
Announcing unlimited free private repos - razer6
https://blog.github.com/2019-01-07-new-year-new-github/
======
iambateman
A lot of people are concerned about the “what if they make me the product
since I’m no longer paying.”

A few reasons I don’t think that will happen:

\- private, single contributor repos tend to be pretty small. it costs Github
very little to service a single account.

\- Github is a growing social network for developers. Getting young engineers
on the platform for free will pay off handsomely when they join a team and
automatically assume Github is their code storage tool of choice.

\- Microsoft gets the reputation points for running the de facto developer
social network (other than Stack Overflow).

GitHub is in the strange position of being both a successful enterprise
product AND a social network. What other product exists with that kind of
crossover? Microsoft will continue to optimize their enterprise revenue from
GH and I think this is a tremendous step forward toward building the network
long term.

~~~
smartmic
It is no surprise but sound business reason that private repos will be
available for free.

For some background, check this HN classic: "Commoditize your complements"
([https://www.gwern.net/Complement#2](https://www.gwern.net/Complement#2))

~~~
franciscop
Very interesting article. It could be argued that the
webapps/internet/browsers are now doing the same to the OS. For casual uses
any OS is the same.

~~~
xapata
Yes, Microsoft realized that long ago. Gates and Balmer prolonged the
inevitable through monopoly power, but Nadella has accepted the future and is
"turning the aircraft carrier."

It's amazing that Microsoft came back to life from being a zombie company. In
hindsight, it was such a large zombie that it had sufficient time to change
business models. Somehow Sears wasn't. There's a business school case study
and tenure buried in there.

~~~
sonnyblarney
If by 'zombie company' you mean raking in massive amounts of money and growing
spectacularly every year? [1]

MSFT has changed in some positive ways, but since Satya took over, growth has
been actually flat-ish to negative overall until 2018 (a good year).
Paradoxically, MSFT stock was flat during the Ballmer years when there was
rock solid consistent growth.

The 'new MSFT' things is quite overrated in terms of what it really means for
the company overall. We HN readers tend to considerably overvalue actions that
might seem positive, such as things like open source contributions. MS VS Code
is great, but it's not hugely material next to core business. Most of the
world really does not care, and they are buying gadzooks worth of MSFT
products and services. For better or worse.

[1] [https://www.statista.com/statistics/267805/microsofts-
global...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/267805/microsofts-global-
revenue-since-2002/)

~~~
Latteland
When I last worked there and ballmer was running things, he thought he was
doing great cause he got more money each year from stupid enterprise
agreements with stupid companies. But the innovation was really slow and it
was all about increasing the value of what they had, windows. The world was
moving on without them.

Satya nadella made a surprising change for Microsoft. If a company is going to
last long term they have to do more than look at their own navels. You can't
just focus on squeezing more money out of your existing lemons.

Happening now at Apple?

~~~
m0zg
Look, as an ex-MSFT person I'm only glad to see someone shit on Ballmer. I
didn't like the guy myself. But the pillars of today's Microsoft success were
all created by him. Azure? Ballmer. Subscription services (and Office 365 in
particular)? Ballmer. XBOX? Ballmer. Satya gets _way_ too much credit for what
Microsoft is today. I feel that's mostly because he looks better on stage, and
that's a very low bar. A raging gorilla looks better on stage than Ballmer.

~~~
Chris2048
Can you show me that Ballmer created XBOX?

------
nickjj
While I think this is a great move, don't forget that private repos also means
no more free Travis CI.

Gitlab CI however offers 2,000 build minutes a month with their integrated CI
service.

Even if your whole set up takes 10 minutes to build on CI, that's 200 builds a
month which is plenty for an individual project that's on a private repo.

In other words, I think Gitlab's free private repos + CI is still a better
choice for a solo developer who wants private repos since CI is such a useful
tool and other external CI services have much more limited free plans (to use
with Github instead). Having everything in the same UI is also really useful,
which is another win for Gitlab.

I prefer Github's UI for overall repo exploration and issues, etc.. but I'm
not sure if I'll move my private repos over to Github now that's it free,
because the repo itself is only 1 piece of the puzzle.

Microsoft also has a deep connection with Docker. It's kind of no surprise
that Docker only has automated build support for GitHub and Bitbucket. Kind of
a bummer, but with Gitlab CI you can get the same effect in the end.

~~~
0x0
Also, the best part about gitlab CI - it's super easy to install gitlab-runner
on your own and enjoy unlimited build minutes, even on the free plan. Plus you
get to set up your buildbot environment just the way you like - even with
access to LAN-only resources in case you need them.

~~~
scarface74
I hate to keep beating the dead horse-but you can do the same thing via MS’s
Visual Studio Devops aka Visual Studio Online with a local build/deployment
agent.

~~~
rjbwork
And you can do the same thing with personal licenses of your chosen ci server
and you can throw in a personal deployment server to boot (i like octopus).

I actually just use Appveyor if I can for my personal stuff.

~~~
scarface74
And then I have to manage two more servers....

------
stupidcar
One of the best uses of GitHub is being able to search for some obscure
framework method name or enum constant, and find examples of working code that
uses it. This has saved my life many times when trying to figure out how to
configure Java frameworks to interact with each other.

When searching for this kind of code, you have to wade through an awful lot of
repos containing half-baked personal projects, experiments, unmodified clones
of upstream frameworks, and barely-modified boilerplate examples. It would be
nice if there was less of this detritus clogging up the search results.

However, sometimes the code you actually _want_ is embedded in some otherwise
useless, half-baked personal project, or barely-modified boilerplate example.
So if all these projects disappear behind a veil of privacy, maybe it won't be
a net win.

~~~
jmuhlich
Honest question: how do you make github search work for you? It often fails to
find stuff that I _know_ exists in a given repo. Nothing fancy, even single-
word full symbol names.

~~~
mschuetz
I've found usefull code snippets on github via google in the past.

~~~
koheripbal
How do you search for those exactly?

------
balls187
This is a smart move.

Gives developers who have small indy projects a reason to use Github rather
than a competitor (I know I use gitlab precisely because it's free for my
private one-off repos).

~~~
StavrosK
My move to Gitlab was basically "come for the free repos, stay for the rest of
the amazing features". I will not be moving off it, and my new repos will keep
being on Gitlab.

