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digitalmars.D.announce - GitHub could be acquired by Microsoft

reply Anton Fediushin <fediushin.anton yandex.ru> writes:
This is still just a rumour, we'll know the truth on Monday 
(which is today).

Some articles about the topic:

https://fossbytes.com/microsoft-github-aquisition-report/
https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/3/17422752/microsoft-github-acquisition-rumors

What's your opinion about that? Will you continue using GitHub?

Both GitLab and Bitbucket can be used instead to host your D 
projects - dub registry supported them for a while now.

IMHO Microsoft isn't the type of company I want to see behind the 
GitHub. Maybe I am wrong since Microsoft has both money and 
programmers to improve it further, I just don't trust them too 
much which is the right thing to do when dealing with companies. 
This means that I will move my repositories elsewhere and use 
GitHub just to contribute to other projects.
Jun 03 2018
next sibling parent reply Suliman <evermind live.ru> writes:
Git was never my favorite VCS. So I hope that this step will open 
door for project like pijul.org
github.com is only site, not religious. So if it will be closed 
people will move/create to its analogs.
Jun 03 2018
parent Cym13 <cpicard openmailbox.org> writes:
On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 03:57:37 UTC, Suliman wrote:

 Git was never my favorite VCS. So I hope that this step will 
 open door for project like pijul.org
 github.com is only site, not religious. So if it will be closed 
 people will move/create to its analogs.


Git has nothing to do with github, it's just a technology they 
happen to use but they have no privilege on it. It won't change a 
thing on that side.
Jun 03 2018
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Dmitry Olshansky <dmitry.olsh gmail.com> writes:
On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 03:51:15 UTC, Anton Fediushin wrote:

 This is still just a rumour, we'll know the truth on Monday 
 (which is today).

 Some articles about the topic:

 https://fossbytes.com/microsoft-github-aquisition-report/
 https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/3/17422752/microsoft-github-acquisition-rumors

 What's your opinion about that? Will you continue using GitHub?


Well, MS already contributes big time to many open-source 
projects, including Git.
I do not see immanent  problem with them buying it.


 Both GitLab and Bitbucket can be used instead to host your D 
 projects - dub registry supported them for a while now.


Both are fine, though Gitlab seems more sexy now.


 IMHO Microsoft isn't the type of company I want to see behind 
 the GitHub. Maybe I am wrong since Microsoft has both money and 
 programmers to improve it further, I just don't trust them too 
 much which is the right thing to do when dealing with companies.


Would you trust Google? Me, I’m not.
In fact if we were to place trust, comercial IT companies would 
be pretty down on my list of “trust” in any case.


 This means that I will move my repositories elsewhere and use 
 GitHub just to contribute to other projects.
Jun 03 2018
parent reply Anton Fediushin <fediushin.anton yandex.ru> writes:
On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 04:26:25 UTC, Dmitry Olshansky wrote:

 On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 03:51:15 UTC, Anton Fediushin wrote:

 This is still just a rumour, we'll know the truth on Monday 
 (which is today).

 Some articles about the topic:

 https://fossbytes.com/microsoft-github-aquisition-report/
 https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/3/17422752/microsoft-github-acquisition-rumors

 What's your opinion about that? Will you continue using GitHub?


 Well, MS already contributes big time to many open-source 
 projects, including Git.
 I do not see immanent  problem with them buying it.


I can think of hundreds of things what can go wrong including: 
forcing users to use Microsoft accounts, advertising own 
products, changing search to Bing (that's pretty bad one, no idea 
how I came up with it) and more and more.

I can agree though that last 5 years or so Microsoft is doing 
well with open-source projects. Question is: will it carry on 
with open-source?


 Both GitLab and Bitbucket can be used instead to host your D 
 projects - dub registry supported them for a while now.


 Both are fine, though Gitlab seems more sexy now.


Indeed it is. GitHub is stuck in  2010-s and the UI of GitLab is 
beautiful and smooth.


 IMHO Microsoft isn't the type of company I want to see behind 
 the GitHub. Maybe I am wrong since Microsoft has both money 
 and programmers to improve it further, I just don't trust them 
 too much which is the right thing to do when dealing with 
 companies.


 Would you trust Google? Me, I’m not.
 In fact if we were to place trust, comercial IT companies would 
 be pretty down on my list of “trust” in any case.


If you'd ask me a year or two ago - maybe, but now I have no idea 
what Google is doing and last bits of trust I had are gone.
Jun 03 2018
next sibling parent reply Vladimir Panteleev <thecybershadow.lists gmail.com> writes:
On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 05:50:26 UTC, Anton Fediushin wrote:

 I can think of hundreds of things what can go wrong including: 
 forcing users to use Microsoft accounts, advertising own 
 products, changing search to Bing (that's pretty bad one, no 
 idea how I came up with it) and more and more.


Something that might be worth being concerned about is that 
Microsoft might be more strict in policing its online properties 
than GitHub, so watch out for them shutting down 
projects/repositories of politically charged subjects, or those 
e.g. based on reverse-engineered MS code.
Jun 04 2018
parent Anton Fediushin <fediushin.anton yandex.ru> writes:
On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 09:38:57 UTC, Vladimir Panteleev wrote:

 On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 05:50:26 UTC, Anton Fediushin wrote:

 I can think of hundreds of things what can go wrong including: 
 forcing users to use Microsoft accounts, advertising own 
 products, changing search to Bing (that's pretty bad one, no 
 idea how I came up with it) and more and more.


 Something that might be worth being concerned about is that 
 Microsoft might be more strict in policing its online 
 properties than GitHub, so watch out for them shutting down 
 projects/repositories of politically charged subjects, or those 
 e.g. based on reverse-engineered MS code.


GitHub removed repositories before when contents were illegal.

That's an interesting question though: now there's nothing 
stopping MS from changing user agreement and removing 
repositories without any kind of legal lawsuit.

Also, nothing stops MS from making it harder for other big 
companies like Google and Apple to support and host their 
projects on the GitHub.
Jun 04 2018
prev sibling parent reply Kagamin <spam here.lot> writes:
On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 05:50:26 UTC, Anton Fediushin wrote:

 I can think of hundreds of things what can go wrong including: 
 forcing users to use Microsoft accounts


That didn't happen to skype yet.
MS recently tries to mend its reputation, though the past will 
linger for a while.
Jun 04 2018
parent reply Jonathan M Davis <newsgroup.d jmdavisprog.com> writes:
On Monday, June 04, 2018 14:51:24 Kagamin via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:

 On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 05:50:26 UTC, Anton Fediushin wrote:

 I can think of hundreds of things what can go wrong including:
 forcing users to use Microsoft accounts


 That didn't happen to skype yet.
 MS recently tries to mend its reputation, though the past will
 linger for a while.


In many respects, they're better behaved than they used to be. They're
biggest problems seem to have to do with what they're doing with Windows
(e.g. tracking what you're doing and not letting you turn it off). It's
certainly not desriable that they bought github, but it probably won't have
any obvious effects for a while. The biggest concerns probably have to do
with collecting data on users, and github was doutblessly doing that
already.

- Jonathan M Davis
Jun 04 2018
parent Guillaume Piolat <notthat email.com> writes:
On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 15:08:01 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote:

 In many respects, they're better behaved than they used to be. 
 They're biggest problems seem to have to do with what they're 
 doing with Windows (e.g. tracking what you're doing and not 
 letting you turn it off). It's certainly not desriable that 
 they bought github, but it probably won't have any obvious 
 effects for a while. The biggest concerns probably have to do 
 with collecting data on users, and github was doutblessly doing 
 that already.

 - Jonathan M Davis


At least in the EU we had a big GDPR Windows Update that let you 
disable every tracking. All in all an amazing law (for the user) 
that would make sense for regulators to import.
Jun 04 2018
prev sibling next sibling parent Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 03:51:15 UTC, Anton Fediushin wrote:

 This is still just a rumour, we'll know the truth on Monday 
 (which is today).

 Some articles about the topic:

 https://fossbytes.com/microsoft-github-aquisition-report/
 https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/3/17422752/microsoft-github-acquisition-rumors

 What's your opinion about that? Will you continue using GitHub?

 Both GitLab and Bitbucket can be used instead to host your D 
 projects - dub registry supported them for a while now.

 IMHO Microsoft isn't the type of company I want to see behind 
 the GitHub. Maybe I am wrong since Microsoft has both money and 
 programmers to improve it further, I just don't trust them too 
 much which is the right thing to do when dealing with 
 companies. This means that I will move my repositories 
 elsewhere and use GitHub just to contribute to other projects.


Looks like a done deal, will be announced tomorrow:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-03/microsoft-is-said-to-have-agreed-to-acquire-coding-site-github

It all depends on how much support they pour into github, but I 
agree it's not a good sign.
Jun 03 2018
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Jonathan M Davis <newsgroup.d jmdavisprog.com> writes:
On Monday, June 04, 2018 03:51:15 Anton Fediushin via Digitalmars-d-announce 
wrote:

 This is still just a rumour, we'll know the truth on Monday
 (which is today).

 Some articles about the topic:

 https://fossbytes.com/microsoft-github-aquisition-report/
 https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/3/17422752/microsoft-github-acquisition-ru
 mors

 What's your opinion about that? Will you continue using GitHub?

 Both GitLab and Bitbucket can be used instead to host your D
 projects - dub registry supported them for a while now.

 IMHO Microsoft isn't the type of company I want to see behind the
 GitHub. Maybe I am wrong since Microsoft has both money and
 programmers to improve it further, I just don't trust them too
 much which is the right thing to do when dealing with companies.
 This means that I will move my repositories elsewhere and use
 GitHub just to contribute to other projects.


It would increase the odds that I would put public repos on bitbucket
(that's already where I put all of my private repos, since it's free there
but not at github). But I don't know. The main reason to go with github is
because it's the main place that folks go looking for open source projects,
and anyone who finds you on github (be it through the official dlang
projects or something else) will find your stuff on github that way but not
the stuff that you have elsewhere. On some level, what you have on github
serves as a resume in a way that it wouldn't with other sites (especially if
folks are finding you online rather than you pointing to your repos in your
actual resume).

I can't say that I'll be happy if Microosft buys github (just like I wasn't
happy when they bought linkedin), but I also can't say for sure that it will
change what I do. A lot of that will depend on what Microsoft does and how
it affects the open source community at large. The odds of my hosting stuff
elsewhere definitely then go up, but I don't know what I'll do. This is bad
news but likely not catastrophic.

