git stash
November 13, 2019 2:48 PM Subscribe
If you've created or contributed to a public project on GitHub, now's a great time to tidy up those TODOs: on February 2, your code will be snapshotted, printed on polyester film, placed in a steel-walled container, and deposited inside a sealed chamber within a decommissioned coal mine on the remote Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, just down the road from the Global Seed Vault.
Too bad the climate's wrong for using Code Monkeys.
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:03 PM on November 13, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:03 PM on November 13, 2019 [2 favorites]
How do you restore from this backup?
posted by mikelieman at 3:06 PM on November 13, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by mikelieman at 3:06 PM on November 13, 2019 [6 favorites]
Oh hey, a publicity stunt to distract from their renewing a contract with ICE.
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:11 PM on November 13, 2019 [31 favorites]
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:11 PM on November 13, 2019 [31 favorites]
How do you restore from this backup?
posted by mikelieman
Very carefully?
posted by Splunge at 3:14 PM on November 13, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by mikelieman
Very carefully?
posted by Splunge at 3:14 PM on November 13, 2019 [1 favorite]
Oh hey, a publicity stunt to distract from their renewing a contract with ICE.
If someone hasn't already gotten on the "Microsoft is evil" train during the last 35+ years, I'm not sure a recent government contract for an on-prem service is going to be the thing that finally makes the difference.
posted by sideshow at 3:17 PM on November 13, 2019 [2 favorites]
If someone hasn't already gotten on the "Microsoft is evil" train during the last 35+ years, I'm not sure a recent government contract for an on-prem service is going to be the thing that finally makes the difference.
posted by sideshow at 3:17 PM on November 13, 2019 [2 favorites]
yawn
not the post, but archiving github? i cant imagine anything more self indulgent
posted by Dr. Twist at 3:21 PM on November 13, 2019 [5 favorites]
not the post, but archiving github? i cant imagine anything more self indulgent
posted by Dr. Twist at 3:21 PM on November 13, 2019 [5 favorites]
independent of how folks regard github, or this effort, i'm still delighted to learn about the company piql, and this whole process of using analog tech to archive digital tech. thanks.
posted by rude.boy at 3:32 PM on November 13, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by rude.boy at 3:32 PM on November 13, 2019 [6 favorites]
This Svalbard stunt is really silly. As my friend Marc tweeted, "Seems like putting things on ICE is badly timed, here."
Meanwhile, As GitHub’s Conference Begins, Five Employees Resign Over ICE Contract an inevitable followup to GitHub is trying to quell employee anger over its ICE contract. It’s not going well. There was a protest at the GitHub conference today, too.
posted by Nelson at 3:37 PM on November 13, 2019 [13 favorites]
Meanwhile, As GitHub’s Conference Begins, Five Employees Resign Over ICE Contract an inevitable followup to GitHub is trying to quell employee anger over its ICE contract. It’s not going well. There was a protest at the GitHub conference today, too.
posted by Nelson at 3:37 PM on November 13, 2019 [13 favorites]
Wow, that's a *lot* of effort to SEO hack searches for "github ice"
posted by tonycpsu at 3:47 PM on November 13, 2019 [36 favorites]
posted by tonycpsu at 3:47 PM on November 13, 2019 [36 favorites]
The child classes will be kept in a separate steel container, weeping softly before their immigration hearing.
posted by benzenedream at 4:00 PM on November 13, 2019 [33 favorites]
posted by benzenedream at 4:00 PM on November 13, 2019 [33 favorites]
Plant genomes invariably have viruses that end up having inserted themselves into the host genome over the millennia, lying dormant, until these Vault seeds may need to be awoken or otherwise studied by surviving generations to come.
Could be interesting if someone were to insert some assembly or bytecode-like, platform-independent virus or worm into a public Github repo somewhere, locked into a static collection like this, just waiting to be revived by technologists years from now.
