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Comment by isodev | Hacker News Reader

That's interesting but the technical reasons are really besides the point.

The end result is that it's no longer possible to participate in "GitHub hosted open source" without actually being a member of GitHub.

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You can still clone and grep, can't you? You can't file issues or submit PRs through Github without an account, either.

You're kind of making my point, one needs to take their code elsewhere to be able to browse it.

In other words, GitHub is no longer suitable to host open source repositories because of all the closed "extras" it adds on top.

How does providing more features to some people make the core service unusable for "open source"?

This is adding less features for libre software users. I hope everyone migrates to local SourceHut servers when possible.

Are you suggesting that there's a place that you can file a PR (or equivalent) without an account?

They're shady AF, but some features require an account not because they're moat water but for some other reason.

I'm really focusing on the search feature that's no longer available for a given repository unless you're logged in. Everything else is "Microsoft added extras to git". If all I can do on GitHub is use it to git clone, then what's the purpose of it?

It's clear the "extinguish" phase of Microsoft's open source venture has started. There're plenty of very good alternatives, it's time to move on.

There is actually such a place! The Linux kernel (the original use case for Git) is developed by emailing patches to the appropriate mailing list. The mailing list is compatible with self-hosted mail systems.

But you still need an account. email one in this case.

You don't need an account to send email. You can send emails using nothing but a CLI tool on a *nix machine. Although most mainstream email services will send those to the spam folder these days.

I thought damn near every ISP blocks port 25 outgoing. I even had to open a ticket to get it unblocked on a vps I use.

probably for the best.

You need an e-mail for GitHub as well, but in addition a GitHub account

You don't need an account to read the list.

http://vger.kernel.org/vger-lists.html

Unless you count your ISP of course.

You don't need an account to browse GitHub PRs or issues either.

And can you search a git repo on git://my-domain.example.com? Or can you browse that without cloning? And even cgit, can you search that?

Are these now also no longer "open source"?

No.

None of this is somehow a core requirement of "open source".

You can browse code on Github just fine (and search within a file!) - you just can't search through the tree, which is a function of whatever platform the code lives on, be it your box or Github or some other web UI.

Do you mean "git clone"? I thought the idea about git is that you always take the code into your local machine before doing anything. Sure, github gives some bells and whistles to obviate the need from time to time, but that's basically decorations.

Agreed. If this is indeed a resource issue and they want to just block crawlers/bots/anonymous users from using lots of resources then perhaps having the old "less resource intense search" for users who aren't logged in and having the new "more resource intense search" for users who are logged in would be an improvement.

Ideally yes but the old code search may also require costly infra, like building specialized indexes of the codebase (eg an elasticsearch index).

Since those are "fixed costs" per repo rather than per search, they'd now be much more expensive per search if they were only used by logged-out users.

Pure outside speculation of course.

Its never been possible to participate in github hosted open source without an account...

I have a GitHub account. Until recently most of my GitHub participation was done without being logged in.

What do you do that doesn't require authentication?

Read code and issues mostly.

It's rather pedantic, but I wouldn't call that participating. That's more in the realm of observation.

An account has always been required for active participation, e.g. committing directly to any repo, submitting a PR, opening an issue, etc.

Yes, and I use an account for those. But I value not having to use an account for any work before that, which is just a crucial.

You can still do that without being logged in, thats also not participating in open source. More observing open source then anything

These are prerequisites to what I suspect you have in mind when you consider open source participation. Of which I do a decent amount, logged in of course, but this comes first.

right, but being a member isn't a pay-wall. This feels more like an academic argument than a practical one.

Becoming a member means sharing your personal information with GitHub and abiding by their terms of service. It also implies that they will then track and profile locations where you sign in, technologies you use to interact with their services etc. That's a lot to give for "I want to browse a piece of code someone made for free".

The only bit of "personal information" you need to provide is an email, and you're free to use a burner.

> That's a lot to give for "I want to browse a piece of code someone made for free".

You can still do this. All repositories are accessible without signing in.

And it's what they get in return for hosting and providing indexing and a git server.

I'm not saying it's a deal that makes sense for everyone. But it's certainly a barter trade and is well within their prerogative to offer.

Facebook recently estimated that knowing about a user costs close to €11/month. That's a lot of money for hosting and indexing git repositories... I guess we need an alternative.

And it's EXACTLY the same on Codeberg, and GitLab, and SourceHut, and anything else online. Some of these don't even have a "search" feature.

This is just degrading in to conspiratorial FUD.

Not at all. FOSS should be built on FOSS tools.

Giving them your personal information is a form of payment. I don't mean this in a pedantic or academic sense, but a very real one.

The kinds of people averse to user accounts wouldn't be using ("participating in") Github in the first place.

Or to put it another way: It's a surprise you need a Github account to use ("participate in") Github?

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