~~~
hellofunk
What features of Gitlab do you prefer?

~~~
StavrosK
The integrated CI is amazing, the Docker registry is nice, the issue boards
are great, the saner permission model (you can add multiple people as
repository owners without putting them in a team), these are the things I can
recall off the top of my head.

------
boramalper
Competition in a free market is good, but in the presence of monopolies, it's
a self-destructing concept.

TechCrunch wrote[0] "This feels like a sign of goodwill on behalf of
Microsoft, which closed its acquisition of GitHub last October, with former
Xamarin CEO Nat Friedman taking over as GitHub’s CEO." I believe it's more of
a sign of an attempt to kill GitHub's rivals by hurting their revenue streams.
As Aaron Levie, co-founder and chief executive of Box once said in 2014,
“These guys will drive prices to zero, [...] you do not want to wait for
Google or Amazon to keep cutting prices on you. ‘Free’ is not a business
model.”[1]

[0]: [https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/07/github-free-users-now-
get-...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/07/github-free-users-now-get-
unlimited-private-repositories/)

[1]: [https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/25/technology/box-dropbox-
an...](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/25/technology/box-dropbox-and-hightail-
pivot-to-new-business-models.html)

~~~
markmark
It's tough when your competition can give away their product and fund it
through their bottomless pockets and money they make on other products.

I used to work for a great company in the developer tooling area, one of the
big players came directly after us, ramped up a team, started copying our
features and gave the product away for free. We were still doing well when I
left, but it'll be interesting to see how it goes over the next few years.

~~~
closetCS
This might be a naive comment, but isn't that predatory pricing. By dropping
prices to zero and trying to purposely hurt your competitors, you effectively
gain a monopoly on that industry.

~~~
aarongray
Github's competitors are already providing the same service for free. Github
is dropping their prices from $7 / mo to free to compete.

~~~
dogweather
But they're not. They created a new, feature-reduced repo type to make
free/private. The marketing hides this, and you need to dig to the
"Comparison" section to see it:

[https://github.com/pricing#feature-
comparison](https://github.com/pricing#feature-comparison)

~~~
aarongray
Good point, it's not the exact same. But their new offering is much closer to
what their competitors are offering, so I'd say it's still a move to try to
better compete with the free offerings from other companies.

------
mroche
For those of you using GitLab, BitBucket, or <insert-other-git-host-
competitor-here>, does this make you consider switching back at all? If so,
why?

It may be myopic, but the only major reason I can think of is visibility if
you plan on publicizing the repo at some point. But you can achieve this by
using GitHub as a mirror for your main repo on another platform (at least for
GitLab, I’m not familiar with BitBucket).

Edit: Personally, I use GitLab (both .com and I've set up/maintain several
sefl-hosted solutions). I originally tried out GitLab due to lack of private
repos on GitHub, and I don't see a reason I should switch back at this point.
The open development and attitude towards the product and community has been
part of that.

~~~
philwelch
Nope.

Github was always the go-to option and there was no reason to really even
consider alternatives at first. People said "Bitbucket has free private
repos!" for years and that was interesting but not compelling. Few users left
Github because their competitors had free private repos.

Github got acquired, and that acquisition basically erased any and all user
trust in Github as a company because they no longer control their own destiny.
Instead we have to trust Microsoft. And that was a big enough shock for people
to actually consider all of the competitors instead of just defaulting to
Github like they did before.

To some extent, I suspect people paid for private repos from Github because
they believed in supporting Github as a company and $7/mo isn't that much.
Nobody believes in supporting Microsoft as a company. Microsoft charging for
private repos is like Disney having a Patreon account.

~~~
EduardoBautista
> Nobody believes in supporting Microsoft as a company.

I believe Microsoft has been doing amazing things for developers the past few
years.

~~~
philwelch
Sure, but you're not going to give Microsoft money because you like them and
want them to do well, and that was probably the main motivation behind paying
for private repos. It was never purely a value proposition of, "private repos
are worth $8/mo", it was a value proposition of, "Github is a valued part of
the community and I'm willing to pay a token subscription fee in exchange for
some token extra features". Partially because, well, it takes money to run
Github and if people don't support them, they'd go broke and have to find some
big corporate entity to acquire them.[1]

Sure, that motivation started to erode the longer that Github stayed around
and the more money they made on their enterprise products, but there was never
a sudden shift that forced anyone to reconsider the question until Microsoft
came in.

[1] Editing with footnote: This is also one reason Bitbucket struggled despite
having free private repos. Atlassian is big and corporate and widely resented
already, so they couldn't even _offer_ that value proposition anymore than
Microsoft can.

~~~
EduardoBautista
Bitbucket offered free private repos and was struggling before it was acquired
by Atlassian.

------
klinskyc
While understandable, this is sad to see. The amount of interesting and useful
code that is currently available due to GitHub defaulting to public will
likely be seriously negatively impacted by this.

~~~
gtaylor
I can only speak for myself, but I had simply put all of my private stuff over
in GitLab instead. For folks like me, this will result in no external change.
Just a question of where I stash stuff.

~~~
d23
Yeah, I've just been using bitbucket for this purpose for years.

~~~
fareesh
Same here but now I will probably switch to GitHub because I like their
product.

~~~
codazoda
One more, except I was one of those paying $7 a month to GitHub for the
private repo's.

------
neom
"Due to a scheduling error, we published this story one day before the embargo
lifted. This feature isn’t live yet, but Github will formally unveil it
tomorrow. When that happens, we’ll update this post with a link to the
official announcement. "

Not even an apology in there, would have expected more from TNW.

~~~
nsriv
I'm sure they apologized to Github, even if they didn't apologize to you for
reading it.

~~~
neom
Ah that's good to know. Do you have a copy of the apology? Sadly, I don't have
access to Chris Wanstraths email.

~~~
slenk
I'm sure Microsoft will be fine

------
grepthisab
Awesome, awesome, awesome. I know I have no right to think that anyone would
care for a moment about the code I'm writing or the potentially money-making
side-projects I'm working on, but I am paranoid about entities like
current/future employers and third parties seeing what I'm developing in
private. I often just keep those local and back them up privately to an SD
card, or go with private bitbucket (which is harder because I do all my at-
work development on GitHub).

This will significantly increase my use of GitHub.

------
apetresc
So, when I go to downgrade my Pro account to the Free tier, it warns me:

> You will no longer have access to unlimited collaborators or advanced code
> review tools in private repositories. > You will still have access to
> unlimited private repositories.

So it seems some functionality beyond just unlimited collaborators that is
tied to the Pro account - but the blog post makes no mention of what these
"advanced code review tools" could be. Anyone know?

~~~
siminuk
Hi! I work at GitHub.