On the bright side, maybe this will encourage online repo hosting to become
less of a monopoly as folks move elsewhere due to their concerns about
Microsoft.

- Jonathan M Davis
Jun 03 2018
parent reply Anton Fediushin <fediushin.anton yandex.ru> writes:
On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 04:40:44 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote:

 On the bright side, maybe this will encourage online repo 
 hosting to become less of a monopoly as folks move elsewhere 
 due to their concerns about Microsoft.

 - Jonathan M Davis


Can't agree more: GitLab and Bitbucket deserve more attention.

Speaking of which, there's huge spike [1] in project imports on 
GitLab. These are some great news for it, I hope it doesn't crash.

[1] 
https://monitor.gitlab.net/dashboard/db/github-importer?orgId=1
Jun 03 2018
parent reply drug <drug2004 bk.ru> writes:
04.06.2018 09:02, Anton Fediushin пишет:

 On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 04:40:44 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote:

 On the bright side, maybe this will encourage online repo hosting to 
 become less of a monopoly as folks move elsewhere due to their 
 concerns about Microsoft.

 - Jonathan M Davis


 
 Can't agree more: GitLab and Bitbucket deserve more attention.
 
 Speaking of which, there's huge spike [1] in project imports on GitLab. 
 These are some great news for it, I hope it doesn't crash.
 
 [1] https://monitor.gitlab.net/dashboard/db/github-importer?orgId=1


Gitlab has a big (for me) advantage being self hosted standalone system 
I can use privately. Its free version has restrictions comparing to 
enterprise version but very usable.
What about sexy modern design it's annoying (for me again) that this 
design changes frequently, it forces me almost every update to find 
where menus and buttons I used before placed now.
Jun 04 2018
parent reply Paolo Invernizzi <paolo.invernizzi gmail.com> writes:
On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 07:53:13 UTC, drug wrote:

 04.06.2018 09:02, Anton Fediushin пишет:

 On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 04:40:44 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote:

 On the bright side, maybe this will encourage online repo 
 hosting to become less of a monopoly as folks move elsewhere 
 due to their concerns about Microsoft.

 - Jonathan M Davis


 
 Can't agree more: GitLab and Bitbucket deserve more attention.
 
 Speaking of which, there's huge spike [1] in project imports 
 on GitLab. These are some great news for it, I hope it doesn't 
 crash.
 
 [1] 
 https://monitor.gitlab.net/dashboard/db/github-importer?orgId=1


 Gitlab has a big (for me) advantage being self hosted 
 standalone system I can use privately. Its free version has 
 restrictions comparing to enterprise version but very usable.
 What about sexy modern design it's annoying (for me again) that 
 this design changes frequently, it forces me almost every 
 update to find where menus and buttons I used before placed now.


No more restrictions for using GitLab for open source projects 
[1], both SaaS and Self-Hosted.

It's really a big opportunity...

[1] 
https://about.gitlab.com/2018/06/05/gitlab-ultimate-and-gold-free-for-education-and-open-source/

/Paolo
Jun 09 2018
parent reply "Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa)" <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> writes:
On 06/09/2018 11:06 AM, Paolo Invernizzi wrote:

 
 [1] 
 https://about.gitlab.com/2018/06/05/gitlab-ultimate-and-gold-free-for-educat
on-and-open-source/ 
 


 From the link:
"It has been a crazy 24 hours for GitLab. More than 2,000 people tweeted 
about #movingtogitlab. We imported over 100,000 repositories, and we've 
seen a 7x increase in orders. We went live on Bloomberg TV. And on top 
of that, Apple announced an Xcode integration with GitLab."

I find it honestly hilarious that MS buying GitHub has been a huge boost 
to GitLab. But then, I do love irony :)

(I just hope it doesn't lead to GitLab running out of cash too.)
Jun 09 2018
parent reply bauss <jj_1337 live.dk> writes:
On Saturday, 9 June 2018 at 23:41:43 UTC, Nick Sabalausky 
(Abscissa) wrote:

 (I just hope it doesn't lead to GitLab running out of cash too.)


And then Microsoft acquires both and everyone moves to Bitbucket.

Endless cycle :)
Jun 09 2018
next sibling parent "Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa)" <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> writes:
On 06/09/2018 08:29 PM, bauss wrote:

 On Saturday, 9 June 2018 at 23:41:43 UTC, Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa) wrote:

 (I just hope it doesn't lead to GitLab running out of cash too.)


 
 And then Microsoft acquires both and everyone moves to Bitbucket.
 
 Endless cycle :)


Ahhh! Time to make my own then! Wouldn't mind getting $7mil from MS :)
Jun 09 2018
prev sibling parent Kagamin <spam here.lot> writes:
On Sunday, 10 June 2018 at 00:29:04 UTC, bauss wrote:

 And then Microsoft acquires both and everyone moves to 
 Bitbucket.

 Endless cycle :)


Until people figure out decentralization. AIU scuttlebutt server 
provides only discovery service, these proved to be able to run 
at little cost. And as tox shows, even discovery can be 
decentralized too.
Jun 10 2018
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 6/3/2018 8:51 PM, Anton Fediushin wrote:

 This is still just a rumour, we'll know the truth on Monday (which is today).


We'll stay on Github as long as it continues to serve our interests, which it 
has done very well, and I have no reason to believe will change.

We have a number of ties to Microsoft:

1. It's just down the street.
2. Many D users work at Microsoft.
3. Microsoft has always been helpful and supportive of Digital Mars, note the 
files licensed from Microsoft in the distribution.
4. Microsoft has invited myself and Andrei to speak at Microsoft from time to
time.
5. Microsoft hosts the nwcpp.org meetings, which provide a venue for me to try 
out D presentations to a friendly crowd.
6. Microsoft has been generous with helping me solve some vexing compatibility 
problems from time to time.
Jun 04 2018
next sibling parent Anton Fediushin <fediushin.anton yandex.ru> writes:
On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 08:42:08 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 6/3/2018 8:51 PM, Anton Fediushin wrote:

 This is still just a rumour, we'll know the truth on Monday 
 (which is today).


 We'll stay on Github as long as it continues to serve our 
 interests, which it has done very well, and I have no reason to 
 believe will change.


It's understandable, moving organization this big around is not 
easy and it shouldn't be done unless it is absolutely needed.


 We have a number of ties to Microsoft:


It's great to know that MS is so nice to D. I guess that's 
because D isn't something over-hyped and MS might be interested 
in technologies, not in money or popularity.
Jun 04 2018
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Maksim Fomin <mxfm protonmail.com> writes:
On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 08:42:08 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 6/3/2018 8:51 PM, Anton Fediushin wrote:

 This is still just a rumour, we'll know the truth on Monday 
 (which is today).


 We'll stay on Github as long as it continues to serve our 
 interests, which it has done very well, and I have no reason to 
 believe will change.

 We have a number of ties to Microsoft:

 1. It's just down the street.
 2. Many D users work at Microsoft.
 3. Microsoft has always been helpful and supportive of Digital 
 Mars, note the files licensed from Microsoft in the 
 distribution.
 4. Microsoft has invited myself and Andrei to speak at 
 Microsoft from time to time.
 5. Microsoft hosts the nwcpp.org meetings, which provide a 
 venue for me to try out D presentations to a friendly crowd.
 6. Microsoft has been generous with helping me solve some 
 vexing compatibility problems from time to time.


OK, so Digital Mars is in good relationship with Microsoft (I am 
surprised because have never heard about it). However, judging by 
Microsoft acqusition experience my prediction is that github will 
slowly but surely degradate (as suggested on some forums, 
everything will be firstly switched to Microsoft account - to 
track data, then everything will be mangled by ads, then some 
features deemed unnecessary by Microsoft will be removed, then 
linux will be badly supoorted, then some features incompatible 
with Microsoft services will stop working, then servers will 
start work poorly like skype...).

P.S.

My second reaction after reading news (after shock) was to visit 
D forum.
Jun 04 2018
next sibling parent reply Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 19:06:52 UTC, Maksim Fomin wrote:

 On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 08:42:08 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 6/3/2018 8:51 PM, Anton Fediushin wrote:

 This is still just a rumour, we'll know the truth on Monday 
 (which is today).


 We'll stay on Github as long as it continues to serve our 
 interests, which it has done very well, and I have no reason 
 to believe will change.

 We have a number of ties to Microsoft:

 1. It's just down the street.
 2. Many D users work at Microsoft.
 3. Microsoft has always been helpful and supportive of Digital 
 Mars, note the files licensed from Microsoft in the 
 distribution.
 4. Microsoft has invited myself and Andrei to speak at 
 Microsoft from time to time.
 5. Microsoft hosts the nwcpp.org meetings, which provide a 
 venue for me to try out D presentations to a friendly crowd.
 6. Microsoft has been generous with helping me solve some 
 vexing compatibility problems from time to time.


 OK, so Digital Mars is in good relationship with Microsoft (I 
 am surprised because have never heard about it). However, 
 judging by Microsoft acqusition experience my prediction is 
 that github will slowly but surely degradate (as suggested on 
 some forums, everything will be firstly switched to Microsoft 
 account - to track data, then everything will be mangled by 
 ads, then some features deemed unnecessary by Microsoft will be 
 removed, then linux will be badly supoorted, then some features 
 incompatible with Microsoft services will stop working, then 
 servers will start work poorly like skype...).

 P.S.

 My second reaction after reading news (after shock) was to 
 visit D forum.


Unlikely, you don't spend $7.5 billion on a company because you 
want to send a message that you're a good dev tools company, then 
neglect it.

I suggest you look at their online slides linked from the Nadella 
blog post to see their stated plan, such as integrating github 
into VS Code more:

http://aka.ms/ms06042018

Of course, this is Microsoft: they probably won't execute that 
plan well, and likely vastly overpaid for an unprofitable company 
in the first place, but they emphasize that they intend to keep 
github open and independent.
Jun 04 2018
next sibling parent reply Maksim Fomin <mxfm protonmail.com> writes:
On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 19:26:23 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 19:06:52 UTC, Maksim Fomin wrote:

 Unlikely, you don't spend $7.5 billion on a company because you 
 want to send a message that you're a good dev tools company, 
 then neglect it.


You have no idea about how big corporations' management spends 
money.
As with Nokia and Skype - I don't know whether it was initially a 
plan to destroy products or management was just silly.


