GitHub is sinking (opens in new tab)

(dbushell.com)

165 pointsherbertl4h ago102 comments

102 comments

Everyone wants to pin this on the Microsoft acquisition or incompetence but it seems pretty clear to me from the material GitHub has posted that AI has 10xed the amount of code being committed to GH, which has downstream effects everywhere - CI, Actions, code ingestion, everywhere. The author pins it on weird things like MS Copilot, which kind of feels like he’s listing off things he doesn’t like rather than casual favors. This is ignoring the 800 pound gorilla in the room.

18 more replies

oarsinsync3h ago

I went to look at a repo on Github today. Clicked on the "xxx commits" link to see the commit history, and got told I've hit a secondary rate limit and need to wait.

I'm the only person on this network that would even look at Github, and my connection has a dedicated IP, no CGN.

4 more replies

ricksunnynew9m ago

I like the "written by human" banner at the bottom - that's a first for me and will be glad to see others adpot similar.

>Written by human All opinions are my own and not those of a large language model. Everything I write is one hundred percent human. Because I care!

tbolt3h ago

“GitLab - enterprise grade, meaning it’s bloated and confusing but it’ll impress your boss. This could be the choice if you need multiple meetings to make the choice.“

lol!

2 more replies

sccxy37m ago

Living in Eastern Europe has its perks. I hardly ever notice big GitHub outages because of time zone.

I'm also happy with how generous their free hosting and actions are.

phyzix57612h ago

For $5 a month I can host a server and put a bunch of projects on there. Yeah, I don't have a million stars on my repos but it works for what I need and I can give access to whoever I want.

n_e3h ago

I'm not sure what to make of the graph.

On the one hand the acquisition of GitHub may have caused the availability to be worse.

On the other hand, the 100.00% availability before the acquisition looks suspicious, wondering if it's not just the status page being better updated.

(I'm aware of the recent availability problems with GitHub, but on the graph the problems start in 2020 and don't seem to worsen significantly)

summa_tech3h ago

It sort of feels like no major open source repository can be possibly left well enough alone. I remember how SourceForge went down the drain, it's a real pity to see same happen with GH.

Side note: I read the URL as "dBus hell". We've all been there m8

1 more reply

coolgoose3h ago

So, what's the actual real alternative ? The one that also supports open source projects ? Ironically gitlab is costlier than github, and not without their faults, but that's "maybe" the only other alternative here, anything else ?

3 more replies

Thom20001h ago

Github still doesn't support SHA-256 git repos (https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/12490) even though their competitors (Gitlab, Codeberg) have that for ages now.

ben8bit1h ago

I would not be surprised if AI commits are the culprit. There is no way any service would cope with a constant stream of unfettered commits by sleepless always-on agents. Ironically, this same strategy seems to be what GH/MS (and other big companies) are evangelizing - and therefore dying by their own hand (in a way).

iamkrazy3h ago

I installed forgejo on my home server and never looked back. The only problem I face is when hosting an app on DigitalOcean App platform, or vercel etc. They only connect to GitHub.

4 more replies

mariocesar3h ago

Agree with Gitlab as an enterprise alternative. Beautifully boring and safe to have complex teams and permissions. Also has a good enough Terraform support, and a nice workflow to host docker images

rbbydotdev3h ago

I wasn't expecting to see the outages being nearly the same even before the 2023 ai inflection point

i_love_retros41m ago

I think they went too far with AI internally. Complete collapse in quality of internal engineering practices.

pelasaconew23m ago

People used GitHub's free infrastructure for over a decade without complaining. Now AI-generated spam and massive amounts of low-quality code are increasing costs everywhere, and suddenly GitHub is the bad guy for acting like a business. Criticizing centralization is fair, but pretending GitHub gave nothing to open source is just dishonest. Alternatives today, are probably going to be flooded by the low-quality AI generated code tomorrow...

imagetic2h ago

Anyone would buckle right now. Microsoft just sucks more at it.

shevy-javanew9m ago

It will be a long way before GitHub dies, but it is definitely sinking. Slop is killing it. I think Microslop, 'xcuse me, Microsoft, realises this too, but there is nothing they can do now that they committed to AI fully. I feel sad for the GitHub engineers, because they write pointless blog entries nobody believes anymore. Meanwhile existing services erode in quality. It's like in a submarine. You have one hole. You manage it. Well, more and more holes pop up the following days. We know where this is headed then ...

