Ask HN: GitHub censoring porn from GitHub pages. Would that be OK or not OK? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: GitHub censoring porn from GitHub pages. Would that be OK or not OK?

4 pointseevilspock13 comments

In the debate[1] over GitHub's new Code of Conduct[2] and their recent actions to enforce it, a great number if a not majority of HN commenters condemned it as an unconscionable moral betrayal. There was no gray area.

The anti-GitHub sentiment is cropping up in other comment threads, and apparently is driving an exodus from GitHub to Y-Combinator's own GitLab[3].

This is not a troll post. It is a genuine question to understand the value system that seems to dominate tech culture, the very same culture that is experiencing a growing societal backlash.

My hope is that we can have, as dang puts it, a reflective rather than reflexive discussion[4]. Please, comment thoughtfully. Try for "Feynman integrity"[5]. Avoid the knee-jerk. Stay true to HN's own code of conduct[6]. Sorry about all the links.

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[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9966118

[2] https://github.com/blog/2039-adopting-the-open-code-of-conduct

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10003334

[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10001153

[5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9996843

[6] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The main issue IMHO is that the latest developments strongly highlight the fact that GitHub is a private company, running closed-source software and they can do whatever they want. Your code belongs to them.

They decided that 'retard' wasn't ok and closed a repo. Fine, they're allowed to, but then what? What's the next "offensive" term they'll ban? Maybe tomorrow they'll remove all repos that use the widely accepted terms "master/slave" for distributed systems just for good PR.

And that's not even accounting for the inconsistency. There are literally >100k occurrences of 'retard' on GitHub (there was a blog post about that on HN in the past 48 hours), and I'm counting the 'fuck' and co. Are they gonna close 100k repos?

To me, that was the last straw. They want to behave like a private company using their software, and somehow posturing as the white knight of Open Source? I'm done with that and I migrated to Gitlab.

> Your code belongs to them.

That is a very false characterization. If they boot you from their servers all you've lost is their hosting of your code. Given that this is built on top of Git, you can migrate your code with full history at any time, for whatever reason.

> Fine, they're allowed to, but then what? What's the next "offensive" term they'll ban? Maybe tomorrow they'll remove all repos that use the widely accepted terms "master/slave" for distributed systems just for good PR.

Slippery Slope Fallacy: http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/slippery-slope.html

You never answered the question of this post. If someone started hosting porn on GitHub pages, would it be okay for them to ban it?

> And that's not even accounting for the inconsistency. There are literally >100k occurrences of 'retard' on GitHub (there was a blog post about that on HN in the past 48 hours), and I'm counting the 'fuck' and co. Are they gonna close 100k repos?

Another logical fallacy. Just because someone can't do something perfectly doesn't mean it's wrong to try.

> posturing as the white knight of Open Source?

Can you explain how they are posturing?

Whether or not they are posturing, how are they betraying Open Source by enforcing this Code of Conduct? Again, they are not taking over your source when they reject it, they are doing just that, rejecting it. In the same way that FOSS adherents want to reject non-free software.

I say "your code belongs to them" in the sense that they are the new LinkedIn-for-developers. The code you put there is your new resume (I kind of disagree with that, but this is a narrative that is very much around). If they ban you you lose access to a big share of the market.

Have fun with your fallacies. (especially the "slippery slope" one has be debunked many times http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/slippery.pdf) If you don't understand the concept of precedence what do you want me to say? We'll reconvene after their next PR move if you want. I was highlighting the fact that as a private company they can do as they please, yesterday they targeted the 'retard' repo, tomorrow who knows.

"Can you explain how they are posturing?" Really? You are telling me that they're all marketing isn't to represent themselves as the platform for OS? There's nothing wrong with this strategy, but that's what they do.

Funny that you completely ignored my main point: their platform is not open source, it's not hard to see how OS fans may take offense in that.

> I say "your code belongs to them" in the sense that they are the new LinkedIn-for-developers. The code you put there is your new resume (I kind of disagree with that, but this is a narrative that is very much around). If they ban you you lose access to a big share of the market.

If you don't have any public share repositories to point to, you lose something.

I don't think not being on GitHub specifically is a problem of the same order of magnitude.

>Slippery Slope Fallacy

In the broader society there is a trend towards increasingly intolerant tolerance. That what is going on on GitHub is a part of this trend and thus can get worse is a reasonable inference.

> Your code belongs to them.

Your code belongs to you.

Their servers belong to them, and your use of them is subject to whatever agreement you have with them (which, for most use, amounts to a gratuitous license alterable or revocable at any time -- the same as with most free online code hosting services, including GitLab.)

> They want to behave like a private company using their software, and somehow posturing as the white knight of Open Source? I'm done with that and I migrated to Gitlab.

Gitlab is also a private company using their software. (Github is perhaps acting like the more established private company that it is, but both are, and act like, like private companies using their software.)

Gitlab is an open source project. You can use it for your own hosted solution.

> Gitlab is an open source project. You can use it for your own hosted solution.

GitLab is "open core".

GitLab Community Edition is an open source project.

GitLab Enterprise Edition is not, though its built on top of what is in GitLab CE.

You can use either (the former for free, the latter not) on your hosted solution.

GitLab.com (the Github-competing hosted solution) uses GitLab EE, the non-open-source version.

GitLab is, like Github, a private company using their own proprietary software to offer a hosting service on their own servers.

Right, so how is what you are saying not what I said? GitLab CE is free and open source, you can install it wherever you want and manager your repo. You can personalize it and change the code to suit your needs. Does GitHub offer the same option?

> and closed a repo.

Did they? What's your source for that?

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150802/20330431831/githu...

Can you explain more about what you mean by "dominate tech culture", and "...experiencing a growing societal backlash". What are you looking at to determine the culture? How are you measuring the growth of any backlash? What backlash are you referring to? Is there a reliable method for detecting when one is in an echo chamber?

Their servers, their rules.

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