Hi,
On Sun, 27 Jul 2008, Tom Werner wrote:
> I find it a bit confusing that some here seem to have a strong dislike

quoted text
> for GitHub. It's true that we haven't been active on the developer list

> or in the #git channel on freenode, but we are constantly in #github and

> have answered a *great* many questions from developers that are new to

> git.

Speaking for myself, I will probably direct some users from #git to

#github, then.
The deeper reasoning: if you really do help by that channel, by all means

I want to provide you with the opportunity to do so.
> As mentioned earlier in the thread, the Ruby-Git binding that Scott and

quoted text
> I wrote has been open source from the beginning. While we did not

> announce it here, we have publicized it in the Ruby circle (where,

> presumably, people would most likely find it useful) and in fact there

> are currently 28 forks and 138 watchers of the project.

I find that limiting to the Ruby circle particularly unconvincing.  Sure,

they might care much more than me.  Much more, to be sure.
But when _I_ -- being around the Git list for a long time -- do not _know_

about something like a pretty well-working Ruby-Git binding, instead only

knowing a pretty stale effort on repo.or.cz by "corecode", then I think

communication channels are suboptimal.  Way supoptimal.
Because at times _I_ am asked if there is some Git interface for Ruby, and

it feels awkward that I am pretty familiar with Git's internals and

community, yet I do not know about such an _important_ piece of software

being available!
> Perhaps it is the commercial aspect of GitHub that offends.
In my opinion you can be as commercial as you want.  Nevertheless, I would

like to see some direct benefit for me, too, for obvious reasons.  That

does not need to be money; like Junio said, watching out for user

questions on the Git list would already be very useful, in two respects:
- the core developers have more time for hacking on Git itself (which

  would be good both for the developers as well as for you),
- if your advices can be enhanced (such as my gripe that "git show" is not

  even so much as mentioned, in spite of being _the_ porcelain to inspect

  objects in Git's object database, not cat-file, whose only role in

  tutorials can be to shoo new users away) it will be early, which again

  is a win-win situation for both core developers as well as for you, and
- just as in the past, I fully expect the main thrust of the major changes

  in Git to be driven by user experience (just think of Git 1.5.0), and by

  driving users away (and indeed, by driving yourself away, a bunch of

  power-users), you would make that much more unlikely to happen in the

  future.  So, having you closer to the Git mailing list and #git would

  again be a win-win situation.
> Having had to implement a git-daemon replacement that fit our needs, I

quoted text
> have some ideas on how to improve git-daemon and fetch-pack with

> regards to error messages and logging.

I might mention here that I think you are committing one of the biggest

sins in Open Source: you do not reap the full power of the community.
I am sure, if you would have mentioned your needs first, possibly followed

by an early version of a patch, git-daemon would already be enhanced to

your liking, and these enhancements would be available to everyone

(including me, for example).  But maybe that being available to everyone

is not in the best interest of a commercial outfit?
> We like to design from first principles, see how good we can do, and

quoted text
> then get feedback from the users.

Maybe this is so contrary to Open Source that many are uncomfortable with

it.
Also note that one of the major gripe with you making money off of Git

could be the following: we have over 500 contributors, and most of them --

first and foremost of all, the two major contributors, Junio and Shawn --

cannot make money from Git.  Envy is wrong, but it is real.
Do not get me wrong, I do not want to defend that behavior, but I think it

is a reality that you will have to cope with.
Ciao,

Dscho
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