Talk:GitHub/Archive 1

Licenses of Projects Hosted on GitHub

My email:

Hi, [1] is not open-source / free. This license restricts usage to non-commercial purposes. I thought public repositories do need to be open-source / free software without any such restrictions. This license is definitely not approvable by either FSF or OSI.

Can you please take immediate action by either 1) informing blasten of his / her abuse and block access to her repository until the issue is resolved or 2) informing the public that not FOSS licenses are ok to use?

GitHub's reply:

We've never required public repos to have a FOSS-compatible license. This is the only related part in our Terms, and the system automatically enforces it:

By setting your repositories to be viewed publicly, you agree to allow others to view and fork your repositories.

Is this a well-known fact? I could not even find a single website that clearly knows this fact about GitHub. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.113.121.63 (talk) 11:25, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Future expansion

If this article ever expands to include an 'in popular culture' section. - Dravecky (talk) 16:25, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

• "Branding". xkcd. Retrieved February 23, 2010.

Which wiki software ?

...did they choose ? Gitit, perhaps ? --Jerome Potts (talk) 00:17, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I would imagine they wrote their own --95.144.115.115 (talk) 00:01, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Source model

I read on the kernel.org wiki that Github's platform is actually closed source/proprietary, but I haven't found a reliable reference for this claim. Maybe someone can shed some light on this. Attys (talk) 01:29, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Parts are open source (github.com/github) but the majority of the site is closed source. See http://tom.preston-werner.com/2011/11/22/open-source-everything.html --95.144.115.115 (talk) 00:01, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Additional History

This article could be improved by including a section about the history of Github and how it was founded. It would also be nice to know how many people are currently working for GitHub and how the website makes money. Lastly the articles needs a section on the technology used in implementing the website. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sanilshah (talk • contribs) 00:25, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

GitHub Hacked

You should mention that GitHub was hacked and no one knows if this security hole was already used by someone. There are thousands of news about it, just enter "github hacked" in google. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.12.24.119 (talk) 20:32, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Who cares? Tons of sites get hacked every day. --95.144.115.115 (talk) 00:01, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Not the ones that host commercial source code projects. But I guess that anything that might make it look bad would be inconsistent with the rest of this glowing advertisement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:8:9880:931:F129:27B:629E:8F10 (talk) 23:13, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

GitHub Launch

The blog says, that GH was founded in April 2008, though some accounts were registered before, e.g.: https://github.com/bobuk (Joined on Mar 01, 2008) Klisanor (talk) 16:23, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Indented line

So what? This user joined since Oct 2007: https://github.com/defunkt It might be the beta-testers or staffs who registered beforehand. 183.80.142.12 (talk) 08:06, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Pretty small article for such a major website!

88.159.76.163 (talk) 12:44, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

"open source code repository site"

There is a sentence in the first paragraph that reads

 As of May 2011, GitHub was the most popular open source code repository site.

What is this intended to mean? As it stands, it says that GitHub is the most popular source-code-repository site that is still open. Is that the intent? --Jhfrontz (talk) 17:50, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

 Done It didn't actually say that - it meant an open source code repository site, not an open source code repository site - but an unfortunate choice of internal link by another editor made it read the latter way. I've rewritten that sentence to clarify it (and adjusted the placing of the internal links). --greenrd (talk) 14:02, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Scott Chacon a co-founder?

This Wired Magazine article calls Scott Chacon a co-founder: http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/02/github/all/

This Inc.com article doesn't mention Scott as a co-founder, and specifically says the co-founders of GitHub are PJ Hyett, Chris Wanstrath and Tom Preston-Werner: http://www.inc.com/30under30/christine-lagorio/github-pj-hyett-chris-wanstrath-2013.html/1

The Tom Preston-Werner wikipedia article currently says, at the top, that the founders of GitHub are PJ, Chris & Tom, but under Tom_Preston-Werner#Career, it says "In 2008, the three of them, along with Scott Chacon, founded GitHub."