All the details are listed on the official pricing page in the feature
comparison section: [https://github.com/pricing](https://github.com/pricing)
and in the docs: [https://help.github.com/articles/github-s-billing-
plans/#bil...](https://help.github.com/articles/github-s-billing-
plans/#billing-plans-for-personal-accounts)

~~~
codazoda
As far as I can tell, neither of those resources describe "advanced code
review tools".

What does that mean? What are these code review tools?

The help document does talk about Protected Branches and Code Owners but those
seem different than code review tools and "code review" is listed in the free
plan.

~~~
judge2020
Looks like a bunch of "insights" are disabled -
[https://i.judge.sh/Flutter/Doom/rNqHUIG3.png](https://i.judge.sh/Flutter/Doom/rNqHUIG3.png)

------
mayli
That's the one of the reasons I stay with bitbucket or gitlab. If they offer
this feature at the very beginning, I would never touch bitbucket/gitlab, but
now both of them offering free build-in CI(public and private). I am hesitate
to migrate back.

~~~
judge2020
If it helps. Github is currently in beta for their own CI/CD platform:
[https://github.com/features/actions](https://github.com/features/actions)

------
nfrankel
I don't understand that much awe. BitBucket offers unlimited private repos for
up to 5 contributors, and GitLab has _no limit_. Much ado about nothing...

~~~
stevekemp
BitBucket has a terrible UI, historically suffers from outages, and is owned
by Atlassian which is yet another downside.

------
ausjke
This is not about revenue percentage or anything revolutionary etc, this is
about matching up competition offers: both gitlab and bitbucket are doing
this, especially bitbucket who has unlimited private repo from the start, this
is a catch-up move, nothing more than that.

------
dogweather
I think I'm the only person who's noticed that these free private repos are
2nd tier, with features removed; the marketing glosses over that.

~~~
jakebasile
The press release barely mentions it but it's true. The free private repos are
cut down, including bizarre hold-backs like wikis. GitHub's wikis aren't
great, but why hold them back? It's kind of mind boggling.

~~~
Arnavion
Public repo wikis would get read by an arbitrary number of people. Private
repo wikis would only get read by the 1 to 3 repo collaborators. So perhaps
they thought it wouldn't be a big deal to disallow them.

~~~
jakebasile
But if it's such a small deal, why remove it?

------
saagarjha
I'm curious if GitHub is now a loss leader for Microsoft, or if personal
subscriptions were a small portion of their revenue.

~~~
TheRealWatson
I have zero insight on this but I also don't know anyone in my circle who pays
individually for Github... When they need that, they use Bitbucket.

I know several people I worked for or did business with that paid for
Organization accounts, from Team to Enterprise.

~~~
Zamicol
It sounds like recently they sorted things out, but Bitbucket's interface was
buggy to the point of unusability for me. Some scary permission issues like
not being removed from a corporate team.

~~~
laurentl
Bitbucket’s website is slow as hell. I actually physically cringe when I have
to do something through the website (e.g. create a pull request) because I
know I’ll be staring at slow-loading pages for the next 5 minutes, even for
something that’s 3 clicks away.

~~~
sgt
And their new sidebar interface is not only slow, but also not very intuitive.
It really makes me want to migrate our corporate repositories to GitHub.

------
bg0
GitLab has had this issue for EVER and I just switched to bitbucket a few days
ago because of it: [https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-
ce/issues/15140](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/15140)

I wish I had waited a few more days now.

------
johnvega
This was the reason why I mostly use GitLab for several years now. I prefer to
make public those code that are refactored, well crafted and documented.

------
aarongray
I have been a vocal critic of Microsoft acquiring GitHub, but gotta give
credit where credit is due - this might be enough for me to move my private
repos back to GitHub.

------
globetrotter33m
It still asks me to setup a subscription plan with cc to create a new private
repo. What am I missing? Or has the upgrade not rolled out to me yet?

~~~
robinhood
The CEO just said that "Give it a couple hours. We had to announce a day early
due to a press leak.".

[https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1082346814802518016](https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1082346814802518016)

~~~
fareesh
Works for me

------
bravura
"Private repositories on free accounts are limited to three collaborators
apiece."

So let's be clear here. If I have 10 private repos, I can have 30
collaborators? Or they must be the same three.

~~~
sgc
At most you could have 21? You are de facto a collaborator I would presume.

~~~
koolba
27?

~~~
wccrawford
10 (repos) x 2 (collaborators) + 1 (owner) ? 21.

~~~
fernandotakai
it's 3 collaborators not including the owner.

~~~
wccrawford
At the time we didn't know that. This thread was counting how many people it
could be assuming that the owner was counted as a collaborator.

------
nyxtom
I actively avoid using GitHub private repositories for this very reason since
I have too many 7-9/month subscriptions it all adds up fast. This actually
will encourage me to start some fun project ideas more now that I know I can
rely on the private repos.

------
ggcdn
So now what benefits does a subscription offer for a casual developer?

If the 3 collaborator limit isn't a problem, is there any reason to keep a
subscription?

~~~
paxys
I imagine they'll eventually remove individual plans entirely. Microsoft
probably doesn't care about the tiny revenue from random developers paying
them and would rather focus on enterprise plans.

------
__john
One thing I like about bitbucket/atlassian over github is bitbucket's
pipelines[1] and the bitbucket-pipelines.yml file. I really wish github had
something like that.

[1][https://bitbucket.org/product/features/pipelines](https://bitbucket.org/product/features/pipelines)

~~~
derimagia
Github does have "Actions" which is their version of this which is in beta:

[https://github.com/features/actions](https://github.com/features/actions)
[https://developer.github.com/actions/creating-github-
actions...](https://developer.github.com/actions/creating-github-actions/)

~~~
__john
I didn't know this existed, thank you for pointing it out.

------
l9k
Can a Github.io website be freely hosted with a private repo?

~~~
gedy
Looks like no longer:

`Upgrade to GitHub Pro or make this repository public to enable Pages.`

------
memborg
Well, either Way I will not leave Gitlab anytime soon.

~~~
fractalf
+1 Gitlab is awesome! Cool community oriented developers and a ton of more
features. I see no reason too use github when gitlab is just better. It's also
offered as a self hosted service.

~~~
EduardoBautista
That’s my exact issue with GitLab. They have a ton of features but they are
not the best at any of those features.

~~~
sytse
What feature did you find lacking?

~~~
EduardoBautista
I find the GitLab issue board to have a poor UX. For example, depending on
where you click, it will open a small summary to the right or it will open a
new page with all the issue information.

