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what do you want for free???

But consider that GitHub would be nothing without the amazing number of free and open projects that it hosts, or without the free and open Git system that runs it.

They can still provide quick and personal support for a cost, or require payment for all support if that's the business model that suits them best. But to say they will provide free support and then not really do it or not really provide insight into the status of the ticket, that can frustrate potential paying customers and those who would have paid for better support from the beginning.

You don't really expect GitHub to be engaging in any actual business, do you? Xey're too busy jacking each other off and philosophizing about which pronouns to add to the Code of Conduct this week. User support is a burdensome and exploitative concept, much like slavery, and must be abolished.

The hosting of open-source projects is free, but the company still needs to make money. They use the open-source portion of their business to drum up paid business. They still need to pay for the servers, coders, and network bandwidth that keep the thing going. I wouldn't get angry when a free service doesn't do everything I ask of it.

They should make their money off of concerts and selling tshirts and merchandise.

I know. That is why I said it. Only my beard is ironic.

The key complains are mostly complaints about common behavior of other users.

1. Ability to force issue submitters to supply more data.
2. Some alternative to +1 issue comment overload.
3. Some way to block pull requests or issues submissions that don't fit certain guidelines.

I strongly disagree with 1 and 3, as they're likely to stop some people from submitting things at all by making it harder to do so.
I too have had crappy issues and sloppy pull requests submitted. I'd rather have those and start working with the person taking the effort to submit them, than have none at all.

2 has some validity to it, for large projects.

Um, I'm missing something; what exactly is a "sloppy pull request"? Leaving the pull open? If I want to look at a project I just download the zip, no need to open a pull. Are these users that want to contribute to projects?

The way Github works is if someone wants to contribute, they fork the project, make changes and commit to their tree and then request that the original project pull the new commits. I'd guess the problems are like with patches, not rebased on current head, commits that aren't specific enough like mixing white space changes with code changes in a project that likes these separate, not responding to suggestions to fix their work etc and then leaving the pull request open.
Personally I like the old fashioned posting patches to mailing lists or issue trackers

I use github, where I manage dozens of open source projects and I contribute to many more.

All 3 of these are real problems, especially #1 "Ability to force issue submitters to supply more data".

Except they're not asking anyone to be "forced". They're asking for customization of the new issue page to prominently display guidelines, and for a template that specific users fill in, rather than the current blank box.

Most users are terrible at reporting problems. They don't tell you which version they're running, which operating system they use, and sometimes they describe an error message rather than copying and pasting the actual text.

It's a huge time waste for the developers who contribute so much open source software for the world to use.

You and everyone will benefit if the tools improve to help the developers who actually create open source software work more productively.

I maintain a few dozen projects myself and have contributed to some big projects.

I agree posting a good issue report is a problem. I also think that any missing information can be requested by the developers and I'd rather have an incomplete issue report than no issue report at all. I guess it depends on the type of users; my projects and contributions usually focus on developer tools.

I understand the desire for quality issue reports and quality pull requests, but every added restriction will ensure some people just won't bother.

Ah. I think I agree with you.

That is why I only use sourceforge. It is completely transparent. As an added bonus I get malware with my downloads.

They addressed that years ago. It's not infected with the SJW bug, so yeah ill host on sourceforge, thanks.

Host your own then

Move to gitlab.com, which is more open (the code is all open source and you can host it yourself if you want)

gitlab (the server-side software package) is interesting, but gitlab.com (the repo hosting service running an instance of gitlab) is still less stable and responsive than github.com. This is mostly an infrastructure thing. They need fatter pipes and moar servers, but that's costly.

Right now, the problem is that github.com has become the Facebook of code hosting. Everyone is already on github.com. If you're not on github.com, you don't exist -- just like that if you don't have a Facebook page, your resume doesn't go to HR at all. The hipsters of github.com have deeper pockets and I guess they're just going to attrit gitlab to death while the VC binge party is still on.

Github also has enterprise customers that pay money for github's services. 1300 people signed the letter. Why do you assume that none of them are paying customers?