Is Scott Chacon a co-founder of GitHub or not? 50.74.152.2 (talk) 14:20, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

This article also says Scott Chacon is a co-founder of GitHub. 50.74.152.2 (talk) 21:41, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Sexist Culture Accusations

A section has been added several times which recounts gossip from a former employee. The source is a Twitter feed of the former employee and it is simply gossip, and not news as it is not an actionable legal claim (as of writing). Currently it violates WP:Gossip. Much like the Twitter feed of bitter former employees at Apple, AT&T or McDonalds wouldn't merit inclusion on articles of those corporations, and inclusion here gives WP:Undue Weight to little more than public whining. She hasn't taken any other action other than Twittering and I really don't feel that merits inclusion here. Tell me why I'm wrong. Lexlex (talk) 20:09, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The source is not a Twitter feed, there is an interview at TechCrunch (echoed by many other media sites) and a post from one of the GitHub founders. This will shape the public perception of the company in the future; having many reliable sources covering the incident, it's news, and one that can have lasting influence. Diego (talk) 20:15, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, it's still a minor personnel issue, that's it folks. It's gossip but It's pointless and in a year no one will care, and shouldn't because nothing happened.. There is no legal action. She hasn't found an attorney to take her, hasn't launched a case. There is no way to respond to that. She got her Twitter allegations picked up and got some attention at the company and in the news—but it's still an allegation by a potentially bitter ex-employee and hardly an impersonal observation about the company's culture. It does not deserve it's own section in the company's encyclopaedia entry or frankly to be in it at all. Lexlex (talk) 23:08, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

In its current state this section implies that the action of removing Preston-Werner as CEO is admission of guilt in the sexual harassment claims. The source provided directly contradicts this impression. I'm including the relevant information to correct this omission. We can assume that the omission and resultant false impression are by accident, however the internet still laughs that the source used immediately before this mistake is Gawker.

Cabbruzz (talk) 17:23, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

The source provided does not contradict the "impression" that Preston-Warner was guilty. It states, "The investigation found Tom Preston-Werner in his capacity as GitHub’s CEO acted inappropriately, including confrontational conduct, disregard of workplace complaints, insensitivity to the impact of his spouse's presence in the workplace, and failure to enforce an agreement that his spouse should not work in the office. There were also issues surrounding the solicitation of GitHub employees for non-GitHub business and the inappropriate handling of employee concerns regarding those solicitations. After being presented with the results we felt Tom could no longer be an effective leader at GitHub. He offered his resignation and we accepted." The incident you refer to had to do with an engineer, not Preston-Warner, the founder of the company. I'm going to RV your contribution. Chisme (talk) 18:37, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Major Re-write

I found this article, notated with numerous errors so I spent some time re-writing and improving it quite a bit today. In the re-write I broadened the article to include more information as relates to all of Github and not only Github.com as Github Enterprises is the parent company of Github.com as well as Gist, SpeakerDeck, etc.. Doing so in hopes of preemptively avoiding someone creating separate articles on each of these, when they can just as well be comprised in a single article rather than being spread out across 3.

I expect one of my edits may spark controversy so I'm mentioning here on the talk page. There had previously been an entire section devoted to Criticism which was as follows in its completion:

== Criticism ==

In March 2014 a former female developer, Julie Ann Horvath, suggested a discriminatory environment at GitHub. In an interview to TechCrunch she complained about the start-up's culture, leaving the firm after repeated harassment from a (at first not publicly identified) founder's non-employee wife and witnessing male co-workers "gawking" at some female co-workers who were hula-hooping. GitHub CEO and cofounder Chris Wanstrath issued a statement personally apologizing to Horvath and noting that the relevant founder had been put on leave and his wife was no longer permitted in the office. On 17 March, Gawker reported that the unidentified married couple were co-founder Tom Preston-Werner and his wife Theresa.

An investigation found "no evidence to support the claims against Tom and his wife of sexual or gender-based harassment or retaliation, or of a sexist or hostile work environment." It did, however, find "evidence of mistakes and errors of judgment." In light of this, Preston-Werner resigned from GitHub in April 2014.

WP:CRIT "Editors should avoid having a separate section in an article devoted to criticism", "Do not present the material in a way that over-emphasizes it" as well as further policy as relates to WP:ALIVE "...the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all. Care must be taken with article structure to ensure the overall presentation and section headings are broadly neutral."