 I suggest you look at their online slides linked from the 
 Nadella blog post to see their stated plan, such as integrating 
 github into VS Code more:

 http://aka.ms/ms06042018

 and likely vastly overpaid for an unprofitable company in the 
 first place


:) this is exactly how such deals are done - paying $7.5 bl. for 
nonprofitable company.
Unfortunately, their books are unavailable because they are 
private company, but scarce information in the web suggests that 
in most of their years they have losses.

Just as rough estimate: to support $7.5 bl valuation Microsoft 
must turn -$30 ml. net loss company into business generating 
around $750 ml. for many years. There is no way to get these 
money from the market. Alternatively, the project can have payoff 
if something is broken and Microsoft cash flows increase by $750 
ml. This is more likely...


 but they emphasize that they intend to keep github open and 
 independent.


They can claim anything which suits best their interests right 
now. Or, as alternative, github can be broken in a such way, that 
their promises on surface are kept. Business is badly compatible 
with opensource by design.
Jun 04 2018
next sibling parent Kagamin <spam here.lot> writes:
On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 20:00:45 UTC, Maksim Fomin wrote:

 Just as rough estimate: to support $7.5 bl valuation Microsoft 
 must turn -$30 ml. net loss company into business generating 
 around $750 ml. for many years. There is no way to get these 
 money from the market. Alternatively, the project can have 
 payoff if something is broken and Microsoft cash flows increase 
 by $750 ml. This is more likely...


MS aims for cloud market, and github is a strategic asset there, 
as long as it helps the cloud business, it doesn't matter that 
github in isolation is not profitable. After MS takes over webdev 
and monopolizes the cloud market they can pull effective 
management again, but it will be a long way to go, but webdev 
being webdev can make it a little shorter. They were already 
kicked out of mobile market, it was reasonably unexpected, but it 
doesn't look like they plan to fall for it again.
Jun 05 2018
prev sibling parent Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 20:00:45 UTC, Maksim Fomin wrote:

 On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 19:26:23 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 19:06:52 UTC, Maksim Fomin wrote:

 Unlikely, you don't spend $7.5 billion on a company because 
 you want to send a message that you're a good dev tools 
 company, then neglect it.


 You have no idea about how big corporations' management spends 
 money.
 As with Nokia and Skype - I don't know whether it was initially 
 a plan to destroy products or management was just silly.


 I suggest you look at their online slides linked from the 
 Nadella blog post to see their stated plan, such as 
 integrating github into VS Code more:

 http://aka.ms/ms06042018

 and likely vastly overpaid for an unprofitable company in the 
 first place


 :) this is exactly how such deals are done - paying $7.5 bl. 
 for nonprofitable company.
 Unfortunately, their books are unavailable because they are 
 private company, but scarce information in the web suggests 
 that in most of their years they have losses.

 Just as rough estimate: to support $7.5 bl valuation Microsoft 
 must turn -$30 ml. net loss company into business generating 
 around $750 ml. for many years. There is no way to get these 
 money from the market. Alternatively, the project can have 
 payoff if something is broken and Microsoft cash flows increase 
 by $750 ml. This is more likely...


 but they emphasize that they intend to keep github open and 
 independent.


 They can claim anything which suits best their interests right 
 now. Or, as alternative, github can be broken in a such way, 
 that their promises on surface are kept. Business is badly 
 compatible with opensource by design.


I just finished reading this interesting article by a former 
Microsoft business guy, which makes the same point I did, that MS 
is unlikely to neglect github or otherwise force it in some 
direction to leverage it:

https://stratechery.com/2018/the-cost-of-developers/

You're right that MS has had many acquisitions go badly already, 
such as Nokia and Skype (though I'd argue both were long-term 
doomed before they were bought), but, as always, incompetence is 
the much more likely reason than malice.
Jun 09 2018
prev sibling parent DigitalDesigns <DigitalDesigns gmail.com> writes:
On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 19:26:23 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 19:06:52 UTC, Maksim Fomin wrote:

 [...]


 Unlikely, you don't spend $7.5 billion on a company because you 
 want to send a message that you're a good dev tools company, 
 then neglect it.

 I suggest you look at their online slides linked from the 
 Nadella blog post to see their stated plan, such as integrating 
 github into VS Code more:

 http://aka.ms/ms06042018

 Of course, this is Microsoft: they probably won't execute that 
 plan well, and likely vastly overpaid for an unprofitable 
 company in the first place, but they emphasize that they intend 
 to keep github open and independent.



Yeah, like they did codeplex!
Jun 04 2018
prev sibling parent Chris <wendlec tcd.ie> writes:
On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 19:06:52 UTC, Maksim Fomin wrote:


 My second reaction after reading news (after shock) was to 
 visit D forum.


Same here! I was off for a few days and found out today on GitHub 
[1], and then I remembered the thread header talking about 
GitLab. I'm skeptical to say the least. I still remember how 
difficult it was to use Skype after it had been bought by MS. I 
dunno what's behind it. Polishing up their image, trying to get 
the copyright for all the code on GitHub, killing off OSS, or all 
of the above ;)

MS have certainly missed a lot of stuff over the last couple of 
years, stuff that came out of or was based on the OSS community. 
Search engines, the success of Java, Android and the mobile phone 
market in general, social media etc. People will create and move 
to new platforms, simply because they don't like the thought of 
MS hosting their code (same goes for Google or Oracle). They will 
move to platforms made by their fellow programmers. Now, this 
will take some time and GitHub will do business as usual for at 
least a year. But the rot will set in sooner or later, I think.

[1] e.g. https://blog.github.com/2018-06-04-github-microsoft/
Jun 05 2018
prev sibling parent reply RalphBa <ralph.bariz pm.me> writes:
Sorry to hear that. Since I do not belive Microsoft changed 
perspective and am convinced they still see open source as cancer 
I need to assume they try to inflitrate the OSS community the 
last years. So for sure I won't rely on their stuff.

So is there a chance Digital Mars and D main development is 
getting bought by Microsoft?

BR
Ralph
Jun 04 2018
parent reply Adam Wilson <flyboynw gmail.com> writes:
On 06/04/2018 11:46 PM, RalphBa wrote:

 Sorry to hear that. Since I do not belive Microsoft changed perspective 
 and am convinced they still see open source as cancer I need to assume 
 they try to inflitrate the OSS community the last years. So for sure I 
 won't rely on their stuff.
 
 So is there a chance Digital Mars and D main development is getting 
 bought by Microsoft?
 
 BR
 Ralph




-- 
Adam Wilson
IRC: LightBender
import quiet.dlang.dev;
Jun 04 2018
parent RalphBa <ralph.bariz pm.me> writes:
On Tuesday, 5 June 2018 at 06:50:41 UTC, Adam Wilson wrote:

 On 06/04/2018 11:46 PM, RalphBa wrote:

 Sorry to hear that. Since I do not belive Microsoft changed 
 perspective and am convinced they still see open source as 
 cancer I need to assume they try to inflitrate the OSS 
 community the last years. So for sure I won't rely on their 
 stuff.
 
 So is there a chance Digital Mars and D main development is 
 getting bought by Microsoft?
 
 BR
 Ralph






is just a small part of the C++ ecosystem. The rest is mostly 
shared between GNU Compilers and LLVM.

Well, gladly LLVM also play D now, so even a takeover from M$ 
might not lead to more but in worst case a fork. So if DM is in a 
"we would do such deal" mood, it would be wise for the D 
community to bet on ldc. Also I hope GDC will see a revival one 
day.
Jun 05 2018
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Anton Fediushin <fediushin.anton yandex.ru> writes:
Oh look, rumours are confirmed:

https://itsfoss.com/microsoft-github/
MS bought GitHub for $5 billion.
Jun 04 2018
parent reply Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 09:47:58 UTC, Anton Fediushin wrote:

 Oh look, rumours are confirmed:

 https://itsfoss.com/microsoft-github/
 MS bought GitHub for $5 billion.


It's official, Nat Friedman, formerly of Xamarin, is the new CEO:

https://blog.github.com/2018-06-04-github-microsoft/

MS is basically selling a story to Wall Street, "Everything new 
we tried since Windows and Office has failed abysmally, so we've 
learned our lesson and will be the business software company from 
now on," hence buying LinkedIn, pushing Azure, and now buying 
Github. I don't expect this new management direction to go any 
better.
Jun 04 2018
parent reply Anton Fediushin <fediushin.anton yandex.ru> writes:
On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 18:17:24 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 On Monday, 4 June 2018 at 09:47:58 UTC, Anton Fediushin wrote:

 Oh look, rumours are confirmed:

 https://itsfoss.com/microsoft-github/
 MS bought GitHub for $5 billion.


 It's official, Nat Friedman, formerly of Xamarin, is the new 
 CEO:

 https://blog.github.com/2018-06-04-github-microsoft/


Also, there's an article from Satya Nadella, current CEO of 
Microsoft: 
https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2018/06/04/microsoft-github-empowering-developers/


 MS is basically selling a story to Wall Street, "Everything new 
 we tried since Windows and Office has failed abysmally, so 
 we've learned our lesson and will be the business software 
 company from now on," hence buying LinkedIn, pushing Azure, and 
 now buying Github. I don't expect this new management direction 
 to go any better.


Of course MS does, since they spent $5 billion on it. They will 
try their best to make profit out of it, just like they did with 
LinkedIn.
Jun 04 2018
parent Steven Schveighoffer <schveiguy yahoo.com> writes:
On 6/4/18 2:46 PM, Anton Fediushin wrote:


 Of course MS does, since they spent $5 billion on it. They will try 
 their best to make profit out of it, just like they did with LinkedIn.


$7.5 billion.

-Steve
Jun 04 2018
prev sibling next sibling parent Steven Schveighoffer <schveiguy yahoo.com> writes:
On 6/3/18 11:51 PM, Anton Fediushin wrote:

 This is still just a rumour, we'll know the truth on Monday (which is 
 today).
 
 Some articles about the topic:
 
 https://fossbytes.com/microsoft-github-aquisition-report/
 https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/3/17422752/microsoft-github-acquisition-rumors 
 
 
 What's your opinion about that? Will you continue using GitHub?


Of course.


 Both GitLab and Bitbucket can be used instead to host your D projects - 
 dub registry supported them for a while now.


I use both bitbucket and github. I think I will simply continue to use 
what makes sense at the time (as Jonathan pointed out, hosting a private 
repository is free on bitbucket).


