home | list info | list archive | date index | thread index

GitHub (was Re: Follow up on last night's discussion on docker)

  • Subject: GitHub (was Re: Follow up on last night's discussion on docker)
  • From: Dianne Skoll <dianne [ at ] skoll [ dot ] ca>
  • Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2025 16:17:56 -0400
On Fri, 3 Oct 2025 12:59:04 -0700
Ron via linux <linux [ at ] linux-ottawa [ dot ] org> wrote:

[Stay off GitHub]

> That's where most of *everything*, like... collaboration, happens.

Yes.  But for me, the downsides outweight the upsides.

> Ignore GitHub, and one is mostly invisible (unless a large project of 
> course).  But for solo projects or small ones looking for wide 
> visibility, that's the place to go, for better and for worse the
> network effect is A Thing.

I think it's only the place to go if you're looking for wide visibility.
And even then, there are other ways to publicize your project.

For solo projects, there's no need for anything other than a personal
self-hosted git repo.  For small ones that don't care all that much
about visibility, Codeberg.org is great.

> That might work if PRs can be accepted via email, but there's always
> the friction of signing up for Yet Another Account.

Sure!  It's exactly that friction that stops the AI bots.

> (Now I'm wondering, how to submit a PR via email? A rabbit hole I
> don't have time for right now...)

For my projects, I accept bug reports via email.  People have also sent
me patches via email.  The process works well enough for me.

I'm guessing there may be a few bug reports or PRs I've missed because
people didn't want to take the extra step of emailing me.  But I'm
also guessing most of those would either be trivial or AI slop anyway.

Another problem with the Network Effect, btw, is that if GitHub ever
goes down, chaos ensues... which is utterly ironic given that git is
supposed to be distributed and decentralized.

Regards,

Dianne.

To unsubscribe send a blank message to linux+unsubscribe [ at ] linux-ottawa [ dot ] org
To get help send a blank message to linux+help [ at ] linux-ottawa [ dot ] org
To visit the archives: https://lists.linux-ottawa.org