How to raise your profile on Github | Hacker News Reader

How to raise your profile on Github

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59 pointsdanshapiro33 comments

... and it's now 404'ing - looks like someone deleted a repository.

Short summary: some "devin ross" replaces the license of some code with his own, removing any mention of the original authors. Half of GitHub tells him not to do that.

Lots of folks say that raising your profile on Github is a good way to improve your job prospects. In particular, creating, contributing to, and maintaining open source projects can really raise your profile.

Devon Ross found a rather unique shortcut to accomplish this.

Wow, I just realized I can take out any comments on my commits just by making some trivial change, rebasing, and push -f -ing.

(Incidentally, if you want a lot of watchers on your project, you can add people as committers. They then become watchers of your project without any intervention on their part.)

This feels a bit too much like a witch hunt... We don't really know the story, it might be a mistake made while half asleep at the end of a long day, it might be intentional... We just don't know

So let's not jump to conclusion... It does nobody good if we start tarring people without having all the facts.

And he did post an apology before deleting the repository...

> This feels a bit too much like a witch hunt

'zactly. It feels like a load of knee-jerk reactions to me. One mistake in a commit in public does not sound like grounds for a crucifixion.

Everybody chill out and hop off the bandwagon already.

The commit has been rolled back.

https://github.com/devinross/CrashReporter/commit/58323baac6...

And he apologized, saying it was a mistake: https://github.com/devinross/CrashReporter/commit/83f6050181...

Replacing someone's 'Authored By:' line with your own is a pretty big 'mistake'.

Unless he was just doing a full pass on his project because he hadn't been filling in his own info on new files, and their info got caught in the crossfire. I know for me that my xcode info at the top of files right now is incorrect cause I don't have my stuff set up correctly. I figured later on I'd just find/replace it all.

Potentially that's what happened here, too, and he just pushed everything without realizing it.

I saw the commit. It wasn't a bunch of files, it was a single file's copyright, replaced.

Two files actually, see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2337813.

He didn't find/replace anything, he just deleted the entire license and put a new one in. Really, he should have known better.

Completely agree, just wanted to point it out.

He has now removed the entire project from GitHub.

https://img.skitch.com/20110317-8hkyyyq2irbisbmqpuiays1iew.j...

In case it's not obvious from the URL, this is a screenshot of the now-deleted repository's commit.

I didn't notice before I posted a duplicate copy of the URL, myself :)

This is the developer in question: https://github.com/devinross/

I really like devin's work, so I prefer to wait for him to say something about than just thow out everything and discredit all his work.

I'm just not sure why someone would think it was OK to remove someone else's name from their work.

That demonstrates a surprising, brazen disregard for propriety and makes me wary regarding the providence of Devin's other work.

He posted about the licensing header on commit message. I don't think he would do that if it was intentional.

Unless there was a core misunderstanding about what is, and is not, appropriate when dealing with other's work.

I can't see how he'd do this (intentionally!) otherwise.

The guy does maintain a very popular iOS lib:

https://github.com/devinross/tapkulibrary

Maybe he inherited the project from the original authors with the arrangement that he'd maintain it as open source, but was indelicate in how he modified the license file.

No, one of the authors of the library in question was the one that raised the issue:

http://twitter.com/#!/therealkerni/status/48341474210881536

He now has a post on his blog explaining the situation http://devinsheaven.com/im-the-first-to-admit/

So, for those of us that just clicked on this to see a 404-page, what was the big deal?

Maybe someone can answer a question I've long had: in a BSD licensed library, isn't the copyright distributed over all collective author's, not just he one listed in the license? That's why some projects make people sign agreements stating that they send copyright to a foundation right?

I have never uset Github and I must confess that I didn't understand what happened here ):

The commit appears to be a developer taking open source code and changing the copyright information to appear as if he's the original author.

As Github allows commenting on commits, this didn't go over too well when discovered.

lol Thank you (:

His timeline includes a fragment of an apologetic comment from the now-deleted repo:

https://github.com/devinross

You can see his full comment if you hover:

"I don't know what to say this other than I apologize. It was an honest mistake and I've taken measures to fix it. I also contacted the originator to see how I should properly mange the license and such. Lets not get to bent out of shape everyone."

He's apparently done some work on Camera+ for taptaptap and Spring for FormSpring.

Seems he's deleted the repo now.

Haha! "From now on, I'm going to use "to devin" for "to pass off someone else's work as one's own."

As in: "I decided to devin my friend's story about doing a start-up to impress this chick at the bar last night."

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