 IMHO Microsoft isn't the type of company I want to see behind the 
 GitHub. Maybe I am wrong since Microsoft has both money and programmers 
 to improve it further, I just don't trust them too much which is the 
 right thing to do when dealing with companies. This means that I will 
 move my repositories elsewhere and use GitHub just to contribute to 
 other projects.


I don't know if it makes any difference to me. Sure, they have 
infrastructure and market share, but all that changes if they do 
something really annoying. There are good competing sites, and people 
will just move their stuff. I'm sure it wouldn't take long for someone 
to make software that ports your entire github project to gitlab or 
whatever, maybe it already exists.

Microsoft just isn't the same big bad company that once paid for Linux 
licenses from SCO group to fund their lawsuit against Linux. This past 
year, they actually incorporated part of Linux into their OS! I don't 
think this is necessarily going to be bad for github.

One thing I have read that is intriguing: if you are a Microsoft 
competitor and you have private-source repos at github, how do you feel 
about that?

-Steve
Jun 04 2018
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Adam Wilson <flyboynw gmail.com> writes:
On 6/3/18 20:51, Anton Fediushin wrote:

 This is still just a rumour, we'll know the truth on Monday (which is 
 today).
 
 Some articles about the topic:
 
 https://fossbytes.com/microsoft-github-aquisition-report/
 https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/3/17422752/microsoft-github-acquisition-rumors 
 
 
 What's your opinion about that? Will you continue using GitHub?
 
 Both GitLab and Bitbucket can be used instead to host your D projects - 
 dub registry supported them for a while now.
 
 IMHO Microsoft isn't the type of company I want to see behind the 
 GitHub. Maybe I am wrong since Microsoft has both money and programmers 
 to improve it further, I just don't trust them too much which is the 
 right thing to do when dealing with companies. This means that I will 
 move my repositories elsewhere and use GitHub just to contribute to 
 other projects.
 


I've been thinking how to best respond to this and here is where I am.

First, let me state up-front that I work for Microsoft (Office 365 
Workplace Analytics). Second, my employer (Volometrix) prior to working 
for Microsoft was acquired by Microsoft almost three years ago.

What that means is that while my division had no fore-warning of this 
acquisition I have first-hand experience with what will be happening at 
GitHub over the next months and years.

As an employee of Microsoft I am required to follow Microsoft's policy 
on Social Media, which can be reduced to "If you have nothing nice to 
say, then say nothing at all." Or stated plainly, what follows may or 
may not represent the entirety of my thoughts on the matter as I am 
effectively barred from revealing any negative thoughts.

So what I can say about this acquisition is that it is the best possible 
outcome of GitHub's possible futures for both the company and the 
employees. GitHub has not been profitable for years and is thought to 
have had cash reserves for only one or two more months of operations. 
Losing GitHub entirely overnight would have been an unmitigated disaster 
for the entire Open-Source community. And there are fates worse than 
death. Imagine for a second GitHub at Google or ... *shudder* Oracle. 
Whatever your opinions about Microsoft, you cannot possible imagine that 
either of those outcomes would have been qualitatively better. In that 
sense Microsoft was the best of the bad options GitHub.

As to any other concerns/opinions, all I will say is ... think laterally.

-- 
Adam Wilson
IRC: LightBender
import quiet.dlang.dev;
Jun 04 2018
next sibling parent Adam Wilson <flyboynw gmail.com> writes:
On 06/04/2018 08:53 PM, Adam Wilson wrote:

 On 6/3/18 20:51, Anton Fediushin wrote:

 This is still just a rumour, we'll know the truth on Monday (which is 
 today).

 Some articles about the topic:

 https://fossbytes.com/microsoft-github-aquisition-report/
 https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/3/17422752/microsoft-github-acquisition-rumors 


 What's your opinion about that? Will you continue using GitHub?

 Both GitLab and Bitbucket can be used instead to host your D projects 
 - dub registry supported them for a while now.

 IMHO Microsoft isn't the type of company I want to see behind the 
 GitHub. Maybe I am wrong since Microsoft has both money and 
 programmers to improve it further, I just don't trust them too much 
 which is the right thing to do when dealing with companies. This means 
 that I will move my repositories elsewhere and use GitHub just to 
 contribute to other projects.


 
 I've been thinking how to best respond to this and here is where I am.
 
 First, let me state up-front that I work for Microsoft (Office 365 
 Workplace Analytics). Second, my employer (Volometrix) prior to working 
 for Microsoft was acquired by Microsoft almost three years ago.
 
 What that means is that while my division had no fore-warning of this 
 acquisition I have first-hand experience with what will be happening at 
 GitHub over the next months and years.
 
 As an employee of Microsoft I am required to follow Microsoft's policy 
 on Social Media, which can be reduced to "If you have nothing nice to 
 say, then say nothing at all." Or stated plainly, what follows may or 
 may not represent the entirety of my thoughts on the matter as I am 
 effectively barred from revealing any negative thoughts.
 
 So what I can say about this acquisition is that it is the best possible 
 outcome of GitHub's possible futures for both the company and the 
 employees. GitHub has not been profitable for years and is thought to 
 have had cash reserves for only one or two more months of operations. 
 Losing GitHub entirely overnight would have been an unmitigated disaster 
 for the entire Open-Source community. And there are fates worse than 
 death. Imagine for a second GitHub at Google or ... *shudder* Oracle. 
 Whatever your opinions about Microsoft, you cannot possible imagine that 
 either of those outcomes would have been qualitatively better. In that 
 sense Microsoft was the best of the bad options GitHub.
 
 As to any other concerns/opinions, all I will say is ... think laterally.
 


As a reminder I have no inside information on what goes on over in the 
Azure world and that is where GitHub will land as has been announced.

-- 
Adam Wilson
IRC: LightBender
import quiet.dlang.dev;
Jun 04 2018
prev sibling parent reply MSFanBoy_kinda <MSFanBoy MSFanBoy.com> writes:
On Tuesday, 5 June 2018 at 03:53:31 UTC, Adam Wilson wrote:

 GitHub has not been profitable for years and is thought to have 
 had cash reserves for only one or two more months of 
 operations. Losing GitHub entirely overnight would have been an 
 unmitigated disaster for the entire Open-Source community.


Of course it had to be losing money..how else would they have 
convinced everyone it need to be aquired? That's long term 
business strategy at work ;-)


 And there are fates worse than death. Imagine for a second 
 GitHub at Google or ... *shudder* Oracle. Whatever your 
 opinions about Microsoft, you cannot possible imagine that 
 either of those outcomes would have been qualitatively better. 
 In that sense Microsoft was the best of the bad options GitHub.


'best of the bad options'?

Now which company has done more for software development, besides 
Microsoft?

Mostly closed source proprietary, sure, but still...(and that's 
changed a lot now!)

I'm sure MS Linux will come out soon .. someone has to compete 
with Ubuntu.

And sure, MS stopped a lot of other developers/apps from 
competing ...but hey, that's business...what else can we expect 
(from any for-profit, shareholder company).


program with them ;-)

If I tried doing any one of my 'windows forms apps' on any open 
source solution/platform, the productivity loss alone would be 
immense.

I also remember when I was programming DOS gui apps back in the 
early nineties - using Visual Basic 1.0 for DOS - it was just 
amazing how easy it was (even though it never caught on, cause 
Windows was about to become the next big thing.) Try doing those 
apps in Borland C....jeessseses...!

MS have done more for software developers, than anyone, in my 
opinion.

Now I'm not a fan of the MS cloud push at all, but for high 
productivity development tools and sophisticated applications, MS 
were always hard to beat.

That is, until Windows 8 came out.. then it all went 
backwards...now its all that html javascript crap! or stupid 
useless apps on the ms apps store - or that god awful monstrosity 

and Windows Forms...and I'm not moving!)

No doubt Github will just be integrated into their overall crappy 
vision of their cloud future...

I hate cloud! Dump the tablet and mobile, and bring back the pc ( 
running Windows XP 64 bit, or course - where admin means admin!).
Jun 05 2018
parent reply RalphBa <ralph.bariz pm.me> writes:
 Of course it had to be losing money..how else would they have 
 convinced everyone it need to be aquired? That's long term Now 
 which company has done more for software development, besides 
 Microsoft?


GNU... oh sorry, you are speaking about companies... Sun... ok, 
open and free software isn't really compatible with making money. 
Best argument why to leave GitHub if you do such kind of software.


 Mostly closed source proprietary, sure, but still...(and that's 
 changed a lot now!)


Well, changed... you really belive them? And mind, open source 
doesn't imply open and free software, only vice versa. How young 
are you to not knowing M$ better?


 I'm sure MS Linux will come out soon .. someone has to compete 
 with Ubuntu.


Still M$, still noone essential who will use it... and if only to 
make a point.


 And sure, MS stopped a lot of other developers/apps from 
 competing ...but hey, that's business...what else can we expect 
 (from any for-profit, shareholder company).


Up there... I wrote something of incompatible, so no not 
expecting anything else. Thats exactly the point.



 program with them ;-)

 If I tried doing any one of my 'windows forms apps' on any open 
 source solution/platform, the productivity loss alone would be 
 immense.


Did you ever have the need to write something efficient? .NET is 
a sandbox for children and UX people. And yes I know what I'm 
speaking about... not only up to 4.0 what by the way should lack 
support and security fixes in the meantime, but as XP user you 
are common to.


 I hate cloud! Dump the tablet and mobile, and bring back the pc 
 ( running Windows XP 64 bit, or course - where admin means 
 admin!).


Let me try to correct you, you hate centralised clouds. There is 
another concept of cloud even it isn't that far yet. But I'm 
pretty sure it will once solve the dilamma that stuff can be 
infiltrated/bought in one big chunk. Or the one that it has to be 
financed by one Organisation.

BR Ralph
Jun 05 2018
next sibling parent Down <down2now yahoo.com> writes:
On Tuesday, 5 June 2018 at 16:12:25 UTC, RalphBa wrote:

 Of course it had to be losing money..how else would they have 
 convinced everyone it need to be aquired? That's long term Now 
 which company has done more for software development, besides 
 Microsoft?


 GNU... oh sorry, you are speaking about companies... Sun... ok, 
 open and free software isn't really compatible with making 
 money. Best argument why to leave GitHub if you do such kind of 
 software.


 Mostly closed source proprietary, sure, but still...(and 
 that's changed a lot now!)


