Oh, come on. “Adding labels to repositories” and “adding issue templates” isn’t “increasing lock-in.” There’s no slippery slope here. I think the time and energy Stephen has dedicated to the community should be thanked and appreciated, not discouraged. I’m frustrated by the number of words you spend on this list suggesting other people do or not do certain things while volunteering zero of your time yourself.
Yes, every platform has potential costs, some more than others. But GitHub in particular has provided the open source community[1] immeasurable value with few meaningful costs, and that does not currently seem likely to change under Microsoft. I don’t think taking advantage of their exceptionally useful service is the same as thinking they are “our friend,” nor does allowing themselves to be purchased by someone with sufficient capital to continue providing those services for free instantly make them our enemy. There is no evidence that Microsoft is embracing open source software only to extend and exterminate it. Please preach elsewhere. Alexis [1]: Perhaps not the free software community, but Racket isn’t free software, so that’s hardly on topic. > On Aug 13, 2019, at 12:28, Neil Van Dyke <n...@neilvandyke.org> wrote: > > I know this particular one is a minor thing, but they add up, over time... > > Please consider approaches that are open, rather than owned, and try not to > increase lock-in by big-business plays. > > It's pragmatic to keep using GitHub in limited ways right now, *but* part of > that is being judicious about creeping lock-in, which is a pattern we've seen > for decades (and the current owner of GitHub has been one of the most epic > abusers). > > To use GitHub as an example, though this is not specific to them: They are > not your friend. They used to seem like your friend, but that friendship was > worth fewer than 7.5 billion dollars. > > When you effectively partner with such a company, approach it as an temporary > alliance, limit their power over you, and keep trying to increase your > options/freedom. > > Also, consider what you're promoting, especially to impressionable students > around Racket. Every use is effectively you endorsing something questionable. > > Maybe it's time to poke the Conservancy. It should be on their radar by now, > and some of the solution applies to all projects. > > (I suggested wait&see on moving the repos from GitHub, partly since it's > unclear which competitors will sell out next for GitHub/Slack/etc.-type > lock-in billions. And I don't have time to see which non-profit ones are > just an old PC under someone's dorm bed, and will disappear as soon as that > person gets a job. The Conservancy is in a better position to investigate, > and to audit/fund to make sure whatever project has sustainable funding. In > the meantime, that doesn't mean we have to keep increasing our non-repo > feature dependence, and make it harder to move once we have a chance.) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Racket Users" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to racket-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/racket-users/BD6A4F3B-EE9F-4C88-B014-E59337E69942%40gmail.com.