Also, it is ridiculously expensive to have epics, compared to every other
issue tracker I have seen, in GitLab issues.

~~~
pedroms
Hi Eduardo, I'm a UX Designer at GitLab working on issue boards. If you click
on the issue title, it will open the issue in a new window. If you click
somewhere else in the issue card, it will open the summary sidebar. But I
agree with you that it can be confusing and not the best UX! To improve it, we
are planning to redesign the sidebar so that you can see most (if not all) of
the issue's information, removing the need to open the issue in a new window.
You can track the discussion and designs in this epic:
[https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-
org/-/epics/383#note_108940...](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-
org/-/epics/383#note_108940213) Feel free to participate and share your
thoughts.

I'd love to hear more about your painpoints with issue boards (and issues in
general).

------
russley
That's cool. I have no problem paying a bit each month for more features on
GitHub so hopefully they add more powerful features, but free private repos
for individual projects is great since GitHub for many people is a portfolio.

------
bovermyer
Anyone know when this is supposed to be turned on? I'm still seeing the old
system/verbiage on the GitHub Billing page.

~~~
tinyhouse
They just updated it a few minutes ago! By the time the blog post was out it
was still asking for a credit card. Now it doesn't. They really rushed things
out because of that TNW mistake!

Like many others here I'm also pretty happy about it. $7/month is not a lot of
money but I also moved some personal private repos to BitBucket to avoid the
fees. I will probably go back now.

~~~
bovermyer
Yeah, I'm in the process of migrating all of my GitLab repos to GitHub now.

My workflow is GitHub+CircleCI, so GitLab was never a big win for me; I just
used it for the private repos.

------
miguelmota
The power of free stuff

Jun 4 2018: (microsoft acquisition) Github sucks!

Jan 7 2019: (free repos) Github rocks!

~~~
adtac
Or, you know, they're different people.

------
mehrdadn
I wanted to take a moment to point something out.

I think most people here would agree that "unlimited free private repos" is
not considered lying when in fact the free private repos are limited to 3
collaborators... correct?

So why is it that when the subject turns to cell phone data, suddenly
"unlimited data" is considered lying when the speed is then limited past a
certain point?

(Yes, I get that one service is paid and the other is free, and that you don't
look a gift horse in the mouth, but those are beside my point.)

~~~
adrianmonk
Another difference is that, with GitHub's announcement, there are multiple
ways to interpret it because there are different things that the modifier
"unlimited" could apply to. It could mean:

1\. Unlimited number of repos, each of which is limited (by user, as it turns
out).

2\. Limited number of repos, each of which is unlimited.

3\. Unlimited number of unlimited repos.

When there are multiple ways to interpret and you find out someone has picked
one of them, it doesn't feel like they are being disingenuous.

Whereas with cell data plans, there's only one thing they could reasonably
mean is unlimited: the data. So they've changed what "unlimited" means. It is
limited, but there aren't overage charges.

~~~
mehrdadn
In cell plans it's exactly the same thing though. The amount of data vs. the
speed can each be artificially limited separately. They obviously mean the
amount is unlimited whereas people somehow take it to mean both the amount and
the speed are unlimited.

------
mark_l_watson
Well, I think this is a pleasant surprise. I have many public github projects
(code for various books I have written and a bunch of small open source
projects). I have paid for a pro plan for many years because I like to keep
very rough code experiments private, and maybe make them public if they ever
get sufficiently mature.

I just took Microsoft/github up on their kind new deal and cancelled my pro
plan at the end of the current yearly billing period.

Thanks Microsoft/github!

------
asdkhadsj
I'll be curious to see how much Git-LFS is offered. I've been using Gitlab for
private repos, but I need LFS as well.

Also, will be curious to see the pricing structure - if this changes anything.
The sad thing about Github is I always liked it more than competition, and I
_wanted_ to pay, but the price felt a bit steep for my usage. Since private
will now be free, I hope they have some type of $4/m price range for solo
devs, slightly better than free.

------
ACow_Adonis
From my own perspective,this results in me doing two things:

\- cancelling my paid subscription: but in truth I was planning to do this
anyway and moving to self-hosted in some way...I just wasnt getting relative
value paying to just have private repositories for my own projects (I don't
want contributors, but that doesn't mean I want my work to be public).

\- but I will now as a result keep my repositories and activities on github.
So this is a win for me: less work for now.

------
thameera
Does anyone have a source for this news beyond the TNW article that's being
shared everywhere? I couldn't find any official announcement from GitHub.

~~~
matthewjhughes
I'm the author of this post. The article has been updated to clarify that I
accidentally published it one day before the embargo lifted. GitHub will
formally announce the news tomorrow.

~~~
niij
I would've deleted it as soon as you noticed. Might not have stopped people
from noticing (nothing on the internet is ever deleted blah blah), but might
have improved the optics a bit.

~~~
godot
I am also curious why he didn't remove the post as soon as he noticed? Does
TNW have policies regarding published stories not being removed?

------
jdlyga
This is the main reason I used GitLab. Can't make student Git repositories
public!

~~~
kennethy
Students are usually eligible for free private repos.
[https://education.github.com/pack](https://education.github.com/pack)

------
jadbox
I'm still only seeing the free plan in Github as " Free plan, unlimited public
repositories". Is this a slow rollout or something?

~~~
http-teapot
Nat Friedman (GitHub's CEO) says in the next couple of hours:
[https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1082346291290468352](https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1082346291290468352)

------
androidgirl
This is awesome!

I used to start my repos on Gitlab in private mode before publishing them
publicly on Github. A huge time saver here!

------
Hoasi
This is a bold move. That should prevent a potential exodus to other
companies, post-Microsoft acquisition, although doubtful if such a bleed in
customers occurred yet. GitHub is far ahead of everyone else thanks to its
user interface anyway. This should at least force the competition to step up
big time.

------
karmakaze
In case anyone's curious about mirroring Github <-> Gitlab, there's a doc
page[0] for it.

[0]
[http://docs.gitlab.com/ee/workflow/repository_mirroring.html](http://docs.gitlab.com/ee/workflow/repository_mirroring.html)

~~~
mroche
This is what I do for anything I make that I think would be easier to find on
GitHub. And vice versa for my own build tools so I can accumulate the projects
I use from GH under one group on GitLab.

------
samblr
Private repos with maximum of 3 collaborators are now allowed.

------
whalesalad
I've been paying $7 a month since like 2010. Woohoo!

------
zubspace
Does this somehow apply to git-lfs, too?

This is quite important for game development, where binary assets grow faster
than you can think. Azure DevOps includes unlimited, private lfs-storage for
small teams. [1]

I also wonder how microsoft prevents abuse in such an environment, but that's
another question...