 Well, changed... you really belive them? And mind, open source 
 doesn't imply open and free software, only vice versa. How 
 young are you to not knowing M$ better?


 I'm sure MS Linux will come out soon .. someone has to compete 
 with Ubuntu.


 Still M$, still noone essential who will use it... and if only 
 to make a point.


 And sure, MS stopped a lot of other developers/apps from 
 competing ...but hey, that's business...what else can we 
 expect (from any for-profit, shareholder company).


 Up there... I wrote something of incompatible, so no not 
 expecting anything else. Thats exactly the point.



 program with them ;-)

 If I tried doing any one of my 'windows forms apps' on any 
 open source solution/platform, the productivity loss alone 
 would be immense.


 Did you ever have the need to write something efficient? .NET 
 is a sandbox for children and UX people. And yes I know what 
 I'm speaking about... not only up to 4.0 what by the way should 
 lack support and security fixes in the meantime, but as XP user 
 you are common to.


 I hate cloud! Dump the tablet and mobile, and bring back the 
 pc ( running Windows XP 64 bit, or course - where admin means 
 admin!).


 Let me try to correct you, you hate centralised clouds. There 
 is another concept of cloud even it isn't that far yet. But I'm 
 pretty sure it will once solve the dilamma that stuff can be 
 infiltrated/bought in one big chunk. Or the one that it has to 
 be financed by one Organisation.

 BR Ralph


Nothing wrong with the cloud.  The past few companies Ive worked 
for (small) have used AWS and Azure.  Not managing servers and 
services make it easy for small companies.   For instance we use 
Beanstalk, ECS, Cloudfront, RDS, ElasticCache, Lambda, SQS, and 
SNS at my current job.  With only 5 employees this would be a 
pain to deal with on own and the cost is about 1000/month for us. 
  Sure we could have our own servers in a datacenter but then that 
just brings even more headache and the cost would be more than 
AWS.  I agree that large companies serving vast amounts of the 
internet is not a good thing but the times we live in.
Jun 05 2018
prev sibling parent reply Apocalypto <apocalypto gmail.com> writes:
On Tuesday, 5 June 2018 at 16:12:25 UTC, RalphBa wrote:


 Did you ever have the need to write something efficient? .NET 
 is a sandbox for children and UX people.


Oh yeah, toy applications for children like StackOverflow, 
Siemens NX, Solidworks, most of the Azure platform, MSSQL and 
Visual Studio just to name a few. Even a toy compiler like 
Roslyn. Don't be surprised if github will run someday on top of 
the .net platform. Welcome to the children playground!
Jun 05 2018
parent reply aberba <karabutaworld gmail.com> writes:
On Tuesday, 5 June 2018 at 17:12:00 UTC, Apocalypto wrote:

 On Tuesday, 5 June 2018 at 16:12:25 UTC, RalphBa wrote:


 Did you ever have the need to write something efficient? .NET 
 is a sandbox for children and UX people.


 Oh yeah, toy applications for children like StackOverflow, 
 Siemens NX, Solidworks, most of the Azure platform, MSSQL and 
 Visual Studio just to name a few. Even a toy compiler like 
 Roslyn. Don't be surprised if github will run someday on top of 
 the .net platform. Welcome to the children playground!


This take on Microsoft is really ridiculous. I hope it's all just 
for fun. I've been using Linux 100% for years and it's really 
ridiculous seeing comments about Microsoft being some evil 
company. Beating competition with alternative product is 
everywhere...Google took over from Yahoo, Github from Rosetta and 
Co,  Facebook from others,...its all competition in business.

These people who complain don't usually contribute a penny to 
Open source. Frankly, Microsoft has done great things for the 
world with software. Making computers accessible to everyone... 
They recently came out with VS Code which is better than any 
existing open source alternative...even though it uses same 
technology as atom and bracket text editor. Really, Microsoft 
write high quality software... proprietary or open source. They 
contribute to Linux and other tools. There's the major 
contributor to open source.


Github is a for-profit company so of course i would expect to 
make profit too if I bought it. Your employer doesn't pay you 
with leaves. That money comes from commercialization. Developers 
must eat.

I think some only look at what happened during Steve Balmer's 
time as ceo. It was "HIS" strategy to pick on Linux. In fact, he 
pick on Apple too and several other competing products. Its all 
marketing and competition and its pretty much everywhere. 
Monopoly and patent registration is everywhere. I'm not saying 
its a good thing or bad,...Its not just Microsoft.


If you're don't trust Microsoft, you shouldn't trust any 
commercial company. Microsoft has changed business model too by 
embracing open source. In fact, their the real believers in open 
source now compared to those who don't think theirs money in open 
source.
Jun 05 2018
parent Chris <wendlec tcd.ie> writes:
On Tuesday, 5 June 2018 at 23:40:37 UTC, aberba wrote:


 These people who complain don't usually contribute a penny to 
 Open source.


I dare doubt that this is true.


 Frankly, Microsoft has done great things for the world with 
 software. Making computers accessible to everyone...


...and lock users in. Making computers accessible in terms of UI 
started with Xerox whose engineers later went to Apple. It was 
actually Apple that took computers away from the CLI high 
priests, but Apple machines were too expensive. MS's UIs were 
quite crap at the beginning, but they were clever enough to make 
their products available on cheaper PCs. Apple were too elitist.

[...]


 I think some only look at what happened during Steve Balmer's 
 time as ceo. It was "HIS" strategy to pick on Linux. In fact, 
 he pick on Apple too and several other competing products. Its 
 all marketing and competition and its pretty much everywhere. 
 Monopoly and patent registration is everywhere. I'm not saying 
 its a good thing or bad,...Its not just Microsoft.


See, that's the thing. MS under Steve Balmer played really really 
dirty. It was completely OTT, even by dog-eat-dog business 
standards that, btw, most people are aware of. We know how 
business works. Once the trust is gone it is very hard (or nigh 
impossible) to get people to trust you again. MS, under Steve 
Balmer, relied too much on bullying, intimidation and locking 
users in. However, they missed a lot of developments which was 
their downfall. With the advent of Mac OS X, iOS and Android, 
people began to realize that there was a digital life beyond MS 
(remember when people were afraid to buy anything else but 
Windows PCs saying "I don't want to be trapped in the Mac world", 
while cursing Windows at the same time?) People don't trust MS 
anymore and even if they are "nice" now, who knows whether it's 
not just because they are no longer in a position of power ("the 
wolf has eaten chalk"). But that's MS's problem, not mine.


 If you're don't trust Microsoft, you shouldn't trust any 
 commercial company. Microsoft has changed business model too by 
 embracing open source. In fact, their the real believers in 
 open source now compared to those who don't think theirs money 
 in open source.


You shouldn't trust big IT companies. The names of people who 
have been cheated out of their software by them are legion.
Jun 06 2018
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa)" <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> writes:
On 06/03/2018 11:51 PM, Anton Fediushin wrote:

 
 What's your opinion about that? Will you continue using GitHub?
 


The obvious question is "Will MS use evil/strongarm shenanigans with 
GitHub?"

That would've been the one and only right question if this were the 
90's. (And the answer probably would've been, "Duh, yes.")

But, while I am somewhat concerned about that possibility (mainly in the 
long term), with modern MS I think I'm really more concerned about 
GitHub being marred by bone-headed ideas and/or sheer ineptitude. Way I 
see it, that's kinda been MS's main MO the last decode or so. (Heck, 
their games and OS divisions can barely even count numbers. 
One...three-hundred sixty...one again...eight...point one...ten...)

Let's face it, evil or not, when MS touches stuff, how often do they NOT 
wind up damaging it one way or the other? Sometimes maybe, but not usually.

I don't think this is a "sky is falling" omen for GitHub (...although 
there WAS codeplex...but then again, codeplex was kinda inferior to its 
competitors anyway). And I don't think there will be any immediate 
problems (even MS isn't that stupid, and if they are...it'd take time to 
implement anyway).

But, based on MS record, I do think it's likely there will be some 
facepalm/WTF moments for GitHub users down the road. The big questions 
are "What?", "When?" and "Will they be promptly reverted/mitigated?"

I've always felt GitLab was better than GitHub (in large part because 
they're sensible enough to support self-hosting), so it's tempting to 
use this as a great reason to move to GitLab. I won't though, unless 
MS-GitHub starts doing things that irritate me. Then I probably will.

In any case, I've always thought it was absolutely sick that that even 
though GitHub/BitBucket/GitLab/Launchpad/etc. all provide basically the 
same features on top of the standard ***distributed*** version control 
systems, they are all completely incapable of talking to each other or 
acting as interchangable viewers on a single set of common project data. 
So much for the "distributed" in "DVCS".

What I've ALWAYS felt we needed, and even moreso now, is a tool to 
commoditize these "VCS Plus" services. So we can just FORCE the choice 
of GitHub/BitBucket/GitLab to be "Whatever frontend the user prefers", 
and everything gets cross-synced and interlinked, etc., and bring the 
"distributed" back to DVCS, rather than chaining each project to a 
centralized walled garden.

Keep in mind, if we had been commoditizing and decentralizing repository 
hosting, issue tracking, PRs, user accounts, etc. right from the start 
like we should've been, then this MS buyout of GitHub would've been 
entirely irrelevant to everyone outside GitHub itself. That's what 
happens with single points of failure. And the reason VCSes even went 
DVCS in the first place.
Jun 06 2018
next sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 6/6/2018 10:28 PM, Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa) wrote:

 Keep in mind, if we had been commoditizing and decentralizing repository 
 hosting, issue tracking, PRs, user accounts, etc. right from the start like we 
 should've been, then this MS buyout of GitHub would've been entirely
irrelevant 
 to everyone outside GitHub itself. That's what happens with single points of 
 failure. And the reason VCSes even went DVCS in the first place.


Bugzilla for issue tracking is independent of Github.
Jun 07 2018
parent reply "Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa)" <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> writes:
On 06/07/2018 04:36 AM, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 6/6/2018 10:28 PM, Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa) wrote:

 Keep in mind, if we had been commoditizing and decentralizing 
 repository hosting, issue tracking, PRs, user accounts, etc. right 
 from the start like we should've been, then this MS buyout of GitHub 
 would've been entirely irrelevant to everyone outside GitHub itself. 
 That's what happens with single points of failure. And the reason 
 VCSes even went DVCS in the first place.


 
 Bugzilla for issue tracking is independent of Github.