The section refers to a single, isolated event and offers no value to the article.

Gantt Chart Feature?

The Scope section says that Gantt charts are among the GitHub feature set, but I'm unable to find any supporting documentation.

Klloydh (talk) 22:12, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Github's Salespeople

I'm not sure about this but I don't think that the information "GitHub's salespeople are not paid on a commission basis." added in the "Company" section is relevant in this article. Nelsonkam (talk) 23:25, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 March 2016

It would be more clear for the second paragraph to start with "GitHub offers plans for both private repositories and free accounts" rather than "GitHub offers both plans for private repositories and free accounts". The current wording makes it sound like it's talking about two plans that private repos and free accounts can use, but I believe it's trying to make it clear that GitHub offers two main types of plans (private repos and free accounts). In reality, GitHub offers a number of plans (https://github.com/pricing), but this sentence is a more general statement. Brianok (talk) 14:53, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Not done: According to the page's protection level you should be able to edit the page yourself. If you seem to be unable to, please reopen the request with further details. Cannolis (talk) 18:03, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Edit to "Departure of Tom Preston-Werner" section

Hi - my name is Kate and I am on the Communications team at GitHub. I wanted to enlist your help in correcting a factual error on this page:

> GitHub cofounder Chris Wanstrath took over as CEO, making changes to the organization's culture.

Chris took over in January 2014 prior to Tom's departure, as evidenced by extensive media coverage:

• http://recode.net/2014/01/21/github-co-founder-chris-wanstrath-takes-ceo-role/
• http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/21/github-has-a-new-ceo/
• http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/21/github-president-becomes-ceo-president-becomes-ceo-in-executive-role-swap/
• https://gigaom.com/2014/01/21/github-ceo-and-president-trade-places/

Would it be possible to edit the "Departure of Tom Preston-Werner" section accordingly, by either clarifying that Chris was CEO prior to his departure or removing that line entirely as it is misleading?

Thanks! Kguarente (talk) 20:24, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

• Hello Kate. Note my changes. I think it describes this matter thoroughly. I don't think mentioning when the new CEO took over is necessary. Chisme (talk) 20:13, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

GitHub Pages

The scope section talks about both:

"Small websites can be hosted from public repositories on GitHub. The URL format is http://username.github.io."

and

"GitHub Pages: They are designed to host your personal, organization, or project pages directly from a GitHub repository."

I presume there's no distinction, and these statements should be combined? Or am I mistaken? --David Edgar (talk) 16:42, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

As there was no response, I went ahead and merged the two items. --David Edgar (talk) 22:22, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

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Malicious micro-change reverted

I undid the small change made on July 16, 2017 by an anonymous contributor which had replaced "can" by "cannot" in the sentence "Projects on GitHub can be accessed and manipulated using the standard Git command-line interface". This was clearly a malicious attempt to disinformation about GitHub. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.100.165.42 (talk) 20:52, 19 July 2017‎ (UTC)

Project count

I have tried to update the project count from last year's 58M and I had inconsistent results using the GH API. I am not sure what's going on, but it seems the results are inconsistent from one search to the next. I've still added that as an additional source, as it is close to the April 2017 results, but it would be great to see what's going on there more clearly. That is, especially considering the current situation with the GitHub sale to Microsoft, which may mean repositories may migrate off GitHub... --TheAnarcat (talk) 21:26, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Removal of reference to major competitor

GitLab's sudden moves in the wake of this acquisition have been acknowledged by reliable sources. It is not "rather dangerous and potentially unfairly influential/promotional", it is tangible evidence of actual concern. ViperSnake151  Talk  15:05, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, but no such reliable source was mentioned before the removal. Would [2] and [3] be suitable sources? [4] also mentions Atlassian, but no numbers are known about bitbucket. --Nemo 07:43, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Grammar mistake

"Concerns over the sale bolstered interest in competitors; both Bitbucket (owned by Atlassian), GitLab (a commercial open source product that also runs a hosted service version) and SourceForge (owned by BIZX, LLC) reported that they had seen spikes in new users intending to migrate projects from GitHub to their respective services." It says "both" for three different services. 75.177.11.11 (talk) 22:31, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Questionable reference to unreliable/biased source

Ehmke, Coraline Ada blog. "Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub,". Retrieved July 5, 2017.