Or this could just be a stunt, sure, but it's fun to think about the broader implications and possibilities of locking things away. Can't really trust code, at the end of the day.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 4:08 PM on November 13, 2019 [3 favorites]
Could be interesting if someone were to insert some assembly or bytecode-like, platform-independent virus or worm into a public Github repo somewhere, locked into a static collection like this, just waiting to be revived by technologists years from now.
Or this could just be a stunt, sure, but it's fun to think about the broader implications and possibilities of locking things away. Can't really trust code, at the end of the day.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 4:08 PM on November 13, 2019 [3 favorites]
Piql's website text sure is breathless.
I found a 2018 thesis, The Current State of Photochemical Film Preservation: A Closer Look at Motion-Picture Film Stocks and Film Laboratories [PDF] which mentions
"Piql claims that the film will last 500 years under optimal storage conditions if kept in its special container. For retrieval, the digital data written to the film will need to be re-digitized. A special machine called a PiqlReader is used to scan the film and an open source software decodes the data. The technology is marketed as ‘future-proof’ because it uses the advantages of film as an archival medium. However, this process is still dependent on the future operation of complex scanning and decoding technologies for data retrieval."
posted by readinghippo at 4:09 PM on November 13, 2019 [3 favorites]
I found a 2018 thesis, The Current State of Photochemical Film Preservation: A Closer Look at Motion-Picture Film Stocks and Film Laboratories [PDF] which mentions
"Piql claims that the film will last 500 years under optimal storage conditions if kept in its special container. For retrieval, the digital data written to the film will need to be re-digitized. A special machine called a PiqlReader is used to scan the film and an open source software decodes the data. The technology is marketed as ‘future-proof’ because it uses the advantages of film as an archival medium. However, this process is still dependent on the future operation of complex scanning and decoding technologies for data retrieval."
posted by readinghippo at 4:09 PM on November 13, 2019 [3 favorites]
This is one of those circumstances where open-source software seems to be of limited utility if it's dependent on proprietary hardware.
posted by ardgedee at 4:23 PM on November 13, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by ardgedee at 4:23 PM on November 13, 2019 [2 favorites]
Now that I think of it, there are many things in my GitHub repos that deserve to be encased in metal and tossed into an abandoned coal mine. Thanks, GitHub!
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 4:30 PM on November 13, 2019 [17 favorites]
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 4:30 PM on November 13, 2019 [17 favorites]
not the post, but archiving github? i cant imagine anything more self indulgent
Yeah, it's only got a copy of like, 9/10 of the most important software on my computer, what a stupid waste of time.
Making sure there are good backups of everything on GitHub seems like an obviously good and important thing to do. It's wrong to shit on it because you are pissed off at Github-the-company's other actions.
posted by value of information at 4:46 PM on November 13, 2019 [3 favorites]
Yeah, it's only got a copy of like, 9/10 of the most important software on my computer, what a stupid waste of time.
Making sure there are good backups of everything on GitHub seems like an obviously good and important thing to do. It's wrong to shit on it because you are pissed off at Github-the-company's other actions.
posted by value of information at 4:46 PM on November 13, 2019 [3 favorites]
I have a personal github subscription but I don't want to support them as long as they abet ICE. What are my alternatives assuming I need something based on git and want the same kinds of pull-request and review workflows?
One of the brilliant things about git (and, basically all distributed CVS's) is the fungibility of repositories. So if I knew where to go instead, it would be very easy to do so.
posted by sjswitzer at 4:53 PM on November 13, 2019
One of the brilliant things about git (and, basically all distributed CVS's) is the fungibility of repositories. So if I knew where to go instead, it would be very easy to do so.
posted by sjswitzer at 4:53 PM on November 13, 2019
I haven't used it yet, but Sourcehut seems extremely good and is run by someone extremely competent.
posted by value of information at 4:55 PM on November 13, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by value of information at 4:55 PM on November 13, 2019 [1 favorite]
Hah! At my work, we (after a long, arduous, process of approval) just open sourced the code for our main product. It's on github. Neat to think it will be archived with this.
