On 02/09/2014 11:50, Evgeny Khramtsov wrote:
OK, you're the one. And a lot of people here want github. And seems like the argument is still the same "all-proprietary-trendy-shiny-things", i.e. no arguments. Proprietary. So what? Trendy-shiny. And?
I realize that not everybody here use XMPP for the same reasons, but having an open standard which allow to run free (libre) softwares is a strong reason for - I think - several of us, and using a proprietary and centralized software to manage this standard is a problem for - I hope - most of them. It's the old debate open source vs free (libre) software. XSF/XMPP is an important part of free (libre) software ecosystem, and moving it to github would be in my opinion a very bad signal.
Beside this ethical consideration, today anyone can post using any email server, or contact XSF member using any XMPP server. If people move on a proprietary platform, we are limiting the access to those who have an account on this platform, and those who are allowed on the platform (github probably allow anybody to use their platform, but they have the power to block anybody at their will).
The data is blocked on the server: is there an easy way to dump everything (and I mean everything: bug reports, comments, pull requests, etc) and reuse it without legal restriction ? Is there a way to reinstall exactly the same thing easily ? I guess the answer, as it's proprietary software.
We can add to this the impossibility to customise the behaviour (proprietary software), the already mentionned term of use issues (commercial service), the single point of failure (centralized tool), etc.
I don't like to know that everything I put somewhere is potentially used by companies to track me down or make statistics (e.g. for job offers): my code is open and most of my comments are easy to access anyway, but it's just too easy if everything I do is on something centralized like github.
Github is a very convenient tool which we can use freely. Gosh, it's just a tool... But we like when it's all complicated :)
A tool is not neutral, and there is not only one way to make think simple (and it's actually more simple and easy to use email than to force people to create an account to a service).
Goffi
