Were is a great place to Share your finished projects?

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Wednesday 13 July 2016 17:00, Chris Angelico wrote:

> On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 4:44 PM, Steven D'Aprano
> <steve+comp.lang.python at pearwood.info> wrote:
>> Even if Github was 100% open source with no proprietary extensions, and the
>> *technical* cost of leaving was low, the single-network effect would still
>> lock you in, which leaves you (to some degree) at the mercy of Github's
>> management. Don't like the fact that they run their servers on electricity
>> made from burning puppies and the tears of little children? Too bad, what
>> are you going to do, move your project to some backwater VCS where nobody
>> ever goes? You might as well be on AOL for all anyone will ever find your
>> project.
> 
> So what're you going to do? Move *now* to some backwater where nobody
> ever goes, just in case GitHub ever turns evil?

Move *now* to a viable alternative, while it's still viable and before it's too 
late, in order to encourage competition and discourage those idiots who don't 
know how to use Google and think Github is the entire Internet-for-code.

"I couldn't find it on Github, therefore it doesn't exist" is already a real 
phenomenon. Fortunately, at this point you probably won't want to accept 
patches from those people. But in five or ten years? I give odds of about 50:50 
that even competent coders will have bought into the Github-is-the-universe, 
just as even people who know better treat Facebook as the entire Internet, and 
worse.


"...some backwater where nobody ever goes..."

If you really mean that, then you're saying that Github has already captured 
such a dominant market share that they are an effective monopoly over all 
hosted DVCSes, and that programmers no longer have a choice about using them. 
Its Github, or you're invisible, and leaving is not an option.

If you mean that, then be honest:

"The horse has already bolted, and vendor lockin is not a concern, its a fact. 
All I can do is *hope* that Github doesn't turn evil."

On the other hand, if you genuinely think that Github *hasn't* captured the 
market, that migration away from them is still an option, then you've undercut 
your argument against using competing services. If you genuinely think that 
migrating away from Github to (let's say) Bitbucket is an option, then your 
quip about backwaters is invalid.



Speaking of F/B, a true story. A friend of mine in the US had this conversation 
(edited for brevity):

"You got married??!? When did you get married?"

"Oh, about three months ago."

"I'm disappointed that you didn't invite me. I would have loved to have come."

"What do you mean? I posted the details on my Wall. Didn't you see it?"



-- 
Steve