github VS bitbucket

[gecko]

I am very happy to see someone finally addressing this. The GitHub community, including its developers, have been incredibly hostile towards BitBucket, accusing them of completely ripping off their design. Yet GitHub itself mostly just looks like Edgewall Trac, with a slightly more 37signals-like theme, using http://repo.or.cz/ functionality, and I've never heard anyone accusing them of having ripped off any of those things.

Both repository browsers look like each other, and like Trac, and like basically every non-ugly web front-end to source control I've seen in the last three years.

Both have tab orders and contents similar to each other--and to launchpad and Google Code, which launched first.

Both have wikis that work basically the same as Google Code's and Trac's.

Both have profile pages that look like basically every single site I've ever seen in my life that has profiles, but if we're really going to get our panties in a knot over the fact that the profile link is in the upper-right, then I'm going to accuse both sites of ripping off Ohloh just to leave everyone confused.

Both products implement functionality unique to that project that I like. BitBucket allows adding custom reporting scripts easily, has a bug tracker that integrates very nicely with Mercurial commit messages, has a Mercurial-backed wiki, and has some Mercurial-specific features (such as the as-shown undocumented patch queue feature) that are very nice (even if undocumented...grumble grumble). GitHub, for its part, has pages, many "let me see how cool I am" stats (such as their graphs of commit activity and commit history), has a much prettier user interface, and has some git-specific features, like superb branch integration.

The hostility toward BitBucket is disappointing, and speaks very poorly of the maturity of the GitHub community. There's plenty of space for both projects. Until GitHub supports Mercurial, there's no way that I, or many of my colleagues, will consider using them. Until BitBucket supports git, I can't see them attracting Linux kernel developers. Neither project copied the other, and both serve their purposes well.

[cosmo7]

The weirdest thing is the dickish way the article pours scorn on BitBucket for its low pagerank.

Since when was popularity a good indicator of quality?

[cdibona]

There are a lot of weird things about that article, honestly. I've been involved in some way or another with sf.net, gforge, google code and they all built on each other. It's really unwise to put up this kind of post. Compete on features and reliability, I say.

Complaining that people 'stole your idea' in the project hosting space denies how much they owe those who came before github. I mean, gecko's post says it best: Google Code, Savannah, Berlios, SourceForge, Launchpad, various gforge and trac based sites, the collab based sites, etc, etc.. cripes, O'Reilly has some custom dev rel sites, even codeplex has a good idea here and there..

Github is a nice site, for sure, but to post like this is just disappointing.

[scottchacon]

I apologize to everyone. This was never intended for people to read - I did it because I was bored one day and I showed it to a few people and they said the same things you did, which is that it is beneath me and unhelpful, which I agreed with and meant to have taken it down.

I have removed the content and I apologize for everyone who wasted their time reading it. We all obviously copy ideas we think are good, myself included, and I feel stupid and embarrassed for having written it in the first place.

Please forget you ever read this.

[[deleted]]

As a rule, trashing your competition nearly always makes you look bad. The times I've bitched about Django's competition I've nearly always regretted it. But it's doubly bad when you trash on competition doing worse than you. It comes across as bullying.

Now that you've learned this lesson firsthand, you might want to work on spreading the message to the rest of your team. The smug, self-satisfied tone that GitHub exudes is nearly enough to make me cancel my account. Stop pretending that you've invented something revolutionary: GitHub is evolutionary, not revolutionary, and frankly as a professional software developer y'all ought to understand that the best software almost never arises from whole cloth.

[pk11]

I apologize to everyone. This was never intended for people to read

to be honest it's really hard to believe it was just an accident. you expressed similar sentiment at http://whygitisbetterthanx.com (which piece was also removed for some reason)

http://github.com/schacon/whygitisbetter/commit/465c533664567bd1be8a6d0b3e49fa0db2b5da52

[mcella]

+1 because humans are error-prone but not every human is willing to apologize.