Yea, it certainly does have that going for it. And I have no real big 
objections to bugzilla. It would be nice, though, if it were better (and 
more cleanly) integrated with GitHub/GitLab/BitBucket/etc., and if its 
data were all distributively stored in git.

Oh, also, just in case I wasn't clear, when I said "if we had been 
commoditizing and decentralizing..." I meant "we" as in the worldwide 
programmer community in general, not the D community specifically.
Jun 07 2018
parent Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 6/7/2018 4:00 PM, Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa) wrote:

 Yea, it certainly does have that going for it. And I have no real big
objections 
 to bugzilla. It would be nice, though, if it were better (and more cleanly) 
 integrated with GitHub/GitLab/BitBucket/etc., and if its data were all 
 distributively stored in git.


There was some discussion a while back about abandoning Bugzilla and going with 
Github for issue tracking. In the light of the risk of "all our eggs in one 
basket" it seems prudent to keep them separate.

Besides, I like Bugzilla and it has served us well.
Jun 07 2018
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Vladimir Panteleev <thecybershadow.lists gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 7 June 2018 at 05:28:26 UTC, Nick Sabalausky 
(Abscissa) wrote:

 I've always felt GitLab was better than GitHub (in large part 
 because they're sensible enough to support self-hosting), so 
 it's tempting to use this as a great reason to move to GitLab.


I've been following the discussions (mainly on HN) on the 
subject, and there are a few arguments against GitLab (i.e. the 
gitlab.com SaaS) as well.

- The company might be purchased by a bigger one in the same way 
that happened to GitHub.
- The conflict of interest between the free and paid tiers means 
that some issues that are useful for open-source projects won't 
be available to them, even though they are available at their 
competitors.
- gitlab.com provides features unavailable in the open-source 
(community) edition to all projects, which means that migrating 
away from gitlab.com and to a self-hosted instance would be a 
compromise involving losing features.


 In any case, I've always thought it was absolutely sick that 
 that even though GitHub/BitBucket/GitLab/Launchpad/etc. all 
 provide basically the same features on top of the standard 
 ***distributed*** version control systems, they are all 
 completely incapable of talking to each other or acting as 
 interchangable viewers on a single set of common project data. 
 So much for the "distributed" in "DVCS".


Many people think so too:

https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/4517
https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/4013

Unfortunately it looks like the current plan for federation in 
GitLab will once again be only in the paid version.
Jun 07 2018
parent reply drug <drug2004 bk.ru> writes:
07.06.2018 14:12, Vladimir Panteleev пишет:

 On Thursday, 7 June 2018 at 05:28:26 UTC, Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa) wrote:

 I've always felt GitLab was better than GitHub (in large part because 
 they're sensible enough to support self-hosting), so it's tempting to 
 use this as a great reason to move to GitLab.


 
 I've been following the discussions (mainly on HN) on the subject, and 
 there are a few arguments against GitLab (i.e. the gitlab.com SaaS) as 
 well.
 
 - The company might be purchased by a bigger one in the same way that 
 happened to GitHub.
 - The conflict of interest between the free and paid tiers means that 
 some issues that are useful for open-source projects won't be available 
 to them, even though they are available at their competitors.
 - gitlab.com provides features unavailable in the open-source 
 (community) edition to all projects, which means that migrating away 
 from gitlab.com and to a self-hosted instance would be a compromise 
 involving losing features.
 

 In any case, I've always thought it was absolutely sick that that even 
 though GitHub/BitBucket/GitLab/Launchpad/etc. all provide basically 
 the same features on top of the standard ***distributed*** version 
 control systems, they are all completely incapable of talking to each 
 other or acting as interchangable viewers on a single set of common 
 project data. So much for the "distributed" in "DVCS".


 
 Many people think so too:
 
 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/4517
 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/4013
 
 Unfortunately it looks like the current plan for federation in GitLab 
 will once again be only in the paid version.
 


isn't it a niche for THE application that could be written in D?
Jun 07 2018
parent rikki cattermole <rikki cattermole.co.nz> writes:
On 08/06/2018 12:03 AM, drug wrote:

 isn't it a niche for THE application that could be written in D?


I don't think D brings anything to the table when it comes to VCS.

It'll be nicer code, but it won't be noticed by users kind of nice.

On the other hand, Weka.IO does bring a lot to the table...
Jun 07 2018
prev sibling next sibling parent Basile B. <b2.temp gmx.com> writes:
On Thursday, 7 June 2018 at 05:28:26 UTC, Nick Sabalausky 
(Abscissa) wrote:

 On 06/03/2018 11:51 PM, Anton Fediushin wrote:

 
 What's your opinion about that? Will you continue using GitHub?
 


 The obvious question is "Will MS use evil/strongarm shenanigans 
 with GitHub?"

 In any case, I've always thought it was absolutely sick that 
 that even though GitHub/BitBucket/GitLab/Launchpad/etc. all 
 provide basically the same features on top of the standard 
 ***distributed*** version control systems, they are all 
 completely incapable of talking to each other or acting as 
 interchangable viewers on a single set of common project data. 
 So much for the "distributed" in "DVCS".


https://joeyh.name/blog/entry/the_single_most_important_criteria_when_replacing_Github/
Jun 07 2018
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh quickfur.ath.cx> writes:
On Thu, Jun 07, 2018 at 01:28:26AM -0400, Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa) via
Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:
[...]

 In any case, I've always thought it was absolutely sick that that even
 though GitHub/BitBucket/GitLab/Launchpad/etc. all provide basically
 the same features on top of the standard ***distributed*** version
 control systems, they are all completely incapable of talking to each
 other or acting as interchangable viewers on a single set of common
 project data. So much for the "distributed" in "DVCS".


Exactly!!!  Git was built precisely for decentralized, distributed
development.  Anyone should be (and is, if they bothered to put just a
tiny amount of effort into it) able to set up a git server and send the
URL to prospective collaborators.  Anyone is free to clone the git repo
and redistribute that clone to anyone else.  Anyone can create new
commits in a local clone and send the URL to another collaborator who
can pull the commits.  It should never have become the tool to build
walled gardens that inhibit this free sharing of code.



 What I've ALWAYS felt we needed, and even moreso now, is a tool to
 commoditize these "VCS Plus" services. So we can just FORCE the choice
 of GitHub/BitBucket/GitLab to be "Whatever frontend the user prefers",
 and everything gets cross-synced and interlinked, etc., and bring the
 "distributed" back to DVCS, rather than chaining each project to a
 centralized walled garden.


Yes.



 Keep in mind, if we had been commoditizing and decentralizing
 repository hosting, issue tracking, PRs, user accounts, etc. right
 from the start like we should've been, then this MS buyout of GitHub
 would've been entirely irrelevant to everyone outside GitHub itself.
 That's what happens with single points of failure. And the reason
 VCSes even went DVCS in the first place.


Indeed.  Remember the Amazon AWS blackout that affected hundreds
(thousands?) of websites?  That's what happens with centralized systems.
Yet people just never learn...


T

-- 
Study gravitation, it's a field with a lot of potential.
Jun 07 2018
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 6/7/2018 10:17 AM, H. S. Teoh wrote:

 Exactly!!!  Git was built precisely for decentralized, distributed
 development.  Anyone should be (and is, if they bothered to put just a
 tiny amount of effort into it) able to set up a git server and send the
 URL to prospective collaborators.  Anyone is free to clone the git repo
 and redistribute that clone to anyone else.  Anyone can create new
 commits in a local clone and send the URL to another collaborator who
 can pull the commits.  It should never have become the tool to build
 walled gardens that inhibit this free sharing of code.


We have more on Github than just the source code. There are all the comments 
that go with the PRs. I have most of this archived, as they get emailed to me
by 
Github, but not all of it and recreating all this priceless historical 
information into a usable form would be very burdensome.
Jun 07 2018
parent reply "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh quickfur.ath.cx> writes:
On Thu, Jun 07, 2018 at 05:11:40PM -0700, Walter Bright via
Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:

 On 6/7/2018 10:17 AM, H. S. Teoh wrote:

 Exactly!!!  Git was built precisely for decentralized, distributed
 development.  Anyone should be (and is, if they bothered to put just
 a tiny amount of effort into it) able to set up a git server and
 send the URL to prospective collaborators.  Anyone is free to clone
 the git repo and redistribute that clone to anyone else.  Anyone can
 create new commits in a local clone and send the URL to another
 collaborator who can pull the commits.  It should never have become
 the tool to build walled gardens that inhibit this free sharing of
 code.


 
 We have more on Github than just the source code. There are all the
 comments that go with the PRs. I have most of this archived, as they
 get emailed to me by Github, but not all of it and recreating all this
 priceless historical information into a usable form would be very
 burdensome.


And that is why it's a bad thing to build a walled garden around a code
repo, esp. when the underlying VCS is well capable of distributed
development.  If only there has been a standard protocol for
communicating such associated content, such as PR comments and
discussions, bugs and issues (this latter not applicable in our case,
thankfully), then we could have setup an archival system to retrieve and
store all of this information.  Unfortunately, AFAIK there isn't a way
to do this, and so if Github for whatever reason shuts down, all of this
valuable information would be lost forever.

The same problem faces us if for whatever reason we decide to move to a
different VCS hosting provider in the future: the lack of a common,
compatible data exchange format for PRs, comments, issues, etc., means
that it will be very hard (practically impossible) to export this data
and import it into the new system.  It's a mild form of vendor lock-in.
Mild in the sense that we can take the code with us anytime, thanks to
the way git works, but the valuable associated information like PR
discussions is specific to Github and there is no easy way (if there's a
way at all!) to export this data and import it elsewhere.

It's 2018, and history has shown that standard, open data formats are
what stands the test of time. We *could* have had a standardized
interchange format for representing PR discussions, standard
vendor-agnostic protocols for bug-tracking, PR merging, etc.. Yet we're
still stuck in the 1998 mindset of building walled gardens that lock us
into an inescapable dependence on a specific vendor.  Thankfully git
allows at least the code to be free from this lock-in, but still, as you
said, priceless historical information resides in data that only exists
on Github, and the lack of common protocols means we're bound to Github
by the fear of losing this data forever if we leave.


T

-- 
Error: Keyboard not attached. Press F1 to continue. -- Yoon Ha Lee, CONLANG
Jun 07 2018
next sibling parent reply "Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa)" <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> writes:
On 06/08/2018 01:01 AM, H. S. Teoh wrote:

 but the valuable associated information like PR
 discussions is specific to Github and there is no easy way (if there's a
 way at all!) to export this data and import it elsewhere.


