgrade, you’ll lose access to advanced code review tools in your private repositories.
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mayli|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nfrankel|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ausjke|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dogweather|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] saagarjha|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bg0|7 years ago|reply
I wish I had waited a few more days now.
[+] [-] johnvega|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aarongray|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] globetrotter33m|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bravura|7 years ago|reply
So let's be clear here. If I have 10 private repos, I can have 30 collaborators? Or they must be the same three.
[+] [-] siminuk|7 years ago|reply
Private repositories on free accounts are limited to three collaborators per repository, not including the owner.
So, in your example, if you have 10 private repos, you can have 30 collaborators, without counting you - the owner. (3 collaborators * 10 repos)
[+] [-] sgc|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmkni|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drakenot|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sailingparrot|7 years ago|reply