I guess another argument is the popular OSS projects should get "some" kind of support as it only raises github's relevance and presence in the community. Some kind of minimal support seems like good propaganda to me, at the least. Just sayin'...

"Github also has enterprise customers that pay money for github's services. 1300 people signed the letter. Why do you assume that none of them are paying customers?"

What I guess, contradicting the summary is that we are not talking here about "GitHub developers" but "GitHub users".

Isn't the whole idea of GIT is that it is a DECENTRALIZED version control system? Why do you even need GITHUB?

Perhaps they should consider GitHub, which IS open source (except for some Enterprise Edition specific features that they charge for). Users can run GitLab Community Edition themselves on their own machines, or use the hosted gitlab.com version (like github.com).

https://about.gitlab.com/

Have you ever used it?

most projects' structure don't need git, using "thing that Linus wrote" isn't a reason. no one wants to go to a restaurant that puts swiss army knife in lieu of spoon next to soup.

the issue tracker for a git based system

And yet it's the simplest, easiest to use version control system I've ever used. That's why I use it, not because any of the projects I'm working on are the size of Linux.

The github client is actually pretty nice. It hides a lot of the functionality of git, and makes managing your projects easy. Having said that, better revision browsing would be nice.

The best thing about git is the include-by-default model. We use subversion at work and people are always forgetting to include critical files as they create/add them.

Actually, it isn't the easiest to use......otherwise when you search "how do I _____ in git?" you'd get a bunch of links with the exact same basic answer instead of 15 links to 25 different combinations of commands........

That's why gitgud.io exists.

The best thing about git is the include-by-default model.

Really? You still have to git-add the files. I mean sure it will warn you, but it doesn't pick new things up by default. That's what continuous integration or at least automatic unit tests on all branches are good for (among other things).

Personally, though, I don't like the github client. I think it obscures too much of git and ends up making things harder rather than easier. I like the web interface github provides though. That's handy.

That must mean that git is the only version control system you've ever used.

Mercurial and subversion are both simpler to use, even CVS, but CVS wasn't fully functional. Git feels like it was written by some kernel hacker with no thought for all for the ordinary people that would end up using it.

Git doesn't even pick up changed items by default never mind new ones.

I should clarify that GitHub and most other clients do a "git add -A" by default, which adds all new files that are not excluded and updates any changed/deleted ones.

Bit Bucket works great for me - but I use MercurialHG for revision control because although there's TortioseGit for windows which works very well, it doeesn't exist for Linux - and I find the other Git front ends on Linux a bit cumbersome to use in comparison.
The TortoiseHG GUI absolutely rocks, (pretty similar to TortoiseGit) and is available for both Linux and windows.

Yes, I know you can use the command line tools, but it's a lot nicer having well integrated UI for this stuff when you start dealing with a lot of branches and many repositories.

git is decentralised, in that every copy of the repository is identical in functionality, there isnt a client-server model going on. However, GitHubs advantage over plain git is in its value adds, which include being off site (many people dont have an offsite they can push to) and the PR handling system, the UI improvements, issue tracking etc etc etc.

GitHub doesnt disturb the decentralised aspect of git (although many people treat the GitHub copy as a server to push and pull from, but you are more than able to PR direct to a team member, or involve other off site repositories and only push to GH on occasion), but its value adds are most definitely centralised but most definitely not git.

You can happily use git on its own, on your servers, with no issue.

Github provides a very nice UI running on free, publicly accessible servers, along with related things like issue trackers.

You CAN retrieve web pages via telnet, the HTTP protocol is plain text. Most people prefer a browser such as Firefox or Chrome. Git is the same - a nice UI on top of the open protocol makes things more pleasant.

Also, just as some (most?) people don't even know that it's possible to do "telnet slashdot.org 80" or "lynx http://slashdot.org/", many people don't know how git works either - they've AWLAYS used Github. If you want your project to be accessible to those people, you need to use Github or perhaps a similar site such as gitlab.

Launchpad.net has git support now. The bug tracker is very good. Oh, and it's open source so you can actually help fix issues!