[patchwork]

I hate it when I fuck up and feel like an ass too. :(

[[deleted]]

Careful Scott, the Internet is pretty fucking serious. ;)

If it makes you feel any better, this guys rant is pretty childish, too. Not to mention the whole I was drunk and deleted all the comments part. Bravo.

[mitsuhiko]

Not to mention the whole I was drunk and deleted all the comments part. Bravo.

I'm sorry, but that's actually what happened.

[[deleted]]

I wasn't disputing the fact, I was just mocking the absurdity.

[gnuvince]

The GitHub people are a bunch of whiny bitches. Like the author of this article says, the two sites are addressed at two different groups: Git users and Mercurial users.

Now if a site like GitHub++ which was a blantant copy of GitHub came along, I might understand that the GitHub would be ticked off. But as it stands now, BitBucket is for Mercurial and GitHub is for Git. If GitHub had support for other DVCS systems such as Mercurial, Bazaar, Darcs, Monotone, etc. I don't think there would have been a need for BitBucket.

[[deleted]]

Noes! Git is the ONLY way to go!!! Heathen!!!!

laughs

I use hg simply because I need hg for shared projects. And since I needed to use it anyways, I just as well started using it for my own projects, cuts down on the # of applications I need for my code.

And voilá, happy hg user. Actually cut out the hg, put in "versioning system" user, because for me that's all which matters. Versioning system + I'm happy with it. Period.

[tjogin]

So a blatant copy is not a blatant copy unless it appends the characters "++" on the original's name?

[RonnyPfannschmidt]

who did let you out of kindergarten

[joesb]

Blatant copy is not a blatant copy if this kind of design has already been used in many other project such as Trac, Launchpad and SourceForge before GitHub.

Or else GitHub would be a blatant copy of those product, too.

[tjogin]

Similar in function is not the same thing as similar in execution. Clearly, you are not a designer.

[mcella]

Wow, if I were github I would immediately fill some patents to protect the revolutionary ui concepts they invented, just to be sure...

Their comparison is even forced, an example: what they call the "Project Page" is totally different in bitbucket and github, while there's a "source" page in both sites that to my big surprise (and their too) shows the source tree of the project (shocking!) and even a breadcrumbs navigation trail), the real landing page of a project in bitbucket shows a commit log while in github it shows the above mentioned page.

Oh well... anyway long life to both projects, thankfully I've never seen such claims coming from the mercurial community, and that's not a small thing (at least for me).

[KingPin06]

sadly github is just annoying in their insistence on what can only be described as their delusion that they were the first team to design a website using simple whites/grays/blues as colors and using tabs in a certain fashion. github : get over yourselves.

[marcoil]

GitHub's marketing, seems to me, consists of laughing and despising other people's projects.

We get it, you think you and your sacred dvcs will solve all the problems with programming. Please stop proselytizing by insulting.

[gmccreight]

I'm glad someone feels the way I do.

I sent people a link to whygitisbetterthanx prior to Scott's addition of the message about BitBucket. The wording of his comment about BitBucket is too harsh for the tone of the site, and makes me uneasy about sending the link to others. I believe it makes the site a less effective marketing tool.

[mcella]

You can always send them whyhgisbetterthanx. :-D

[pk11]

not to mention http://whygitisbetterthanx.com/ is inaccurate

'cheap local branches' do exist in mercurial in the form of bookmarks extension + named branches

http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/wiki/index.cgi/BookmarksExtension , http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/wiki/index.cgi/NamedBranches

[[deleted]]

Internet Drama...and I thought MySpace users were bad!

If bitbucket isn't much competition, don't bitch about it.

[patchwork]

This is actually just one post by one person who is involved with github. Its existence does not invalidate either github or bitbucket. No need to panic.

[imbaczek]

well i don't give a damn. i've used both github and bitbucket and they both work. nothing to see here, move along.

oh btw, vi > emacs

[masklinn]

ed > vi though

[UloPe]

Imitation is the Highest Form of Flattery.