[1]
[https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/devops/2015/10/01/announcin...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/devops/2015/10/01/announcing-
git-lfs-on-all-vso-git-repos/)

------
vinay_ys
Is there a reason to use github free over gitlab free for private projects?
From what I can tell, gitlab has much better features and more features/limits
available for free.

~~~
dsumenkovic
Hey Vinay, there's also a notable difference, at GitLab you don't have a limit
to 3 user per private project.

------
yashness
[https://blog.github.com/2019-01-07-new-year-new-
github/](https://blog.github.com/2019-01-07-new-year-new-github/)

------
HaoZeke
Am I the only person who thinks this isn't a big deal? Honestly get is not a
personal storage space, it's capped at 1GB.

As a service anything I build privately will need more than three
collaborators. Especially for things which are traditionally kept secret like
academic software.

Maybe this might help freelancers but proliferationf private repos with very
few contributors is an anti pattern.

Gitlab is still the clear winner for private use while Github remains the most
active for public repos.

Nothing has changed.

------
abricot
On the free plan gihub Pages still only works in public repos.

------
AdmiralAsshat
Well hey, something GitHub lifted from GitLab, for a change.

------
huac
My strategy of avoiding this banner paid off:
[https://cl.ly/224133cb505d](https://cl.ly/224133cb505d)

~~~
cturhan
Haha, same here.

------
vortico
So what commercial service will GitHub offer to monetize at all? Ads? Data
collection? I don't see a reason for anyone to pay for GitHub now.

~~~
niij
There's enterprises and teams paying. This announcement is only for individual
plans.

------
ackidacki
Is this even a surprise, the industry moved to a per user model a while back,
inc Bitbucket. So its unlimited private repositories but you pay big time to
get more than 5 users sharing that repo.

It's surprising most people here aren't picking up on that. If you have more
private projects on that make money. It's more likely you have more
collaborators that you have to pay.

------
mherrmann
What a clever move. They probably make most of their revenue from medium to
large companies, which will not be affected by this switch. At the same time,
they're taking away one of the USPs of many competitors. This will increase
GitHub's domination of the space even more, and thus be a net positive,
despite the foregone revenue.

------
bkrishnan
Bitbucket has had free private repos for the longest time. Any compelling
reason to move small private projects to GitHub?

------
echelon
I was just about to move everything to Gitlab for this very reason. I've
always preferred Github, so this is fantastic.

Thanks, Microsoft!

------
the_unknown
I've been using BitBucket for years because it allowed me to do a free private
account. Since then I've set 3 companies up with their own accounts there -
the monthly spend isn't huge with any of them but that's money that would have
been going to Microsoft had GitHub had a free starter option.

------
gsaga
Isn't that 3 contributor limit just a virtual limit. Assume there are 5
contributors (A, B, C, D, E) for a project. The organization could do this:

1\. Create two private copies of that repository

2\. A, B, C contribute to the first repository

3\. C, D, E contribute to the second repository.

4\. C will maintain the synchronization

5\. One could write scripts for performing synchronization.

~~~
inapis
Few people, if any, have the time and willingness to do such stuff.

------
yakshaving_jgt
I imagine this will harm BitBucket somewhat.

~~~
frou_dh
In my case, Bitbucket will lose someone who was just using it as a dumb git
storage backend, and did not engage with the Atlassian products at all. I
assume that they won't be particularly bothered to see the likes of me drop
off.

~~~
nickjj
This is exactly how I see it too.

If anything this move might be beneficial for Bitbucket because if there's a
0% chance we would use their other paid products, we were just taking up
resources.

------
stevev
When your competitors (bitbucket/git lab) have been offering the same thing
for a while now, it only makes sense.

------
ocdtrekkie
I've been wanting to move a bunch of my old code into GitHub just for my own
convenience, but have strained a bit on what I do and don't want to share
publicly. Will probably take advantage of this and move most of it in private,
and then gradually shift things to public as I'm comfortable with it.

------
jjakque
To me, the biggest revelation out of this news was actually finding out both
BitBucket and GitLab already offers unlimited free private repos. I am now
highly incentivised to move away from self-hosted git server in order to store
my micro project repos which are heading to 3 digits.

------
CrankyBear
Those free private repos don't include pages, wikis, or repo insights. The
"new" $7 pro do.

------
PakG1
I know the new Microsoft seems different (and I'm a fan), but I can't help but
feel like we've seen this movie before.

Recall back when Internet Explorer was free and bundled with Windows, and
there was a whole antitrust lawsuit over it by the Department of Justice. What
was old is new again.

~~~
winter_squirrel
Is that really comparable? Github's competitors were already offering free
private repo so it's only natural that they try and keep up with the market.

------
danielmarklund
This means: GitHub now also offers unlimited free web hosting - with free SSL
certificates! Look into GitHub Pages and Jekyll. That is a big deal! And
something most people overlook.

------
badsavage
Many people will choose private then -> less public repositories. Github
looses its essence.

~~~
nathanyukai
I don't think so, If it's a public repository that means the owner have more
confidence and willing to collaborate, which is a good thing. Also, free
private repository -> more developers -> more repositories

~~~
badsavage
Good point

------
techaddict009
"Due to a scheduling error, we published this story one day before the embargo
lifted. This feature isn’t live yet, but Github will formally unveil it
tomorrow. When that happens, we’ll update this post with a link to the
official announcement. "

Well played @The Next Web :D

------
nevi-me
Good timing! I have a private Gitlab instance, but yesterday I was wondering
whether to go for a paid GH account so I can host a private repo there.

I intend on sharing the code when ready, but wanted issues history to be on GH
without needing to migrate anything.

This decision saves me $7 a month

------
fiveFeet
My employer, a financial services firm in New York, blocks both gitlab and
bitbucket due to their free private repos. Even though they allowed github
until now, I am worried that they will soon start blocking that as well! :(

------
thrownaway954
LOL!!! I was literally just having a conversation with a colleague to pay the
$7 a month to github so he can have private repos to publish his code.

Now all Microsoft has to do is buy up StackOverflow and they will corner the
developer social market.

~~~
tracker1
Given github + so + linkedin, it may make total sense for them. Not sure if I
want MS in that position. They aren't the MS of old, I'm just not sure I want
them that involved in the developer jobs market, more than they already are.

------
dejaime
And now that is a good move. I completely moved my repos to BitBucket due to
that simple yet game-changing feature (and then to GitLab for not so simple
ones).

I don't think I ever would have, if github had this. Not coming back though.

------
anonytrary
I probably won't move to Gitlab or Bitbucket, then. This was the number one
reason why I was considering it, now I can finally have personal private
projects on Github. Good move on Microsoft's part.

