back to article GitHub to devs: 'We ignored you but we never stopped caring'

GitHub has promised to pay better attention to the concerns of users. In January, more than 1,100 project maintainers complained the popular code-host was ignoring them. Now, GitHub's Brandon Keepers has taken the first tentative step to try and soothe the seething masses. Here's his letter in full: Dear Open Source …

  1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Windows

    Zoing Zoing Zoing Careoooiuuu

    Can I have a creative guitar accompaniment with that, please.

    Also, I thought SourceForge were the MySpace of coding now?

    Next up: Getting Atlassian to fix ten-year old horrid bugs.

    1. Roq D. Kasba

      Re: Zoing Zoing Zoing Careoooiuuu

      Sourceforge - sorry, just don't trust you to do the right thing any more.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Zoing Zoing Zoing Careoooiuuu

        > Sourceforge - sorry, just don't trust you to do the right thing any more.

        Did they ever do The Right Thing? I recall shunning them years ago after reading the small print, where it said something along the lines of All You Base Are Belong To Us, which didn't inspire a lot of confidence, so we just passed them over.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Zoing Zoing Zoing Careoooiuuu

      I hear that. The only way Atlassian can fix their stuff though is:

      1. Ditch JAVA

      2. Ditch Tomcat

      3. Rethink their patching processes.

      4. Start again.

      Jira, Confluence et al seriously sap my will to live.

      They are (as far as I am concerned) the last "because our competitors use it" products some of my clients use.

      Oh and Jenkins (its not Atlassian but feels like it is).

      1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

        Re: Zoing Zoing Zoing Careoooiuuu

        I hear that. The only way Atlassian can fix their stuff though is:

        I find Atlassian very communicative and responsive. Certainly much better than a few years ago.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Zoing Zoing Zoing Careoooiuuu

        I don't like using jira/confluence . But jenkins, you can pry from my cold dead hands.

  2. LaeMing
    Facepalm

    "We've also got a few surprises in store."

    Because programmers just have an inherent love of 'surprises'. It goes with the job!

    1. a_yank_lurker

      Re: "We've also got a few surprises in store."

      Especially with the specs being completely wrong.

    2. akeane

      Re: "We've also got a few surprises in store."

      yep, "surprises" tend to be of the not-good variety...

      Also, when I saw "DevShare" I naively thought it might be some scheme to give the devs some of the cash from the ad revenue...

      Super Double Also, I notice these days I read headlines (not just on t'reg) but everywhere else, then skim the mostly poorly written articles (which are really just AP/Reuters copy 'n pastes with the appropiate political slant applied*, or poorly disguised press releases) and then I actually spend more time reading the comments.

      Maybe us commentards should be rewarded with a share of the takings as the content is usually superior to the main article...

      * news.google.* makes this inherently obvious, and has demonstrated the lack of value in the typical rags, no wonder they are losing money, and good riddance...

      And I don't buy the line that paying for this rubbish would improve the quality; back in the day there were many interesting websites written by authors; interested and experts in their subject matter which didn't require a million ad popups and flash downloads.

      Good day!

      1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

        Re: "back in the day there were many interesting websites written by authors"

        Um, just out of curiosity, where are they now ?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: "back in the day there were many interesting websites written by authors"

          > Um, just out of curiosity, where are they now ?

          Possibly on page 379 of your favourite search engine's results listing, buried under links to sites of perhaps a dozen companies which have slowly been taking the "diversity" bit out of the internet.

          E.g., why T****er when there is RSS? Why F******k when there is email, XMPP, blogging software (hosted or self-installed)? Why Skype when there is SIP and XMPP? Why StackOverflow when there is IRC? Convenience? Perhaps, in the short term, but there are other ways of gaining in convenience without losing out in every other front.

          1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

            Re: "back in the day there were many interesting websites written by authors"

            Why StackOverflow when there is IRC?

            Because IRC isn't searchable and has even more noise? I increasingly find good solutions to stuff on StackOverflow because it's content-focussed (unlike the rest of the crap that seem to be all about growing the network).

            1. Baggypants

              Re: "back in the day there were many interesting websites written by authors"

              Whats needed is a federated thread-able searchable categorisation based messaging protocol. You know, like NNTP

              1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

                Re: "back in the day there were many interesting websites written by authors"

                Whats needed is a federated thread-able searchable categorisation based messaging protocol. You know, like NNTP

                I never really got on with NNTP. The problem with any subscription-based service is the barrier they offer to the casual observer.

            2. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: "back in the day there were many interesting websites written by authors"

              > I increasingly find good solutions to stuff on StackOverflow

              So do I. I find all the good solutions from the last five years, never mind that any of those older than about six months has been obsoleted by changes in the technology at hand¹, and never mind that the vast majority of those solutions are copypastas from someone else's blog or, if you're lucky, the actual manual that you could have read yourself.

              I wouldn't dislike StackOverflow if I hadn't seen so many bits of code mindlessly copied from there without a trace of critical judgement.

              One thing I like about IRC is precisely that it is not searchable² so information ages at a similar pace as the technology itself.

              ¹ Of course, the newer solutions are also there. And because they're newer they haven't accumulated so many "votes" so are buried somewhere in the site.

              ² Not in an evident way. Many channels have bots logging 24/7, but Google will never tell you unless you actively hint at those logs.

  3. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    'We ignored you but we never stopped caring'

    Pretty much what my Ex used to say. Go figure. ..

  4. Zola

    SourceForge is still a thing?

    Who knew.

    Sorry, too little way, waaaayyy too late. SourceForge became a joke years ago, killing DevShare won't make a bind bit of difference. Any projects still on SourceForge tells you all you need to know about those projects - ether no longer maintained, or maintained by developers prone to making really bad development choices.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: SourceForge is still a thing?

      > Any projects still on SourceForge tells you all you need to know about those projects

      I am not making any judgements as to the merits or lack thereof of your assertion, but I do note the exact same thought crosses my mind when I see a SourceForge-hosted project these days.

      Maybe we are being unfair, but the perception is definitely there.

      1. Roq D. Kasba

        Re: SourceForge is still a thing?

        Time was when I'd search sf.net for whatever I needed as a part of my routine. Not so much now, haven't done that in years.

      2. Brennan Young

        Re: SourceForge is still a thing?

        "...when I see a SourceForge-hosted project these days. Maybe we are being unfair, but the perception is definitely there."

        - yep. congratulations SourceForge, you have a toxic brand. Did anyone tell you that this is invariably an irrecoverable position? Anyone in your PR department, perhaps? If not, fire the lot of them. It's kinda sorta their area. Perhaps you can still make it as a place for people to share code "ironically"? If there is such a use case.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: SourceForge is still a thing?

          Ironic code sharing? I suppose it's a thing, and Github is full of it. Half-baked ideas and abandoned forks. We could put "go fork yourself on sourceforge" banners in the corners of our project pages, to make damn sure nobody mistakes them for maintained software.

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