FYI if you want to host your git repositories but don't want to use github, there's always bitbucket.
posted by quaking fajita at 4:55 PM on November 13, 2019
FYI if you want to host your git repositories but don't want to use github, there's always bitbucket.
posted by quaking fajita at 4:55 PM on November 13, 2019
BitBucket is a good alternative to GitHub. So is GitLab. Note that the important thing GitHub does isn't hosting git; that's easy. It's all the other infrastructure like the issue tracker, page hosting, etc.
Making sure there are good backups of everything on GitHub seems like an obviously good and important thing to do
I agree; it'd be terrible if GitHub lost important data they host. But what does that have to do with burying a write-only text copy on film in Svalbard? Do you imagine some GitHub engineer is going to dig up the film and scan it next time one of their server's hard drives fails?
posted by Nelson at 5:12 PM on November 13, 2019 [2 favorites]
Making sure there are good backups of everything on GitHub seems like an obviously good and important thing to do
I agree; it'd be terrible if GitHub lost important data they host. But what does that have to do with burying a write-only text copy on film in Svalbard? Do you imagine some GitHub engineer is going to dig up the film and scan it next time one of their server's hard drives fails?
posted by Nelson at 5:12 PM on November 13, 2019 [2 favorites]
"This place is not a place of honor…no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here… nothing valued is here.
"What is here is dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger."
posted by webmutant at 5:18 PM on November 13, 2019 [12 favorites]
"What is here is dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger."
posted by webmutant at 5:18 PM on November 13, 2019 [12 favorites]
I agree; it'd be terrible if GitHub lost important data they host. But what does that have to do with burying a write-only text copy on film in Svalbard? Do you imagine some GitHub engineer is going to dig up the film and scan it next time one of their server's hard drives fails?
The idea of committing important stuff to a long-term store so that it's around in a long time seems good. We prize art and literature that has been preserved from centuries ago today. Why would we not want to preserve modern creative work similarly, especially if we can preserve a ton of it relatively cheaply because it's all in one place?
It's easy for me to imagine a world 50 years from now where there are really great projects from 2019 which have disappeared because the context had changed such that nobody found them useful for anything anymore, and then a world 100 years later where someone digs them up from some long-term store like this and finds cool and useful stuff in them, either because they are trying to fit together pieces of some old software system, or because they just think it's fun to put themselves in the shoes of the people writing old code and see what they did. It's the same reason I care about the Internet Archive.
posted by value of information at 5:21 PM on November 13, 2019 [3 favorites]
The idea of committing important stuff to a long-term store so that it's around in a long time seems good. We prize art and literature that has been preserved from centuries ago today. Why would we not want to preserve modern creative work similarly, especially if we can preserve a ton of it relatively cheaply because it's all in one place?
It's easy for me to imagine a world 50 years from now where there are really great projects from 2019 which have disappeared because the context had changed such that nobody found them useful for anything anymore, and then a world 100 years later where someone digs them up from some long-term store like this and finds cool and useful stuff in them, either because they are trying to fit together pieces of some old software system, or because they just think it's fun to put themselves in the shoes of the people writing old code and see what they did. It's the same reason I care about the Internet Archive.
posted by value of information at 5:21 PM on November 13, 2019 [3 favorites]
If you thought Linear A was bad, take pity on the future archaeologists who have to decipher Perl 5.
posted by mbrubeck at 5:30 PM on November 13, 2019 [18 favorites]
posted by mbrubeck at 5:30 PM on November 13, 2019 [18 favorites]
sjswitzer: "I have a personal github subscription but I don't want to support them as long as they abet ICE. What are my alternatives assuming I need something based on git and want the same kinds of pull-request and review workflows?
