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is it just me or GitHub is turning into some sort of LinkedIn (programming.dev)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by sizeoftheuniverse@programming.dev to c/programming@programming.dev

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Initially, LinkedIn was just another site where you could find jobs. It was simple to use, simple to connect with others; it even had some friendly groups with meaningful discussions.

And then it gained monopoly as the "sole" professional network where you could actually land a job. If you are not on LinkedIn now, you are quite invisible in the job market. Recruiters are concentrated there, even if they have to pay extremely high prices for premium accounts. The site is horrible now: a social network in disguise, toxic and boring influencers, and a lot of noise and bloated interface to explore.

When Google decided to close their code.google.com, GitHub filled a void. It was a simple site powered by git (not by svn or CVS), and most of the major open-source projects migrated there. The interface was simple, and everything was perfect. And then something changed.

GitHub UI started to bloat, all kinds of "features" nobody asked for were implemented, and then the site became a SaaS. Now Microsoft hosts the bulk of open-source projects the world has to offer. GitHub has become a monopoly. If you don't keep your code there, chances are people won't notice your side projects. This bothers me.

Rant over. I hate internet monopolies.

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[–] StudioLE@programming.dev 29 points 1 year ago (12 children)

Has GitHub actually done anything negative? Your comments really just sound like fear mongering, I can't see any actual issues.

What is the bloat you're referring to? The UI is clean and simple. Navigating and searching code is intuitive. The issue tracker is basic but reliable. Releases are clear. GitHub Actions are complex but featureful and incredibly useful. GitHub Packages are basic but useful. GitHub Copilot is damn impressive.

[–] triarius@programming.dev 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

They scanned open source repos and made an LLM out of it. Now companies can profit from open source code without contributing back to the ecosystem. The only contribution they make is the money they pay to Microsoft for Copilot. So Microsoft is profiting from OSS code and stifling its community.

Does this outweigh the free hosting of the code? IDK

[–] CoderKat@lemm.ee 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Now companies can profit from open source code without contributing back to the ecosystem.

They could literally always do that. Unless they changed the software, most open source licenses required nothing but maybe a mention of attribution (which no one will ever read). And some don't even require that. They could also always use FOSS tools to develop software without contributing anything back. How is Copilot different from that?

And honestly, Copilot is pretty amazing for devs. Why would I care that Microsoft profits off it when it benefits us too? While I love FOSS and all else equal would choose it every time, it's unreasonable to expect everything to be free and open source. People have to make a living somehow and open source rarely pays the bills.

I'm not sure how Microsoft is stifling the community either. They seem to have been running GitHub great and they've made a lot of great dev tools in recent years. I used to absolutely loath Microsoft, but these days they're mostly alright in my book (at least from a developer PoV). Stuff like how they've handled GitHub, creation of WSL, VS Code, etc have all been great.

[–] philm@programming.dev 4 points 1 year ago

yeah mostly (apart from big corporate and all the related issues), most of the stuff feels a little bit bulky/sluggy because of the overuse of web-technology (say Teams or VS Code (while being a great editor there are much faster ones)).

But Github itself is quite convenient for me to use for open source (and for work at that)...

[–] philm@programming.dev 6 points 1 year ago

I agree with the other comment. It's Open source after all, they could've just crawled the web otherwise.

Private repos on the other hand is a different story.

[–] Meowoem@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 year ago

I write open source code because I want tools to exist that make the world better, coding AI allow me to make better tools faster so I'm very happy if they used some of my code to train it.

I've saved hours of research and key poking thanks to AI, these early ones are just the start especially as people use them to help make everything needed to create better ones. We'll get to the point where writing a new floss tool will be as easy as describing it briefly.

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