------
itsbits
I don't understand. I can see it was published 2 days ago but author says it
he mistakenly published 1 day before announcement. So Announcement should have
happened if it's for real?..Is this for real ?

~~~
dx87
The author accidentally scheduled it to be published on the 5th instead of the
8th, and wordpress automatically publishes things if the date they are
scheduled to be published is in the past.

------
ngcc_hk
I have to recall why I paid instead of using bitbucket 5 years ago this which
also have private repo free (for 5 accounts if I remember correctly). I think
it is easier to use and more common even then.

------
abhij89
I am pretty sure, bitbucket is going to get hurt with this move, and a little
hurt for gitlab too I suspect. But a very smart move specially for individual
developers looking to work on small side projects.

------
JCharante
Unlimited private repos was why at some point I used Gitlab, and why I was
grateful that my email address from an old educational institution still
worked. I'm glad that they're making this change.

------
tyteen4a03
I wonder if it is because they are noticing their userbase numbers slipping.

------
cjohansson
It’s all about developers, developers. Microsoft is desperately trying to
attract developers since many have left their platforms, GitHub doesn’t need
to be profitable on it’s own for Microsofts sake

------
pyrrhotech
I guess goodbye Gitlab. Only reason I used it was free private repos.

~~~
whoisjuan
Same here.

------
dstroot
GitHub = Free Public BitBucket = Free Private

I have 100+ repos on Github and about 30 private ones on BitBucket. Brilliant
move because now I will use Github exclusively.

I do wonder how they will monetize “me” though...

------
xucheng
Official announcement

[https://blog.github.com/2019-01-07-new-year-new-
github/](https://blog.github.com/2019-01-07-new-year-new-github/)

------
avivo
I just discovered I can't downgrade because I have at least one repo with over
three collaborators.

Has anyone figured out a quick way to determine which are the problem repos?
(I have a lot!)

------
michalu
Nothing unusual just standard Microsoft, first kill the competition (Gitlab)
then when you're a monopoly f*ck users over ... they did this with IE,
windows, etc.

------
undersheet
I love Github for open source and the community but for private repos I like
But bucket more. Don't know why but the overall interface feels cleaner, less
cluttered.

------
cturhan
Just in time!

My free academic discount expired a month ago. I was thinking to subscribe
$7/month but it seems like I won't need to pay.

I was even sold to 10 private repos with 1 dev shared :)

------
vijaybritto
"Due to a scheduling error, we published this story one day before the embargo
lifted."

This is really poor from TNW. They spoiled all the excitement in twitter
tomorrow!

------
gigatexal
Wow. Since Microsoft bought them they’re doing a lot of really interesting
things. If I was going to move my repos somewhere I’m not going to anymore.

------
darpa_escapee
Good timing. I switched over to GitLab this morning to host my dotfiles
because I have no other use for private repos on my personal GitHub account.

------
alliecat
This makes me uncomfortable.

Private subscriptions were a direct revenue stream for Github, and explained
directly how they can afford the infrastructure that provides the service.

Generally when previously paid stuff becomes free, it's because the paid
service is no longer a product - it's now a tool to attract users. How will
users be monetised now?

~~~
ufmace
They're now owned by Microsoft. Critical difference between Microsoft and
Google - Microsoft makes all of their money from direct sales and enterprise
contracts for their primary products, including Windows, Windows Server, SQL
Server, ActiveDirectory, Office, etc, while Google makes their money from
selling ads to you with as much targeting information as possible. So this is
now a loss leader for Microsoft, primarily to draw your attention to their
primary products, and any money it makes or loses is on too small of a scale
for Microsoft to care probably.

There's plenty you can criticize Microsoft about for sure, but they aren't
trying to gather boatloads of info about you, just keep you buying Microsoft
software.

Now that I think about it like that, maybe Google is infact becoming more evil
than Microsoft.

~~~
kyrra
(disclaimer, I work for Google, opinions are my own)

Depends on the product you are using and what kind of data you're talking
about. For Google, GSuite (the old Google Apps and GCP) are more business
focused and don't really capture data about you. Free-tier products will
gather more data to better target ads to you or to provide useful features.

For Microsoft, they do try to sell you products... but you have to look at
other products where they do gather data on you. I'm not sure what kind of
data they get out of Bing and outlook.com/Hotmail. Then you have LinkedIn,
which is all kinds of data gathering (though more Facebook style).

It's sort of hard to give blanket statements about many of the large tech
companies, as they have multiple divisions and products that operate
differently depending on the target markets.

------
m0zg
Microsoft just gave me $84/yr. Thanks, Microsoft. Almost as much as I'm paying
them for Office and 1TB of SkyDrive in fact.

------
scarface74
Just for context. Microsoft already offers free private repos, hosted builds,
etc for Visusl Studio Team Services aka Azure Devops....

------
xte
I do not want to depend on any proprietary platform, it doesn't matter if it's
friendly or not.

I favor a distributed model as much as possible, that means for now having
personal/projects classic websites, mirrored for instance on ZeroNet&c and
source code exchanged as much as possible only P2P. It's not comfortable now
but that's the sole possible free evolution path we have and only investing in
it now can ease situation tomorrow.

~~~
digianarchist
Git is a Distributed Version Control System. Just add another remote...

~~~
xte
Of course, like the trend "hey if it does not work for you write down your
code"...

On git only: what is another remote? A GitHub concurrent company? A personal
dyndns from a single developer with a fable ADSL?

On GitHub: many use it's proprietary characteristics like PR, wikies, pages
etc. That's not "portable" to any other remote if you do not count site-
scraping...

No, we need to focus on distributed/decentralized solution _now_.

In the past at least we use tons of different hosting most of them offered by
ISP that actually use hosted projects, universities that actually participate
in many FOSS project so while not distributed we are decentralized on
"friendly" systems. Not nearly all FOSS project is on a super-big-corp server.
Without any viable alternative ready to use.

~~~
mroche
> On git only: what is another remote?

A _remote_ is a URL location of a repository. A local git repo can point to
_multiple_ remotes by using the _git remote <opts>_ functionality. For
instance, you can point your local repo to GitHub, GitLab, and BitBucket and
choose which to push to using the command _git push <branch> <remote>_.

~~~
xte
Hem, no perhaps is my poor English but you do not understand: I know what a
git remote is. My point is what kind of "other remote" a typical FOSS project
have these days?

In the past we have tons of hosters so we can easily spread our code in many
"mirror", now there is GitHub and few others, mostly on the very same "cloud".

I mean you have no damn viable remote. Single devs can share code P2P but
nothing that can work instantly out of the box.

~~~
pwg
> My point is what kind of "other remote" a typical FOSS project have these
> days?

In the context of the original comment, think: "setup a /second/ remote" as
the meaning. If the first 'remote' is github, the second remote could be
gitlab, and so forth.

