Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo, GitHub, and the Social Contract

["Anthony G. Basile" <blueness@gentoo.org>]

On 02/15/15 14:23, Seemant Kulleen wrote:
> Note: not replying directly to Ciaran (I fully agree with what you said, C
> and Michal)
>
> Question: do any of the scenarios truly threaten Gentoo's existence?
>
> Or is it just that things might be a pain in the butt if Github becomes
> unavailable?
>
> Let's say GitHub does change its policies and go full-douchebag -- is it
> really the case that Gento would be alone in being screwed, or perhaps the
> numerous open source projects on there would result in another something
> replacing it?
>
> Would love to see a little less fear around here.

Its fine as long as infra is the centre of our operations.  Because 
github is so much better than cvs provided by infra (sorry infra its 
true) I worry that we'll depend on it too much.  To be honest, I love 
the entire github workflow and would feel much better if we could just 
own it ourselves.

Its unlikely github will go full-douchebag with its TOS.  Its more 
likely they will do what freecode.com (aka freshmeat.com) did.  Just 
close shop on day 0.

Finally it depends what you mean by "existance".  I've seen companies 
exert pressures that morph things into what they should not be.  A 
healthy amount of distances here is good.  I like our autonomony.

>
>
>
> *--seemantk Empathic Design*
> Data Visualization | Tech. Team Turnarounds | Customer Experience
> http://seemantk.com
>
>
> On 15 February 2015 at 11:08, Ciaran McCreesh <
> ciaran.mccreesh@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 15 Feb 2015 13:39:16 -0500
>> "Anthony G. Basile" <blueness@gentoo.org> wrote:
>>> On 02/15/15 12:42, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
>>>> On Sun, 15 Feb 2015 11:17:54 -0500
>>>> "Anthony G. Basile" <blueness@gentoo.org> wrote:
>>>>> But the big difference here is that github is a company while infra
>>>>> is volunteer work.
>>>> And the equipment and hosting is paid for by...
>>>>
>>> You mean the folks like osuosl or other institutions run by
>>> grants :P Or is that not the answer you were expecting?
>> No, that's exactly what I mean. What if OSUOSL or some other
>> institution decides they'll pull funding unless the entire Gentoo
>> Gnome team is fired? Or what if the government funding them announces
>> that they can't use their money to accept contributions from or
>> give benefit to countries in the Axis of Evil?
>>
>> The idea that Gentoo is currently immune to these kinds of pressures,
>> but suddenly wouldn't be if Github were to be used for hosting, isn't
>> really grounded in reality...
>>
>> --
>> Ciaran McCreesh
>>


-- 
Anthony G. Basile, Ph.D.
Gentoo Linux Developer [Hardened]
E-Mail    : blueness@gentoo.org
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