For importing, you may be right. For exporting, I'm not sure I agree. 
With curl and something like Adam's HTML DOM (or heck, even just regex) 
it shouldn't be too difficult to crawl/scrape all the information into a 
sensible format. That's a technique I've been wanting to do a LOT more 
with than I've had a chance to.

Although granted, that's still far more complicated than it SHOULD be, 
and doesn't help much if there's nowhere to import it into.


 It's 2018, and history has shown that standard, open data formats are
 what stands the test of time.


Yup. Unfortunately, history has also shown that closed-off and locked-in 
tend to be more lucrative business models. Which is why all the big 
muscle in the tech world is usually working *against* open standards.
Jun 08 2018
parent "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh quickfur.ath.cx> writes:
On Fri, Jun 08, 2018 at 02:02:12PM -0400, Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa) via
Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:

 On 06/08/2018 01:01 AM, H. S. Teoh wrote:

 but the valuable associated information like PR discussions is
 specific to Github and there is no easy way (if there's a way at
 all!) to export this data and import it elsewhere.


 
 For importing, you may be right. For exporting, I'm not sure I agree.
 With curl and something like Adam's HTML DOM (or heck, even just
 regex) it shouldn't be too difficult to crawl/scrape all the
 information into a sensible format. That's a technique I've been
 wanting to do a LOT more with than I've had a chance to.


True, you can write a crawler to trawl through all the pages and collate
all the info.  But it doesn't seem to be something that can be done
overnight, and the extracted data will probably need further processing
to be put into a more useful form (e.g., resolving cross-links, parse
references between PRs, etc., dumping the raw HTML is only the first
step).



 Although granted, that's still far more complicated than it SHOULD be,
 and doesn't help much if there's nowhere to import it into.


Even if there were somewhere to import it, it would still require a fair
amount of effort to massage the data into the right format to be
imported.



 It's 2018, and history has shown that standard, open data formats
 are what stands the test of time.


 
 Yup. Unfortunately, history has also shown that closed-off and
 locked-in tend to be more lucrative business models. Which is why all
 the big muscle in the tech world is usually working *against* open
 standards.


Of course.  Money corrupts, and where money is involved, you can expect
that anything else that stands in the way to be shoved aside or thrown
out the window completely, no matter how much more sense it may make.
Ironic, that Github hasn't turned a profit yet. :-D


T

-- 
Which is worse: ignorance or apathy? Who knows? Who cares? -- Erich Schubert
Jun 08 2018
prev sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 6/7/2018 10:01 PM, H. S. Teoh wrote:

 And that is why it's a bad thing to build a walled garden around a code
 repo, esp. when the underlying VCS is well capable of distributed
 development.  If only there has been a standard protocol for
 communicating such associated content, such as PR comments and
 discussions, bugs and issues (this latter not applicable in our case,
 thankfully), then we could have setup an archival system to retrieve and
 store all of this information.  Unfortunately, AFAIK there isn't a way
 to do this, and so if Github for whatever reason shuts down, all of this
 valuable information would be lost forever.


Since I have (most) of the Github discussions in email form, I could do 
something like this if we had to:

https://digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/index.html

There's a program that runs over the NNTP database to generate the static pages:

https://github.com/DigitalMars/ngArchiver
Jun 08 2018
parent reply Brad Roberts <braddr puremagic.com> writes:
On 6/8/2018 2:34 PM, Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:

 On 6/7/2018 10:01 PM, H. S. Teoh wrote:

 And that is why it's a bad thing to build a walled garden around a code
 repo, esp. when the underlying VCS is well capable of distributed
 development.  If only there has been a standard protocol for
 communicating such associated content, such as PR comments and
 discussions, bugs and issues (this latter not applicable in our case,
 thankfully), then we could have setup an archival system to retrieve and
 store all of this information.  Unfortunately, AFAIK there isn't a way
 to do this, and so if Github for whatever reason shuts down, all of this
 valuable information would be lost forever.


 
 Since I have (most) of the Github discussions in email form, I could do 
 something like this if we had to:
 
 https://digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/index.html
 
 There's a program that runs over the NNTP database to generate the 
 static pages:
 
 https://github.com/DigitalMars/ngArchiver


Essentially (if not actually) everything on github is available through 
their api's.  No need for scraping or other heroics to gather it.
Jun 08 2018
next sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 6/8/2018 3:02 PM, Brad Roberts wrote:

 Essentially (if not actually) everything on github is available through their 
 api's.  No need for scraping or other heroics to gather it.


That's good to know! The situation I was concerned with is it going dark all of 
a sudden.

BTW, if someone wants to build a scraper that'll produce static web pages of
the 
dlang PR discussions, that would be pretty cool!
Jun 08 2018
next sibling parent reply Kapps <opantm2+spam gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 8 June 2018 at 22:06:29 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 6/8/2018 3:02 PM, Brad Roberts wrote:

 Essentially (if not actually) everything on github is 
 available through their api's.  No need for scraping or other 
 heroics to gather it.


 That's good to know! The situation I was concerned with is it 
 going dark all of a sudden.

 BTW, if someone wants to build a scraper that'll produce static 
 web pages of the dlang PR discussions, that would be pretty 
 cool!


There's plenty of third party tools that archive GitHub.

For example, https://www.gharchive.org/. GitHub advertises some 
of them at 
https://help.github.com/articles/about-archiving-content-and-data-on-github/#third-par
y-archival-projects and
https://help.github.com/articles/backing-up-a-repository/.

Personally I think the fear of Microsoft ruining GitHub is 
completely unfounded. Just look at what they did to Xamarin. They 
bought an interesting product and then made it free for 
individuals, open sourced it, and improved it drastically. And 
they sure do hate Linux nowadays with dotnet CORE being partially 
to improve Linux / cross-platform support.
Jun 08 2018
next sibling parent Nick Sabalausky <a a.a> writes:
On Saturday, 9 June 2018 at 00:54:08 UTC, Kapps wrote:

 Personally I think the fear of Microsoft ruining GitHub is 
 completely unfounded. Just look at what they did to Xamarin. 
 They bought an interesting product and then made it free for 
 individuals, open sourced it, and improved it drastically. And 
 they sure do hate Linux nowadays with dotnet CORE being 
 partially to improve Linux / cross-platform support.


These days, I don't think the "evil" of MS is the thing to be 
concerned about. I'm more concerned about unpredictably and 
unreliability. The potential for mess-ups or mind-changing or 
other surprises down the road. Not that it necessarily WILL 
happen, but I think being MS its worth being prepared, just in 
case.
Jun 08 2018
prev sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 6/8/2018 5:54 PM, Kapps wrote:

 Personally I think the fear of Microsoft ruining GitHub is completely
unfounded. 


My concern has nothing to do with Microsoft. It's about not totally relying on 
any third party not under our control.
Jun 08 2018
parent SpaceInvader <spaceinvader spaceinvaders.com> writes:
On Saturday, 9 June 2018 at 02:09:20 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 6/8/2018 5:54 PM, Kapps wrote:

 Personally I think the fear of Microsoft ruining GitHub is 
 completely unfounded.


 My concern has nothing to do with Microsoft. It's about not 
 totally relying on any third party not under our control.


Mmm..but the whole point of 'cloud' (from a business model 
perspective) is to make us all rely on 3rd parties not under our 
control.

MS wants github in order to create strategic dependencies - i.e. 
have 'them' host 'our' stuff. That creates the dependency. Now 
they have us.

Even if the D foundation set up its own git repo, it would still 
need to host it somewhere.

So no matter what you do, in the cloud, you're always dependent 
on someone. There just no getting around it.

So, in the cloud, it all comes back to risk management.

Ideally, repo's could be replicated across different hosting 
providers/platforms, and in the event of one going belly up, we'd 
all automatically switch over....

..but what are the chances that rival companies will co-operate, 
so that can be achieved?
Jun 08 2018
prev sibling parent Russel Winder <russel winder.org.uk> writes:
On Fri, 2018-06-08 at 15:06 -0700, Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d-announce
wrote:

 On 6/8/2018 3:02 PM, Brad Roberts wrote:

 Essentially (if not actually) everything on github is available through
 their=20
 api's.  No need for scraping or other heroics to gather it.


=20
 That's good to know! The situation I was concerned with is it going dark =


all

 of=20
 a sudden.


[=E2=80=A6]

Good job Microsoft bought GitHub then: GitHub was likely running out of cas=
h,
so needed a quick sale to avoid it going dark very suddenly.

--=20
Russel.
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200
41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077
London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk
Jun 09 2018
prev sibling parent reply "Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa)" <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> writes:
On 06/08/2018 06:02 PM, Brad Roberts wrote:

 
 Essentially (if not actually) everything on github is available through 
 their api's.  No need for scraping or other heroics to gather it.


That does make things a little bit simpler, but web scraping really 
isn't all that much more complicated.

Whether web API or web scraping: Either way, you still have to submit an 
HTTP request, parse the results according to the format the server has 
chosen to spit out, and possibly follow up with additional HTTP 
requests. The main differences are just: Web scraping can occasionally 
get thwarted by changes in the webapp's presentation layer. Whereas web 
API can occasionally get thwarted by business rules changing what 
is/isn't accessible via API (this has been known to happen).

Ie, scraping needs to deal with UI changes, but unlike API, it cannot be 
selectively hindered/disabled (unless the primary website itself is 
hindered/disabled, too).