QuiCasseRien2h ago

onedev onedev ondev

I still don't see this tool when it's about a forge. It is a fantastic tool. Seriously guys, you should really consider it !

1 more reply

ChrisArchitect2h ago

Ghostty is leaving GitHub

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47939579

Before GitHub

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47940921

Days without GitHub incidents

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48012022

GitHub Actions is the weakest link

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47933257

GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47923357

kevinios1h ago

> Network effects are hard to topple but if anyone can do it, Microsoft can.

rvz3h ago

I have lost count of how many times something went down on GitHub ever since documenting it on this comment chain [0] and also predicting 6 years ago [1], that going all in and centralizing everything on to GitHub was really not a good idea if you need stability or to push a critical fix and your GitHub actions doesn't work.

Now, are you going to finally self host or should we continue to expect another outage on GitHub?

This time, there is no CEO of GitHub to help us. It is Copilot, and Tay.ai that are still struggling to maintain GitHub.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37395238

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22867803

1 more reply

functionmouse2h ago

Extinguish

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

102 comments

johnfn3h ago

18 more replies

oarsinsync3h ago

I went to look at a repo on Github today. Clicked on the "xxx commits" link to see the commit history, and got told I've hit a secondary rate limit and need to wait.

I'm the only person on this network that would even look at Github, and my connection has a dedicated IP, no CGN.

4 more replies

ricksunnynew9m ago

I like the "written by human" banner at the bottom - that's a first for me and will be glad to see others adpot similar.

>Written by human All opinions are my own and not those of a large language model. Everything I write is one hundred percent human. Because I care!

tbolt3h ago

“GitLab - enterprise grade, meaning it’s bloated and confusing but it’ll impress your boss. This could be the choice if you need multiple meetings to make the choice.“

lol!

2 more replies

sccxy37m ago

Living in Eastern Europe has its perks. I hardly ever notice big GitHub outages because of time zone.

I'm also happy with how generous their free hosting and actions are.

phyzix57612h ago

For $5 a month I can host a server and put a bunch of projects on there. Yeah, I don't have a million stars on my repos but it works for what I need and I can give access to whoever I want.

n_e3h ago

I'm not sure what to make of the graph.

On the one hand the acquisition of GitHub may have caused the availability to be worse.

On the other hand, the 100.00% availability before the acquisition looks suspicious, wondering if it's not just the status page being better updated.

(I'm aware of the recent availability problems with GitHub, but on the graph the problems start in 2020 and don't seem to worsen significantly)

summa_tech3h ago

It sort of feels like no major open source repository can be possibly left well enough alone. I remember how SourceForge went down the drain, it's a real pity to see same happen with GH.

Side note: I read the URL as "dBus hell". We've all been there m8

1 more reply

coolgoose3h ago

3 more replies

Thom20001h ago

Github still doesn't support SHA-256 git repos (https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/12490) even though their competitors (Gitlab, Codeberg) have that for ages now.

ben8bit1h ago

iamkrazy3h ago

I installed forgejo on my home server and never looked back. The only problem I face is when hosting an app on DigitalOcean App platform, or vercel etc. They only connect to GitHub.

4 more replies

mariocesar3h ago

Agree with Gitlab as an enterprise alternative. Beautifully boring and safe to have complex teams and permissions. Also has a good enough Terraform support, and a nice workflow to host docker images

rbbydotdev3h ago

I wasn't expecting to see the outages being nearly the same even before the 2023 ai inflection point

i_love_retros41m ago

I think they went too far with AI internally. Complete collapse in quality of internal engineering practices.

pelasaconew23m ago

imagetic2h ago

Anyone would buckle right now. Microsoft just sucks more at it.

shevy-javanew9m ago

QuiCasseRien2h ago

onedev onedev ondev

I still don't see this tool when it's about a forge. It is a fantastic tool. Seriously guys, you should really consider it !

1 more reply