Dear GitHub "-a letter to GitHub in English:" Dear GitHub ... " An Open letter to GitHub

Dear GitHub "-a letter to GitHub in English:" Dear GitHub ... " An Open letter to GitHub

Recently, a group of Advocates of open source (including some of the most popular) protectors has gradually become stronger. The group has signed an underground letter to GitHub to vindicate their frustration and their complaints-they feel that they have been negligent and negligent by GitHub. Within a few days, the number of the participants was added to hundreds of (although, to be eccentric, some of them were "false-signed"). It contains JQuery, React Native, node. js, and many others that win the open Source name Target protector.

The group's main complaint is that GitHub lacks sufficient support and an appropriate, two-way communication channel. They insisted that the only response to their question was that "the blank response may not be the basis for a response" and that the evidence is the number of questions GitHub has never been able or unwilling to deal with. In a dialogue with InfoQ, James Kyle, one of the authors of the underground letter, said that at the time of his writing, he had gathered from all the participants a list of the large number of improvements that had been made. However, they chose to highlight three points in the final manuscript.

1. Because of the lack of customization, it is difficult to report problems through the problem tracker. This can be documented by providing a validation mechanism, such as custom fields and basic checks, to ensure that the problem takes all necessary information (for example, steps to reproduce the problem and the version to which the test was targeted);
2. There are too many "notes" in the comment system of the "Problem Tracker", which is important because there is no such thing as "+1" comments. This kind of comment on the extent to which the nominal protector understands the problem is sponsored, but it makes too many "notes" for the Protectors. This can be dealt with through a "one-level voting mechanism";
3. Problems and pull requests that fit the "contributing.md" guide are difficult to obtain. This is thought to be due to the fact that the "devotee guide" links to the content of GitHub is not conspicuous enough to form. The only way to handle this is to license the nominal protector to configure the file to be displayed at the top of the new problem/pull request.

InfoQ interviewed James Kyle in order to understand more about the emergence and intent of this underground letter.

　　Q: Can you describe how this "underground Letter to GitHub" was born and how it was realized?

All of this starts with a group of contrasting and lively sources of open source protection on Twitter. At first, I was advocating writing an underground letter to GitHub. I created a Google doc and invited them all out. I wrote a few paragraphs, listed the outline of the letter, and then sent it to the rest of the people, let them make up my concern to the letter. Initially there was a long list of improved initiatives, initially streamlined to about three.

　　Q: Do you think writing underground letters is the best way to confess your complaints about GitHub? How do you expect GitHub to answer you?

I thought writing the underground letter was the only way we could have cared about GitHub. All the authors who joined the signature wrote to GitHub to reflect on their ideas and product problems with the new features, but did not have any essential answers. GitHub is an ordinary product, but clearly not a flawless product. All the people who participated in the underground letters protected a large number of names, and they endured the shortcomings of GitHub on a large level. I think GitHub is one of the biggest devotees of open source because the fact that GitHub users are not a handful of people.

　　Q: In addition to the important three points mentioned in the underground letter, there is a structural problem between GitHub and the open source development community. How difficult do you think it would be if you were willing to deal with this problem?

This is an ordinary time for GitHub. According to GitHub's own analysis, "Dear-github" This code base has exceeded 55,000 independent visitors. What needs to be explained is that this article, announced on the "Hacker News", ranked 19th (and climbing) in all the historically popular posts. There are more than 800 signatures, and if you read them quickly, you'll invent a lot of famous names on GitHub. For me, it is clear that some of the goods have caught the consensus of the GitHub user base. Personally, GitHub should think of this as an opportunity. Desire GitHub will respond to us in some way, but I certainly don't want to be looking forward to it. In private, I'm not pessimistic about what I hear from former employees and today's employees at GitHub. Over the past three or four years, GitHub's stop has stunned me, and the open source community relies heavily on it, and it should be continuously improved like the rest of the product.

"Dear GitHub" sparked a swift response from another group of open-source developers, who signed another underground letter, "Thank you, GitHub," and the latter already has more than 200 signatures. The original supporter of Ruby on Rails and "Thank you, GitHub," said the latter, although it is a response to the former, but its own and the former is not too coherent.

It's good to ask GitHub for improvement initiatives and supply responses. But I invented that I didn't agree with some of the negative arguments in "Dear GitHub"--I used the refusal to endorse my disagreement. Instead, "Thank you, GitHub," has confessed a variety of different ideas, even "dear GitHub" People have sent a representative signed "Thank you, GitHub."

When asked about the "Dear GitHub" underground letter, a GitHub spokesman announced the following statement to InfoQ.

With regard to GitHub, open source is extremely important and we will look at this reaction carefully. We have begun to deal with some of the motions they are discussing, while pursuing more automated ways to connect with open source names so that GitHub can inherit the experience that is good for their community.

Dear GitHub "-a letter to GitHub in English:" Dear GitHub ... " An Open letter to GitHub