Thus, a robust tool will support both published web API and web 
scraping, and select the answers from whichever one works.
Jun 09 2018
parent reply Kagamin <spam here.lot> writes:
On Saturday, 9 June 2018 at 07:06:23 UTC, Nick Sabalausky 
(Abscissa) wrote:

 Whether web API or web scraping: Either way, you still have to 
 submit an HTTP request, parse the results according to the 
 format the server has chosen to spit out, and possibly follow 
 up with additional HTTP requests.


https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/import/github.html done?
Jun 09 2018
parent "Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa)" <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> writes:
On 06/09/2018 03:56 AM, Kagamin wrote:

 On Saturday, 9 June 2018 at 07:06:23 UTC, Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa) wrote:

 Whether web API or web scraping: Either way, you still have to submit 
 an HTTP request, parse the results according to the format the server 
 has chosen to spit out, and possibly follow up with additional HTTP 
 requests.


 
 https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/import/github.html done?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAuPb16jRjY
Jun 09 2018
prev sibling parent reply Russel Winder <russel winder.org.uk> writes:
On Thu, 2018-06-07 at 10:17 -0700, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d-announce
wrote:

 [=E2=80=A6]
=20
 Exactly!!!  Git was built precisely for decentralized, distributed
 development.  Anyone should be (and is, if they bothered to put just a
 tiny amount of effort into it) able to set up a git server and send the
 URL to prospective collaborators.  Anyone is free to clone the git repo
 and redistribute that clone to anyone else.  Anyone can create new
 commits in a local clone and send the URL to another collaborator who
 can pull the commits.  It should never have become the tool to build
 walled gardens that inhibit this free sharing of code.
=20


I think there is an interesting tension between using a DVCS as a DVCS and =
no
central resource, and thus no mainline version, and using a DVCS in
combination with a central resource.  In the latter category the central
resource may just be the repository acting as the mainline, or, as with
GitHub, GitLab, Launchpad, the central resource provides sharing and review=
ing
support.

Very few organisations, except perhaps those that use Fossil, actually use
DVCS as a DVCS. Everyone seems to want a public mainline version: the
repository that represents the official state of the project. It seems the
world is not capable of working with a DVCS system that does not even suppo=
rt
"eventually consistent". Perhaps because of lack of trying or perhaps becau=
se
the idea of the mainline version of a project is important to projects.

In the past Gnome, Debian, GStreamer, and many others have had a central
mainline Git repository and everything was handled as DVCS, with emailed
patches. They tended not to support using remotes and merges via that route=
,
not entirely sure why. GitHub and GitLab supported forking, issues, pull
requests, and CI. So many people have found this useful. Not just for havin=
g
ready made CI on PRs, but because there was a central place that lots of
projects were at, there was lots of serendipitous contribution. Gnome, Debi=
an,
and GStreamer are moving to private GitLab instances. It seems the use of a
bare Git repository is not as appealing to these projects as having the
support of a centralised system.

I think that whilst there are many technical reasons for having an element =
of
process support at the mainline location favouring the GitHubs and GitLabs =
of
this Gitty world, a lot of it is about the people and the social system: th=
ere
is a sense of belonging, a sense of accessibility, and being able to
contribute more easily.

One of the aspects of the total DVCS is that it can exclude, it is in itsel=
f a
walled garden, you have to be in the clique to even know the activity is
happening.

All of this is not just technical, it is socio-technical.=20
=20
--=20
Russel.
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200
41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077
London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk
Jun 07 2018
parent Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Thursday, 7 June 2018 at 19:02:31 UTC, Russel Winder wrote:

 On Thu, 2018-06-07 at 10:17 -0700, H. S. Teoh via 
 Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:

 […]
 
 Exactly!!!  Git was built precisely for decentralized, 
 distributed development.  Anyone should be (and is, if they 
 bothered to put just a tiny amount of effort into it) able to 
 set up a git server and send the URL to prospective 
 collaborators.  Anyone is free to clone the git repo and 
 redistribute that clone to anyone else.  Anyone can create new 
 commits in a local clone and send the URL to another 
 collaborator who can pull the commits.  It should never have 
 become the tool to build walled gardens that inhibit this free 
 sharing of code.
 


 I think there is an interesting tension between using a DVCS as 
 a DVCS and no central resource, and thus no mainline version, 
 and using a DVCS in combination with a central resource.  In 
 the latter category the central resource may just be the 
 repository acting as the mainline, or, as with GitHub, GitLab, 
 Launchpad, the central resource provides sharing and reviewing 
 support.

 Very few organisations, except perhaps those that use Fossil, 
 actually use DVCS as a DVCS. Everyone seems to want a public 
 mainline version: the repository that represents the official 
 state of the project. It seems the world is not capable of 
 working with a DVCS system that does not even support 
 "eventually consistent". Perhaps because of lack of trying or 
 perhaps because the idea of the mainline version of a project 
 is important to projects.


Well, as Jonathan says, you have to release a build eventually, 
and you need a mainline version that you know has all the needed 
commits to release from.

If you have multiple people all releasing their own builds with 
each build getting a roughly equivalent number of downloads, then 
a mainline version may not be needed, but I know of no large 
project like that.


 In the past Gnome, Debian, GStreamer, and many others have had 
 a central mainline Git repository and everything was handled as 
 DVCS, with emailed patches. They tended not to support using 
 remotes and merges via that route, not entirely sure why. 
 GitHub and GitLab supported forking, issues, pull requests, and 
 CI. So many people have found this useful. Not just for having 
 ready made CI on PRs, but because there was a central place 
 that lots of projects were at, there was lots of serendipitous 
 contribution. Gnome, Debian, and GStreamer are moving to 
 private GitLab instances. It seems the use of a bare Git 
 repository is not as appealing to these projects as having the 
 support of a centralised system.


Nobody uses a DVCS alone, even the linux kernel guys have mailing 
lists and other software they use to coordinate with around git.


 I think that whilst there are many technical reasons for having 
 an element of process support at the mainline location 
 favouring the GitHubs and GitLabs of this Gitty world, a lot of 
 it is about the people and the social system: there is a sense 
 of belonging, a sense of accessibility, and being able to 
 contribute more easily.


There is some of that, but you could reproduce all of that in a 
technically decentralized manner.


 One of the aspects of the total DVCS is that it can exclude, it 
 is in itself a walled garden, you have to be in the clique to 
 even know the activity is happening.


Right now, yes, mailing lists and bugzilla can be forbidding to 
the noob, compared to just signing up on github and getting 
everything at one go. But as Basile's link above points out, 
there are tools like git-ssb that try decentralize all that:

http://git-ssb.celehner.com/%25RPKzL382v2fAia5HuDNHD5kkFdlP7bGvXQApSXqOBwc%3D.sha256


 All of this is not just technical, it is socio-technical.


It is all ultimately technical, but yes, social elements come 
into play.

One big thing that web software like github or trac helps with is 
reviewing pulls to the main repo. I'm not about to add dozens of 
remotes to my local repo to review pulls from all the 
contributors to dmd/druntime/phobos, the github pull review 
workflow is much easier than the git command-line equivalent.

However, it wouldn't be that hard to decentralize most of what 
github provides by coming up with a standard format to store 
issues and other discussion in a git repo, as I'm guessing 
git-ssb does. The only aspect that might present difficulty is 
that you may not get as nice a web viewer as github provided, as 
the built-in gitweb is not very good compared to github's web UI.

In that way, while many are complaining about using github, the 
OSS community doing so for all these years may have been optimal, 
in that as long as a money-losing company was willing to do that 
work for you for years, why not use it? Where was all that money 
being lost after all, if not on providing features to users who 
weren't paying enough to sustain it? Then, once you know whether 
github's business model works or not, apparently not, you 
consider moving elsewhere.

I don't know why some people are making a big deal about losing 
data with github, I can't imagine it'd be that hard to scrape. 
Gitlab has an exporter, you could simply repurpose that for your 
own uses. You may not get everything, like user permissions or 
some other internal controls, but you'd get everything that 
really matters.
Jun 07 2018
prev sibling parent Jonathan M Davis <newsgroup.d jmdavisprog.com> writes:
On Thursday, June 07, 2018 20:02:31 Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d-announce 
wrote:

 On Thu, 2018-06-07 at 10:17 -0700, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d-announce

 wrote:

 […]

 Exactly!!!  Git was built precisely for decentralized, distributed
 development.  Anyone should be (and is, if they bothered to put just a
 tiny amount of effort into it) able to set up a git server and send the
 URL to prospective collaborators.  Anyone is free to clone the git repo
 and redistribute that clone to anyone else.  Anyone can create new
 commits in a local clone and send the URL to another collaborator who
 can pull the commits.  It should never have become the tool to build
 walled gardens that inhibit this free sharing of code.


 I think there is an interesting tension between using a DVCS as a DVCS and
 no central resource, and thus no mainline version, and using a DVCS in
 combination with a central resource.  In the latter category the central
 resource may just be the repository acting as the mainline, or, as with
 GitHub, GitLab, Launchpad, the central resource provides sharing and
 reviewing support.

 Very few organisations, except perhaps those that use Fossil, actually use
 DVCS as a DVCS. Everyone seems to want a public mainline version: the
 repository that represents the official state of the project. It seems
 the world is not capable of working with a DVCS system that does not even
 support "eventually consistent". Perhaps because of lack of trying or
 perhaps because the idea of the mainline version of a project is
 important to projects.

 In the past Gnome, Debian, GStreamer, and many others have had a central
 mainline Git repository and everything was handled as DVCS, with emailed
 patches. They tended not to support using remotes and merges via that
 route, not entirely sure why. GitHub and GitLab supported forking,
 issues, pull requests, and CI. So many people have found this useful. Not
 just for having ready made CI on PRs, but because there was a central
 place that lots of projects were at, there was lots of serendipitous
 contribution. Gnome, Debian, and GStreamer are moving to private GitLab
 instances. It seems the use of a bare Git repository is not as appealing
 to these projects as having the support of a centralised system.

 I think that whilst there are many technical reasons for having an element
 of process support at the mainline location favouring the GitHubs and
 GitLabs of this Gitty world, a lot of it is about the people and the
 social system: there is a sense of belonging, a sense of accessibility,
 and being able to contribute more easily.

 One of the aspects of the total DVCS is that it can exclude, it is in
 itself a walled garden, you have to be in the clique to even know the
 activity is happening.

 All of this is not just technical, it is socio-technical.


Honestly, I don't see how it makes sense to release any software without a
definitive repo. Decentralized source control systems like git are great in
that they allow you to have your own fork and do things locally without
needing to talk to any central repo and because having folks be able to fork
and muck around with stuff easily is incredibly valuable. But actually
releasing software that way is a bit of a mess, and there usually needs to
be a main repo where the official version of stuff goes. So, the
decentralization is great for collaboration, and it removes the need to
communicate with the main repo when you don't actually need to, but it
really doesn't remove the need for a central repository for the official
version of the project.

Whether that central repo needs to be somewhere like github or gitlab or
bitbucket or whatever is another matter entirely, but ultimately, I think
that the main benefits of DVCS is that it removes the dependency on the
central repo from any operations that don't actually need the central repo,
not that it removes the need for a central repo, because it really doesn't -
not if you want to be organized about releases anyway.

- Jonathan M Davis
Jun 07 2018