GitNotifier – Email notifications for selected GitHub repository/profile events | Hacker News Reader

GitNotifier – Email notifications for selected GitHub repository/profile events

gitnotifier.io

75 pointswilsonfiifi18 comments

I'd suggest running this by the Git project, considering they applied for a received a trademark specifically to crack down on use of the Git brand like this, and wrote up a pretty detailed post earlier this year:[1]

> this is necessary to prevent dilution of the mark for other uses, but there are also cases we directly want to prevent. [...] For example, imagine a software project which is only tangentially related to Git. [...] We don't endorse it, and it's just using the name to imply association that isn't there.

Given that this has basically nothing to do with Git but is instead built around the GitHub API, the name here is a little problematic.

If it weren't the case that this is already such a problem, I'd say you missed out on the opportunity to call this "GitNotified".

1. http://public-inbox.org/git/20170202022655.2jwvudhvo4hmueaw@...

Author here, the project was originally named GitHub Notifier, however shortly after launch the legal department of GitHub contacted me and was very helpful to guide me through resolving the issues with the naming, they even sent me a mug to compensate for the trouble of going through the name change even though I was clearly violating their terms.

It sounds like GitHub talked you out of using a name that was stepping on their own trademark and into using one which was stepping on someone else's (and that they knew about). If you're willing to share the conversations you had with them, that would be pretty interesting.

Well, GitHub doesn't own he trademark for Git, only for GitHub. They have a mutual agreement with the Git project (Software Freedom Conservancy). The Git project guidelines seem to disallow this usage:

  For example, imagine a software project which is only tangentially
  related to Git. It might use Git as a side effect, or might just be
  "Git-like" in the sense of being a distributed system with chained
  hashes. Let's say as an example that it does backups. We'd prefer it
  not call itself GitBackups. We don't endorse it, and it's just using the
  name to imply association that isn't there. You can come up with similar
  hypotheticals: GitMail that stores mailing list archives in Git, or
  GitWiki that uses Git as a backing store.

What about GHNotifier? It would probably still need a disclaimer on the site that they aren't officially associated with GitHub.

I think the defacto standard would be something like "Notifier for GitHub" adhering to the trademark rules. Less fun, though.

On a related note, is there any git hosting service that will produce RSS feeds with inline git diffs?

I'm rebuilding a hacky RSS feed generator that used bash, cron and webSVN with git, and I've not found any hosted git remotes that produce RSS with diffs inline so I can review changes in my reader.

The first thing that came to my mind is you could use Yahoo!Pipes for this. The second was "oh!".

Even before they shut it down, Pipes was a bad fit -- it's preferred data format is RSS, and that's the very thing we're lacking here. It's also very error prone; one small change in the HTML and your scraper needs to be rewritten to adjust.

I'm the author, feel free to ask me any question, I'm currently in the (albeit very slow) process of rewriting the whole project in Elixir. I'm also planning a few new features like organization notifications and better stats.

I have been using this for a while now and really appreciate the extra notifications. Several times I have found interesting forks of my own projects through GitNotifier emails.

GitHub should offer this - surprised that they don't. Also, I would love to get stats on repo views in addition to forks/stars, etc. - EDIT - Thank you fs111

GH has this, see the Insights tab.

They provide it through RSS feeds.

Nice.

It looks like this will only send me notifications for my personal account. Is it possible to get them for the (public/open source) Github organization I created?

Hi, not at the moment, but since it's a frequently requested feature, it's on the roadmap.

Yes - This would be amazing! I'd like to be able to subscribe for all my open-source go libs housed under the gigawatt.io org [0]

[0] https://github.com/gigawattio

Love the name! Very straightforward. It should be at GitHub Marketplace

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