Github has made it impossible to create an account when using a VPN and a privacy browser with fully spoofed hardware identifiers. (Use Firefox or Firefox-based Privacy Browser, VPN, install Canvasblocker to test this.) I create an account with Google or Apple (both requiring hardware identifiers and numbers and birthdates) or I can use an email. When I use an email, it comes back with this horrible test, and even if I do it completely correctly, it tells me after I didn't do the test right, gaslighting me with a picture of what I chose (which I didn't choose) and showing me the correct picture (which I did choose and it claims I didn't select).
It's fucking bullshit and it's more corporate control of open source software. For people who have their discussion or issue tracker, I can't even participate without hardware identifiers likely linked to me some other way and phone numbers. It's fucking bullshit. If anyone from Microsoft is reading this, FUCK YOU!!!!!!!!!!
I am so tired of this bullshit. I just want to post an issue about a piece of software. You don't need my fingerprint, hardware or personal, or biometric shit. This is a slippery slope. Fuck them.
I really hope more developers just get the fuck off Github. Honestly, if you are developing privacy-oriented software and using github, there's a mistmatch and it's bullshit, and I know it's time consuming and annoying to move, but please do. This is fucking bullshit and it's not like it's going to become LESS annoying over time. FUCK THIS.
I’m not sure I would want completely anonymous, unknown, and unaccountable actors to be able to comment, submit issues, and submit PRs on my repos. So, it’s annoying, but the alternative is so much worse.
Serious question, how old are you?
Why would that possibly matter to you?
What do you think the internet was like pre-Facebook?
Ah, that’s what you mean. Yes, I remember the internet before Facebook. I also remember software development before distributed version control. It was easier to keep track of incoming patches when they were all in email. Not better, but easier.
I’ve been managing open source libraries and projects for two decades. In general, community involvement is good, but anonymous, ephemeral community “members” are very rarely helpful, and way more often a pain in the ass.
That's a weird outlook. I would postulate that (pseudo-)anonymous passer-bys are collectively probably the most valuable contributors to open-source. That one random well-researched easily-reproducible obvious-in-hindsight issue or patch that makes you go wtf.
Annoyance would come from people who would create a "community" construct in the first place, even if it didn't exist or was needed, just to be a busyworking "member" of. And those types often wouldn't mind identifying themselves, if not for everyone, for a host like GH.
Recently, I've been frequenting an "anonymous" old platform or two which are nowhere near their peak, and have a very high ratio of pure drivel, just in hopes of running into the random anonymous passer-bys of old mentioned above. Passer-bys who would never come near the M$/AI ID-requiring enshitified GH of today. And what do you know! I've seen issues (mostly performance ones) show-cased related to a couple of tools I contribute to, that neither I nor the upstream developers knew about.
Anyway, what I was actually hinting at is that online communication existed for a long time before ID-centric social media came into the scene. This even predates the web itself (newsgroups ...), and it wasn't exactly an unmanageable wild west. Most spaces in fact were much nicer than the ID-centric social media platforms of today.