It's free for open source products. Ubuntu get's an advantage when open source projects that are also in Ubuntu use it. It makes it easier for our developers to track the upstream bugs..

You can buy it for proprietary products - https://help.launchpad.net/Com...

Gitolite, Gogs, GitLab all work great on VPSes. Even Amazon's free tier.

This is like complaining to Dice about Slashdot and expecting something to change.

Gogs is very nice and easy to deploy. Not a full-featured as github, but getting there.

I actually like it because it's not as full featured.

GitLab is a bit on the heavy side. Gogs runs very fast on the smallest VPS digital ocean has while GitLab was not.

This is like complaining to Dice about Slashdot and expecting something to change.

You mean like dropping Beta, which they did in fact do...

GitHub is GitLab? You could be a /. editor!

I think that github has presence. A lot of employers ask you for your 1) Linkedin profile, and 2) your github url. I've been asked that on 90% of the apps I've sent in (recently landed a new perm gig, thanks), and there's certainly value in that.

You can certainly wget github web pages, if that's your thing.

Again, the argument is there's nothing preventing you from setting up your (or the complainers) own git server.

I read the letter. Here's a Cliff's Notes for all you guys who don't read because why evenbother:

Some anonymous devs who are so addicted to github that they probably maintain their grocery list there wrote a letter with a bunch of feature requests. These users re mainly bitching about the fact that users of their own projects don't seem to be able to read or follow instructions. Naturally these people are smart enough and forward thinking enough that they have proposed a perfect solution which requires GitHub to do a shitload of work for free despite the fact that the problems will remain because the users still won't read. A surprising number of other developers clearly can't read or think either and as such signed off on this silliness. Naturally, these well meaning individuals posted all of this to yet another github repo despite the fact that there are many better places and formats to use.

Journalists have picked up the story and have jumped so some pretty wild conclusions, proving beyond the shadow of a doubt that they really can't read either.

Don't worry I read it. A bunch of people complained about something. Big deal. People complain about everything. Github is in a situation where they can pick and choose what they care about.

Can someone TLDR; this guy's TLDR;? I can't read paragraphs of more than two sentences. KTHXBYE!!:))))))))))))))))

As a paying user of github, they have a valid point about the "me too"/"+1" type comments users are forced associated with issues they wish to see resolved (the other two points are kinda dumb).

There really should be a star'ing or upvoting system associated with them as a way of noting interest in an issue's resolution rather than forcing people to, essentially, spam the issue comments making them harder to track the procession of actual comments regarding the issue's resolution.

Add to this that most of the time comments on an issue are also being emailed to the assignee or the whole team it can be quite annoying.

That said, in the grand scheme of things, this is a minor annoyance and Github remains the best hosting service I've utilized.

I use RabbitVCS with Nemo or Nautilus. it's a competent replacement for Tortoise on Linux.

CVS FTW!

with blackjack? and hookers?

GitLab discuss their public development, bug tracking and future direction in a recent blog post: https://about.gitlab.com/2016/...

My friend told me that one of the most popular websites in the world, for developers, doesn't let users sort their list of repositories in any way, or even control the pagination or let users see the entire list of repositories all at once. I told my friend that since repositories are the single most important thing that users need to access from a version control system, this couldn't possibly be true.

Then I visited github.com. I was wrong.

I'm wondering if this has anything to do with the recent flood of SJWs attempting to force 'Codes of Conduct' onto some of the more high profile projects hosted at Github and elsewhere (eg. PHP, Ruby, Python). From what I've seen, Github may be complicit in this and it may explain why they are slow to respond. Many frustrated developers want a way to shut them down and keep them out. Eric S. Raymond recently wrote in "Why Hackers Must Eject the SJWs" that their infiltration is a clear and present danger to the meritocracy that is hacker culture, the very culture that built the Internet. I agree whole heartedly with him on this.

If Github doesn't deal with the SJW infestation hackers could and should set up another service that will keep them out. In other words, hackers need a "SJW Free Safe Space."

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Developers Frustrated with GitHub Prod For Changes In Bug Reports, Transparency

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