One person's experience in blog format with zero corroborating evidence cannot be considered an encyclopedic source. At least tag with [citation needed]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.207.155.39 (talk) 18:23, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Hi,

I agree with you and at Wikipedia blog-posts are not allowed as they are not independent and often inclined towards the bloggers thinking, I am removing that line and if some one just revert it will place a citation needed tag or discuss with her/him.

Thanks for you contribution,

Jasonx5 (talk) 13:41, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Request Edit

I work for GitHub and I have a conflict of interest with regard to this article. I would like to request that an independent editor review the following suggested edits. I have been advised by User:BC1278 who is a paid consultant.

1. Correct the company Infobox to list the current COO.

Remove "P. J. Hyett (COO)" from "Key People".

Replace with "Erica Brescia (COO)"

2. In the "Introduction" fourth paragraph delete "57 million repositories" and replace with "more than 100 million repositories"

3. Insert in "Services" section, after "With a registered user account, users are able to have discussions, manage repositories, submit contributions to others' repositories, and review changes to code.":

"Github began offering unlimited private repositories at no cost in January 2019 (limited to three contributors per project). Previously, only public repositories were free."

Why?

Previously, public repositories were free, but users had to pay for private repositories. This is a significant change in one of the company's primary service offerings. I specified that it is limited to three contributors per repository, so as to not give a false impression that this is an unlimited offering.

4. In "Services" section "GitHub Enterprise" subsection after the sentence "GitHub Enterprise is similar to GitHub's public service but is designed for use by large-scale enterprise software development teams where the enterprise wishes to host their repositories behind a corporate firewall." Remove the "." at the end of the sentence, and insert "or in the cloud. Enterprises can privately run GitHub in the cloud or on their own premises, with the two environments linked to work together."

Why?

This is a major expansion of GitHub's offerings.

Thank you for your assistance.

RA9948 (talk) 22:19, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

References

Done. @RA9948 I implemented the changes you requested.Anton.bersh (talk) 16:30, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Blocking on GitHub

Perhaps mention that blocking on GitHub works differently than on other sites... Jidanni (talk) 22:48, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Terrible History

Dang, did GitHub's PR team write the History section overview? It seriously reads like a list of press releases... No idea if it meets Wikipedia's standards technically, but it's obviously, blatantly bad. Rafe Goldberg (talk) 01:49, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

I wanted to open a discussion. I think removing these two paragraphs would make it less WP:PROMO as they are not covered by secondary sources, nor neutral:

On February 24, 2009, GitHub team members announced, in a talk at Yahoo! headquarters, that within the first year of being online, GitHub had accumulated over 46,000 public repositories, 17,000 of which were formed in the previous month alone. At that time, about 6,200 repositories had been forked at least once and 4,600 had been merged.

In 2009, GitHub announced that the site was being harnessed by over 100,000 users. In another 2009 interview with Yahoo!, Preston-Werner announced that GitHub had grown to host 90,000 unique public repositories, 12,000 having been forked at least once, for a total of 135,000 repositories.

~ Shushugah (talk) 13:37, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Link to Master/Slave

Should the Master/Slave link in Controversies -> ICE Contract section point to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master/slave_(technology)#Terminology_concerns (or maybe the article itself) instead of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 45.54.164.196 (talk) 15:34, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

 Done Waysidesc (talk) 12:12, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Actually closed source

Mention that although GitHub might be the biggest open source host, it itself is actually closed source. Jidanni (talk) 00:41, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

GitHub is a company and a web service, not an app. But if you mean the GitHub app, it is open-source.[5] Waysidesc (talk) 08:17, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

I think what OP means, is the source code behind the Ruby on Rails app that powers github.com is not open source. We could dabble further about whether infrastructure needs to be open source, etc... for it to be open source etc.. the same way the 'client' code of Signal app is open source, even if it cannot be federated with self hosted instances of Signal.