~~~
xte
Ah ok, so you change Microsoft cloud for Google cloud... UAU... And what about
PRs&c?

Sorry for being rude but for me is _unacceptable_ to depend on tons of
proprietary stuff from a handful of vendors. Even personal websites that use
Google Fonts, some JS framework directly from the "project" CDN (too hard to
keep it on your disk, up to date) etc...

We need to be _interdependent_ or _independent_ not dependent of few subjects
that make money on us for witch us are puppets. How can we say "it's FOSS" if
so? How can we have FOSS as the tip of a proprietary iceberg?

~~~
pwg
You do realize that git itself is vendor independent, right?

One can, if one chooses, setup a git repository on a spare PC in ones basement
and have a "git repository" into which one or more collaborators can "git
push" and "git pull" to/from.

In the context of the original post, to which you asked "what is another
remote", the second (or third, or fourth) 'remote' can be "any git repository
to which the individual has access".

Having a second remote does not, in an of itself, require that that second
remote be one of the proprietary git hosting systems, nor require that it be
one of the semi-proprietary or open source hosting systems. It could just as
well be plain git running in repository serving mode on an old PC.

See the documentation for the "git http-backend" and "git daemon" commands
that are built into the git distribution.

~~~
xte
Yes, git, however host a repo for anyone it's another story. In the past most
FOSS projects was mirrored by tons of different participants, mostly
universities, ISPs, companies with reasonable resource and being part of the
project itself they can be considered friendly.

now with GitHub&c excluding Savannah the sole friendly option is buy a domain,
a VPS and host there the project...

That's the problem, not technical but "political" to a certain extent.

In the past someone try GitTorrent to solve this problem a bit (opening the
door for "personal hosting at home" but it's a dead project now ad it was
never completed. Mostly because newcomers think GitHub&c as a free space by
nature, something guarantee to work always and been always free without any
other "occult" cost.

------
pasxizeis
I'm wondering if there's any chance that people that paid for the Pro plan a
few days ago, get a refund.

------
EGreg
Also I wonder if they will get a lot of accounts continuing to pay because
they missed this announcement. Perhaps most!

------
quangv
I notice that "wikis" for private repos isn't supported. What happens to these
wikis when I downgrade?

------
fuddle
Now I'm just waiting for GitHub CI. :)

~~~
snorremd
Maybe Github Actions qualify?
[https://github.com/features/actions](https://github.com/features/actions) I
must say it looks almost like Gitlab's pipeline system, but somewhat more
flexible. If Github's free plan allows you to use pipelines I might just have
to test it to compare.

~~~
ianwalter
It does. I'm using them now, but they might still be only available to beta
users right now.

------
pytyper2
I always got unlimited repos, i have unlimited email accounts. it's just good
opsec to run multiple accounts.

------
arthurcolle
Cool, immediately downgraded to free account. Any chance of refunds for the
last 6 months I was forced to pay?

------
smsm42
Nice. I wonder though whether in 5 years they won't discover it costs them
money and decide to take it back.

------
goerz
Are the "PRO" badges that have been showing up on Github profiles today in any
way related to this?

~~~
timdorr
Yes, they indicate paying customers.

~~~
goerz
Ah! I’d forgotten that I had a “paying account” through some educational
promotion.

------
rhacker
Gitlab's entire business model has just been attacked. We are unlikely to
shift over because we us CI.

------
Kagerjay
I only have github base level membership for private repos

Does this mean I no longer have to pay for these services?

------
RileyJames
One of the few online services I saw enough value in to pay for. I guess I can
stop now. Sweet deal.

------
etxm
Does anyone know if they are “auto downgrading accounts” if you currently pay
for private repos?

~~~
ncallaway
I don't believe they are. It's pretty easy to go downgrade if you want to,
though.

------
cgtyoder
Still amazed that anyone uses this site for more than trivial work, given that
this language exists in their TOS:

"GitHub has the right to suspend or terminate your access to all or any part
of the Website at any time, with or without cause, with or without notice,
effective immediately. GitHub reserves the right to refuse service to anyone
for any reason at any time."

~~~
napsterbr
Not agreeing or anything, but it seems a pretty standard TOS clause.

------
michaelcampbell
That would have been cool before I moved all my private stuff to gitlab.com.
Ah well, too late.

------
eyeareque
Thanks Microsoft, you just saved me $84 dollars a year. I just cancelled my
paid account.

------
chaostheory
This was the main reason I moved away from github. It's late, but still a
welcome move.

------
usaphp
That was the reason I moved to bitbucket, now i don’t see a reason to go back
to github.

------
neuralFatigue
Is `git clone <private repo SSH url>` for private repos broken for anyone else
?

------
dmix
That sucks. I just bought a 1yr subscription last week...will they issue
refunds?

------
eddieone
I canceled my subscription, $7 for a UI to a git server. It was kind of lazy
tax on individuals.

What bothers me is that this move didn't seem as well planned and prepared for
than previous changes, not a good sign. github has a certain flow, hope MS
doesn't destroy that.

------
lettergram
Well, if true -- I'll be canceling my subscription :D

Thank you Github / Microsoft!

> Due to a scheduling error, we published this story one day before the
> embargo lifted. This feature isn’t live yet, but Github will formally unveil
> it tomorrow. When that happens, we’ll update this post with a link to the
> official announcement.

Also... kinda unfair to others.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
> Well, if true -- I'll be canceling my subscription :D > Thank you Github /
> Microsoft!

What a weird way to thank a company. I get it, but still.

~~~
snazz
Did they just cut off a significant source of revenue, or do companies that
subscribe to Enterprise make them so much more money that it doesn’t matter?

~~~
sdesol
Now that they belong to Microsoft, direct revenue is no longer as important.
GitHub will probably be treated as a loss leader for the time being, with the
long term goal of making it an Enterprise leader.

Microsoft will be more than happy to use GitHub for analytics, AI/ML research
and to drive developers to their other offerings, especially their cloud ones.

Edit: Updated error from "lost" to "loss"

~~~
herodotus
Just FYI - its "loss leader"
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_leader](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_leader)),
although "lost leader" made me chuckle: I thought, for a second, maybe you are
talking about Apple instead of Microsoft.

------
noarchy
One fear that has come to mind: Microsoft pulls a Google and tries to force
Github and LinkedIn to work together somehow - like requiring a login from one
to use the other. I hope they have the presence of mind to not poison Github
with LinkedIn in any way.

------
wetpaws
Uh oh, my dear bitbucket

------
ralphc
ok, for my $84 a year I'm now on "Github pro". What does "pro" get me beyond
private repositories? Anything a solo developer would want?

------
robertlf
I'm sticking with Bitbucket. It works just fine for me.

------
jMyles
So, Microsoft cares more about capturing the complete social graph of the
software community than it does about direct revenue from an already not-very
profitable (or perhaps not at all profitable?) acquisition.

Got it.

