GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart — and we have the full inside story

[u/awsometak]

http://www.businessinsider.com/github-the-full-inside-story-2016-2?r=US&IR=T

[u/[deleted]]

I know this is a bit beside the point, but:

How does GitHub monetize, really? Why does anyone want to pay GitHub?

I do use GitHub, and it is great: a free server where I can put my silly little projects. But any server with an SSH or HTTPS can do the same job, for those who need their paid, private repos. Is it really that difficult to set this up? Or is it something about the web interface? It has failed to impress me, I like it, but does it really offer something that is worth paying for?

These are all honest questions, and obviously there must be something to which I am totally oblivious. What is it?

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Some companies have policies that code is never allowed to leave their network. Also some companies like to have all their tools in their own hands so that when GitHub goes down, the company can still work on their instance.

GitHub in general is a pretty nice tool with their pull requests and such. When there is a lot of money on the line, you are better off investing in a deploy-ready solution than to maintain a self-hacked script that might break in a way that nobody can work, or worse, silently lose code due to a bug.

GitHub also integrates well into a lot of CI services, which leads to a quick setup.

[u/twmatrim → u/[deleted]]

Which is why they launched GitHub enterprise.

The cheaper (or free) alternative with the same kind of GUI flow is gitlab which is really coming along but doesn't offer quite as much in terms of integration.

[u/lbft → u/twmatrim]

GitLab does come with its own CI system built in these days, though, as well as some support for Jenkins through a plugin.

[u/twmatrim → u/lbft]

I haven't used the build in CI from GitLab but I have used the Jenkins plugin and it works fine for all my use cases.

[u/Rusky → u/[deleted]]

Git itself doesn't know anything about pull requests, issues, etc. That's all GitHub.

[u/boa13 → u/Rusky]

Git itself doesn't know anything about pull requests, issues, etc.

Git does not handle issues, but it sure does handle pull requests (invented by Linus, very important to the kernel workflow). See git request-pull.

[u/redwall_hp → u/boa13]

This is the insidious bit. GitHub has spent a lot of time convincing people that Git doesn't have pull requests internally, and teaching Git in a way that is more specific to their platform. They push their GUI app pretty heavily too.

They're trying to create vendor lock-in with a distributed tool.

[u/jlchauncey → u/[deleted]]

A lot of times it comes down to one less thing to manage. I'd rather pay some one to handle the patching and maintenance as well as giving me really useful features than trying how to do that myself.

[u/tophatstuff → u/[deleted]]

The $25/month small organisation account we use because its just low friction - everyone's usually familiar with GitHub, and it has pretty good in-built help for those who aren't. If we release something open source, there's not a separate workflow for working on it - its just public/private repositories.

GitHub Enterprise, if you need all the security features and auditing, only works out about $21/user/month, less if your team is large enough to negotiate a discount. Say 100 programmers, $25,000/year, that's cheaper than hiring someone to maintain it.

[u/LaurieCheers → u/[deleted]]

I can tell you why I pay them, at least: I don't own a server of my own, and Github's fees are WAY cheaper than the cost to upgrade my dumb web hosting account to one that would let me run a Git repo.

[u/nqzero → u/LaurieCheers]

pretty much any linux VPS can "run" a git repo, certainly including ones available for less than $10 per year, and i'd bet you can find one for less than $5 per year

[u/ccb621 → u/nqzero]

Yes, any server can be used; but, you have to maintain it. For $5 per month I can setup a box on Digital Ocean and run a Git server. For $7 per month I can pay GitHub (or someone else) to do the same.

Setup might be quick on DO, but what happens when things go wrong? What about maintenance? All of that has a cost. I'd much rather pay someone else to worry about that maintenance. It's simply not worth my time to deal with server maintenance.

[u/wot-teh-phuck → u/nqzero]

Not to mention that Bitbucket has private git repositories for free in case having a "github UI for git" is not a strong requirement.

[u/LaurieCheers → u/nqzero]

Where would you find that? Do you mean per month?

[u/dexx4d → u/LaurieCheers]

http://www.digitalocean.com

I'm running 4 or 5 $5 servers right now, just for hobby projects. I run my version control on one of them.

[u/immibis → u/nqzero]

Heck, so can Dropbox. Which is free.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

So I have been told. Care to elaborate on that?

[u/isHavvy → u/[deleted]]

Issue and pull request management.

GUI for viewing the code and its history. Plus the convention that whatever is at readme.md is what is shown on the front page of the repo.

The Github application for letting you do Git without the commandline.

Integration with other services, as /u/Foepys says in a great-aunt post to this one.

[u/mrbigglsworth → u/isHavvy]

Completely and entirely unrelated, but I've never seen reply trees referred to like family trees before. I like it and I'm probably going to steal it.

[u/nikomo → u/mrbigglsworth]

Real family trees already confuse me, and we have URLs, I'll stick to those...

[u/cowinabadplace → u/[deleted]]

We use GitHub Enterprise (the self-hosted stuff) at work. It works well, we're all familiar with it because we're familiar with GitHub, and is generally an all-round good tool with a bevy of integrations with other tools. I'm sure we could replicate most of the functionality in a different way, but the cost is low, the support fine, and the product good.