See this discussion for context https://github.com/dear-github/dear-github/issues/304 all that said, not sure how to mention that in this article, without being WP:SYNTH or WP:OR Shushugah (talk) 22:12, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Ah, I see. I sometimes forget that "closed source" is often used as a brand of shame, in the same way that criminals were branded in the medieval France. So, what if it is hosting millions of open-source repositories, making them possible in the first place? Let's shame it for being "closed source"! Waysidesc (talk) 03:21, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Poor opening paragraph

As in the preceding comment (Terrible History) the opening paragraph is poor and, similarly, reads like a press release from the Microsoft team. It also reads like an advertisement for the services offered - marketing corruption of an encyclopaedia article.

GitHub originated, and has so far spent most of its history, outside Microsoft. It was thus that it developed into a large and successful platform. Microsoft only came on the scene in 2018 when it purchased GitHub, and yet the opening paragraph gives Microsoft prominence which exaggerates its importance in the history of GitHub.

A better balance would be created by giving GitHub prominence in the lead and including a final sentence about Microsoft's acquisition. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.158.2.148 (talk) 10:18, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

GPG public key

According to Github's documentation, Github uses this key to automatically sign commits created using its web user interface: 5DE3 E050 9C47 EA3C F04A 42D3 4AEE 18F8 3AFD EB23. This is metadata that may help future editors examine GitHub history. Baltakatei 00:01, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Annual revenue (2021)

The 2021 annual revenue for Github is not indicated in the source. A quick search also doesn't show this broken out anywhere. Is there discussion?

Git

Github 115.97.235.238 (talk) 15:54, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

"Gist.github.com" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Gist.github.com and has thus listed it at redirects for discussion. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 December 24#Gist.github.com until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Qwerfjkltalk 11:37, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Inclusion of controversial issues related to conduct of users

User:Skywatcher68, reverted my removal of a section that is not a controversy created by GitHub itself but by its users. There are many cases involving GitHub's users which are very controversial like uploading CSAM, the youtube-dl and Recording Industry Association of America incident, publishing of user names and passwords and even doxing. Does wikipedia really need to write every thing done by users on GitHub on this article?

In this case, GitHub took down the repository within hours of it getting reported and also blocked the users but still we need to blame GitHub and add it as a subsection under under "Controversies" section, I believe this is totally unfair and is certainly not neutral.

PS: I don not work for GitHub or its parent but I think they are a great service provider with amazing support and are being unfairly targeted in this article. Champs65 (talk) 18:07, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

@Champs65: That section might fall under WP:UNDUE. I suggest asking Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard that it be reviewed prior to removing. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 19:49, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

@Skywatcher68:, User:HimDek added named of the accused in the article which I believe is in violation of WP:BLPCRIME and also WP:BLPNAME and none of the source are reliable per Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources#Sources. I will not remove the names myself but what do you think? Also thanks for suggesting Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard, I will shortly post the issue there. Champs65 (talk) 04:39, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Given that section, it may be better to find a new overarching section related to user misconduct and how GitHub handles/handled it, but it should definitely not be under a controversy of GitHub itself. Eg, how they respond to DMCA takedown requests , etc. --Masem (t) 05:00, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

What the users do on GitHub is relevant, yes. How the website responds (or doesn't) is also relevant. At least, it's relevant if sources talk about GitHub as a significant part of the event, rather than just mentioning it as the host in passing. However, negative material should not be segregated, but incorporated into an article as normal. If GitHub were criticised for their contract with ICE then this is a matter for the History or Services section, but not a section labelled "Controversies". — Bilorv (talk) 22:16, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

I've deleted the Bulli Bai case section as a WP:COATRACK. There might be enough coverage out there to justify a section, but it would have to be very different to what was there previously. --RaiderAspect (talk) 13:40, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Awesome lists

I'd like a discussion of the concept of awesome lists https://github.com/topics/awesome. Is there a specific format? A rough consensus? It seems an expanding concept in Internet communities. Are they a GitHub-only thing or are they typical of Git or community wikis? --Error (talk) 12:11, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

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