~~~
Joeri
Microsoft has both linkedin and github, meaning they have the social graph of
the government, business and the technology spheres. That social graph is
arguably even more valuable in terms of revenue opportunities than facebook's.
Direct revenue of linkedin and github might as well be irrelevant.

~~~
jMyles
Yeah, that's exactly what I'm thinking.

So, what's their social graph play?

~~~
Kadin
I don't think this is a "social graph play". I think it's about them realizing
that the small amount of revenue they get from individual subscriptions is
worth less than the free advertising/marketing they get by making it free for
individuals, and then letting developers advocate for GH inside organizations
which end up buying Enterprise licenses.

This is more about getting people to use (or keep using) GitHub for their
personal projects so that it seems like a natural/obvious/default choice for a
bigger-budget project, and that's where the revenue is.

------
xaduha
And I just got Gitea working on my ARM mini-server.

------
h1d
It's funny to think people trust 3rd party to hold their proprietary source
code which could be your biggest IP. I'm hosting my own Gitea for business
related codes.

------
jcoffland
This seems like a negative for Open-Source.

------
holtalanm
well there goes 90% of the reason I still had a BitBucket account. brb
migrating my private repos to Github.

------
hermantwa
Gotta put your hands on that juicy data.

------
johnwyles
whew! so many future and present half-finished projects should start
disappearing (including mine)! woohoo!

------
mongol
Has anyone here used AWS CodeCommit?

------
tfha
If only the code was open source

------
johnabela
Weehoo, free private repos!!!

------
ar_lan
Hm... not working for me :(

------
ransom1538
[deleted]

~~~
kreetx
Seriously? Can you elaborate?

~~~
BoorishBears
Just by the nature of the comment, dropping such an inflammatory claim with 0
context or evidence, you can tell they were probably flagged with good reason.

------
rmc
Remember SourceForge?

------
cdnsteve
YES! * runs off to finally push that Hello World app into a private repo :D _

------
danbrooks
Best part of my day!

------
happppy
AT LAST.

------
DataJunkie
WOOHOO!

------
lauragift21
Great News

------
projectramo
Wow. So now it is as good as GitLab!

------
ziont
no longer need bitbucket

------
kreetx
I like the last two paragraphs :p

------
sytse
I think it is great for users that private repos are now free up to three
users. This is especially great if you're starting to program and don't want
to feel ashamed of your code but don't have a paid account.

I like to think that increased competition from us (GitLab) contributed to
this change, we recently passed 10m repositories on GitLab.com

At GitLab we think that repositories will become a commodity and we're
focussing on making a single application for the entire DevOps lifecycle.

I think Microsoft will try to generate revenue with people using Azure more
instead of paying for repos.

Also see our blog post [https://about.gitlab.com/2019/01/07/github-offering-
free-pri...](https://about.gitlab.com/2019/01/07/github-offering-free-private-
repos-for-up-to-three-collaborators/)

~~~
jmurzy
Are people really ashamed of their code? How are they even able to assess the
quality of their code especially when they are just getting started? It feels
sort of a Catch-22. Also, how does making private repos free help here?

I think a more encouraging move would be to have people with all experiences
share as much of their progress as possible so that people who are getting
started can find inspiration and learn to overcome their "imposter" feelings.

------
wjd2030
just microsoft being evil here. clearly.

------
lowlevel
About time.

------
darylfritz
Nobody has mentioned the official GitHub announcement yet?

[https://blog.github.com/2019-01-07-new-year-new-
github/](https://blog.github.com/2019-01-07-new-year-new-github/)

~~~
minimaxir
That was just posted (in response to this embargo break)

------
TekMol
"private" in the sense that only you and Microsoft can access it :)

------
STRiDEX
Is this the ultimate evernote killer? I feel like every note hosting platform
for technical notes will be second to this.

------
writepub
Sure, theNextWeb had a "scheduling error", and this has nothing to do with
being the first to put this news out.

~~~
matthewjhughes
Look at the URL. The datestamp is set to the 5th instead of the 8th, when the
embargo for the news lifts. The only reason this post was published early was
because a stupid typo when scheduling it.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
And, on a numeric keypad, the 5 is directly below the 8, supporting the typo
hypothesis. Tweets from the author:

> _Oh fuck me._

> _I just accidentally published a major piece of news one day early because I
> 've got butterfingers and typed the wrong number in the scheduler._

> _Is it too early to start drinking?_

> _Wordpress is fucking stupid. If you schedule something for \_ in the
> past\\* it should say "er, are you sure?" instead of just immediately
> publishing the post.*

What I find most interesting about the fiasco is that TheNextWeb.com's
editorial process consists of the stock Wordpress "Schedule a post" function
[1] which includes this lovely tidbit:

> _Tip: Always double check the date at the top of this calendar before
> clicking publish, and verify that it correctly says AM or PM_

Trying it out in a test instance of Wordpress, he's correct: The initial
status of a new post is "publish immediately." [2] Clicking "Edit" brings up a
date editor. [3] And "OK" doesn't warn you if your date is in the past. [4]
Finally, clicking the "Publish" (which could read "Schedule") generates a post
with the URL /01/05/ that's visible immediately with no warning. [5]

Note the visibility and status options above the date: Wordpress does support
some options for "draft" or "pending review" options with private/password-
only visibility, but apparently TNW - a business that draws $15 million in
revenue, is among the top 20,000 websites, and has dozens of employees -
didn't use them before this oops.

I somehow assumed that there would be a red-tape process involving legal,
editorial, and managerial oversight before you could get any content to the
front page of a site like this. Not sure after seeing this if TNW is just
playing fast and loose, or if everyone is...

[1] [https://en.support.wordpress.com/schedule-a-
post/](https://en.support.wordpress.com/schedule-a-post/)

[2] [https://i.imgur.com/0CxPYhS.png](https://i.imgur.com/0CxPYhS.png)

[3] [https://i.imgur.com/qa7emUd.png](https://i.imgur.com/qa7emUd.png)

[4] [https://i.imgur.com/svyNS6K.png](https://i.imgur.com/svyNS6K.png)

[5] [https://i.imgur.com/dPyURfD.png](https://i.imgur.com/dPyURfD.png)

~~~
otras
You actually responded to the author (matthewjhughes), which also supports the
typo hypothesis.