One of the brilliant things about git (and, basically all distributed CVS's) is the fungibility of repositories. So if I knew where to go instead, it would be very easy to do so."
I self-host git using gitea, which is pretty easy to get up and running.
posted by namewithoutwords at 5:54 PM on November 13, 2019
One of the brilliant things about git (and, basically all distributed CVS's) is the fungibility of repositories. So if I knew where to go instead, it would be very easy to do so."
I self-host git using gitea, which is pretty easy to get up and running.
posted by namewithoutwords at 5:54 PM on November 13, 2019
a sealed chamber within a decommissioned coal mine on the remote Arctic archipelago of Svalbard
...with a sign on the door that says "Beware of the leopard seal"
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 5:59 PM on November 13, 2019 [7 favorites]
...with a sign on the door that says "Beware of the leopard seal"
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 5:59 PM on November 13, 2019 [7 favorites]
> BitBucket is a good alternative to GitHub. So is GitLab.
not to derail too much, but gitlab does business with CBP.
posted by guybrush_threepwood at 6:48 PM on November 13, 2019 [2 favorites]
not to derail too much, but gitlab does business with CBP.
posted by guybrush_threepwood at 6:48 PM on November 13, 2019 [2 favorites]
That they're doing this is neat in its odd way, that they feel they can bypass consent with "Nah, GDPR's got a cutout for us" feels... less neat.
posted by CrystalDave at 7:10 PM on November 13, 2019
posted by CrystalDave at 7:10 PM on November 13, 2019
Is this down the road from the same global seed vault that flooded a few years ago and needs air conditioning to stay the right temperature?
posted by clawsoon at 7:26 PM on November 13, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by clawsoon at 7:26 PM on November 13, 2019 [1 favorite]
Yeah, that's the one:
But soaring temperatures in the Arctic at the end of the world’s hottest ever recorded year led to melting and heavy rain, when light snow should have been falling. “It was not in our plans to think that the permafrost would not be there and that it would experience extreme weather like that,” said Hege Njaa Aschim, from the Norwegian government, which owns the vault.posted by clawsoon at 7:28 PM on November 13, 2019 [5 favorites]
Github's idea is silly. But theodolite's post title is ::chef's kiss::!
posted by Frayed Knot at 7:31 PM on November 13, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by Frayed Knot at 7:31 PM on November 13, 2019 [4 favorites]
It's wrong to shit on it because you are pissed off at Github-the-company's other actions
I'm not shitting on it because I disapprove of their other activities (even though I do), I'm shitting on it because it's just achingly self important.
posted by Dr. Twist at 8:14 AM on November 14, 2019 [2 favorites]
I'm not shitting on it because I disapprove of their other activities (even though I do), I'm shitting on it because it's just achingly self important.
posted by Dr. Twist at 8:14 AM on November 14, 2019 [2 favorites]
If you thought Linear A was bad, take pity on the future archaeologists who have to decipher Perl 5.
Should be easy since Perl 5 was designed by a linguist. /s
Whatever they pick, I'm wondering if they chase down dependencies to make sure everything is complete and there's no missing LeftPad.
posted by zengargoyle at 10:24 AM on November 14, 2019 [1 favorite]
Should be easy since Perl 5 was designed by a linguist. /s
Whatever they pick, I'm wondering if they chase down dependencies to make sure everything is complete and there's no missing LeftPad.
posted by zengargoyle at 10:24 AM on November 14, 2019 [1 favorite]
zengargoyle: Whatever they pick, I'm wondering if they chase down dependencies to make sure everything is complete and there's no missing LeftPad.
Not to mention the source code for the language interpreter and runtime, the compiler for the interpreter, and the machine code definition for the target architecture.
posted by clawsoon at 10:50 AM on November 14, 2019
Not to mention the source code for the language interpreter and runtime, the compiler for the interpreter, and the machine code definition for the target architecture.
posted by clawsoon at 10:50 AM on November 14, 2019
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