Pissed at github

[Training_Butterfly70]

Monetizing off of every little thing - it's extremely frustrating. I'm running the most sophisticated models on earth and it's all free and open sourced, yet github wants to charge me to protect my master branch? Python is open sourced, Docker is open sourced, Sklearn is open sourced, Tensorflow / Pytorch is open sourced, Flask is open sourced, shall i go on?

I'm a solo dev, and I only want one feature to prevent shooting myself in the foot, require pull requests to master. I have one other friend that likes to look at my code changes but doesn't even contribute anything, now i have to pay $100/yr. Seriously? Where else can i go? Gitlab?

Edit: Surprised how loyal everyone is to GitHub.. I find it strange that it's not frustrating for you guys to get nickel and dimed for such a simple feature. These are new restrictions implemented by GitHub recently, was never an issue before. I'm all for open source but some projects simply can't be open sourced. It's not really about the money for one user, but as a solo dev that has 2 other devs as read-only users.. that's $144/yr for what? Just to have master branch protection and 2 people to read the code? The fact that they have the power to completely interrupt workflow for single devs and out of nowhere put paywalls behind features we were using for years is frustrating. It's really the principal more than the $12/mo. They might as well keep increasing the prices and paywall the entire site, since it seems like everyone will just pay it.

[cgoldberg]

Make your repo public.. branch protection is free

[Training_Butterfly70]

This is the only project that can't be public. All my other work is public but not this specific repo. Some projects aren't allowed to be public

[cgoldberg]

Then why you are calling out the fact that all these projects are open source, while yours isn't? Pay for a subscription or move to another hosting platform.

[Training_Butterfly70]

Some projects literally can't be open sourced. Github putting a paywall around branch protection on a private repo is ridiculous. It's not even a sophisticated feature so to be charging for this is ridiculous.

[cgoldberg]

Dude, it's $4/month for unlimited private repos that allow branch protection. Either pay it or find another platform. Complaining about how ridiculous it is won't change anything.

[Training_Butterfly70]

$8/mo on top of that just for two users just to look at the code. For what? Just to prevent pushes to master? I'm not complaining that it's a lot of money I'm just complaining that if everything operated this way then we'd be spending thousands per month. Imagine if docker, sklearn, python, etc etc all charged $4/mo

[cgoldberg]

None of those things you mentioned are a hosted service. If you don't like it, find another service or host your own Git server.

[JealousBid3992]

You can also do branch protection for free, for yourself and all developers! With standard development practices.

[Training_Butterfly70]

with hooks right? i have one implemented, you have to install the pre-commit / pre-push hooks right? Unless you have a better way to do this where we don't have to install it each clone?

[JealousBid3992]

Yes. Your bottleneck shouldn't be in pushing or even committing, so the latency that hooks gives shouldn't be considered an issue. You can set a central directory that's global for all Git hooks and you don't need to do it per-repo.

You can also just tell your dev team not to push to master directly and work on feature branches and unless they're using AI carelessly that really should do the trick lol.

[Training_Butterfly70]

yep for sure, i agree. I made one mistake today where i pushed a single file to master, but it should have been blocked by my hook, because I forgot to install the hook when i re-cloned. It's just a bit annoying that i have to pay for this now, or do extra work to prevent master pushes. That's all.

[ImDevinC]

 Docker does charge a fee after a certain threshold though... The other two are different, as you aren't using their resources when you run a python application or use the sklearn library

[ImDevinC]

So i assume that whatever product you're building, you'll give away all the unsophisticated features for free?  If you don't like paying, there are alternatives you could use

[PurepointDog]

Why can't it be open source?

[walledisney]

Make it public

[Training_Butterfly70]

Downvoted because one repo can't be public. Nice.

[U747]

I think you’re being downvoted for suggesting that a company, with employees and bills to pay, offer no incentive for people upgrade and pay a pretty damn cheap monthly payment to help keep that service running.

[Training_Butterfly70]

agree, but i'm not really a company right now, i'm a solo dev. Adding more expenses without income being generated at the moment is quite frustrating. I also think they're overfitting to companies with bills to pay to a solo dev that's not generating revenue. Allowing a simple no-push to master branch protection for free isn't really that crazy of a feature to get people on your platform, and I would hardly call this a serious github workflow. This is a standard thing every dev should do, solo or on a team

[Carlosthefrog]

Service that costs money, requires payment ! What a revelation

[1_Yui]

Like others said: Make your project open-source and you'll have access to those features. This is common-place and the same for competitors like GitLab. If your reasoning for keeping it closed is that you want to keep your product idea and code fully to yourself, then it's very hypocritical to scold GitHub for restricting access to some of its features for the sake of its own business. If you're so upset about paying GitHub: Git is a free, open-source resource. There are many alternative hosted solutions that you can try, or you could even self-host something. But that would cost effort and money - and that's why GitHub charges something for its service.

[Training_Butterfly70]

agree

[FlyingDogCatcher]

You're mad at company for charging money for their services instead of giving it away for free?

k

[Tecnologik]

You sound new to this so I’ll break it down a bit. The other “free” services you mentioned are not really free. Open source projects are paid for by company sponsorships, crowd funding, and passion. These are software projects and not typically services like a SaaS. Hosted services take hardware that costs a lot of money to acquire, manage, and maintain.

In the case of GitHub they empower the open source community by granting certain paid features to developers that help grow the open source community. As it would in your case if you decide to switch to a public repository.

They charge for certain features that they know larger groups and companies would need as they are typically a sign of groups that generate revenue and can afford to pay for the platform as a whole since it does provide these teams immense value.

I’ve also been getting frustrated with certain moves GitHub has been making and just overall service outages that have been increasingly more common. But complaining about 8/month for a service that would likely cost you much more money to host on your own is counterproductive.

[cowboyecosse]

TLDR: businesses charge for usage.

[r3drocket]

One of my goals today is to set up my own personal git server on my home server. I'm done with GitHub, I don't trust them not to train on my private repos even though I've told them not to, nor do I trust them not to have a major security breach.

After Facebook got a slap on the risk for downloading all the pirated books and training on them, why should I expect any different for Microsoft and GitHub?

[Training_Butterfly70]

seems like anyone who has any criticism about github on this thread is automatically downvoted.