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Got Hacking? Git Hacking. (githacking.com)

185 points by chrisbaglieri ↗ HN
We love Github! We love to hack! We love hanging out with other hackers and finding cool things to work on. Githacking is a way to find said cool projects. We just launched out of Philadelphia Startup Weekend.

Check us out, let us know what you think. Lots more to come.

47 comments

[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 77.0 ms ] thread
OwlHuntr
This is awesome! I hope this rolls out soon. Brings in more incentive to support open-source
btipling
I like the business model, but what prevents someone from looking at a developer's solution and incorporating it without paying the developer? Say the company is charged when they use the patching mechanism to bring developer's work into their product. What would stop them from simply going around this mechanism and just copy and paste the solution into their own repository?

Also is the developer responsible for fixing bugs in their solution? Can a developer exploit the process by submitting buggy code they'll be paid extra to fix? Can a developer be required to fix bugs in their solution?

If a company can't inspect code before they pay they can't be certain it's relatively bug free, if they can inspect the code they could use it without paying for it easily.

chrisbaglieri
You raise a great point. Still stuff to work out. This is the result of 54 hours of work (Philadelphia Startup Weekend) so definitely expect more in the coming weeks.
Bluepojo
The paid platform will be a bit more involved to get working, for sure. Right now we're focusing on getting this useful for open source projects to find collaborators then we'll worry about making it useful for companies.
catch23
I think it's a great idea. Our company has various projects on github that could use a second pair of eyes other than our engineers. We wouldn't mind putting a bounty on it if someone were to commit a python library or two.
koenigdavidmj
>What would stop them from simply going around this mechanism and just copy and paste the solution into their own repository?

They could have a reputation system somewhat like that on Mechanical Turk:

* You only pay someone if you like their solution.

* People working on tasks get reputation for how well they are doing.

* People offering tasks get reputation for how many people they are paying.

wlk
I actually spent a longer moment looking for signup form, then I started to think what to input there (email, login, or what).
codingjester
Thanks. We're updating it right now. It'll be up in a few minutes.
wlk
Maybe you can add gray text on input field saying 'enter your email' or something like that, that disappears when input field is clicked?
codingjester
We're on it. Thanks for the help. We're putting it in right now and should be up in a few.
russell_h
This seems like a cool idea. You might want to check with a lawyer about the logo up top though, thats definitely GitHub's octocat hiding behind Apple's Terminal.app logo.
chrisbaglieri
Yeah, working on that too. Our creative juices started to run dry after the weekend sprint. We'll refresh that in the coming days.
scalyweb
Might want to make that sooner than just "in the coming days."
mcav
One thing I've learned from reading HN over the years: Few things kill the buzz of a new site like the introduction of legal/copyright issues.
Raphael
I don't see the big deal; it's cosmetic. The logo's easy to remove. I can't imagine significant damages. Legal issues are only a problem when the content is infringing, such as video uploads.
mcav
I agree, it shouldn't overshadow other stuff. But that's the odd thing about those kinds of issues -- they tend to overshadow the work anyway.
kenneth_reitz
No need to consult a lawyer, just open an issue at http://support.github.com and ask if it's okay.
getsat
No need to do that, they've pointed out in the past that it's a stock image they've bought the rights to use and can not authorize others to use it.

I forget where I read this, but it was someone asking the same thing. I might have been on HN, actually.

defunkt
GitHub now owns the octocat art.
getsat
Cool! Congrats on finally getting it. :-)
escoz
You guys should seriously think about allowing other projects to use the octocat when the projects are associated to github.

it would be a nice way of everybody having a common "icon", much like twitter has the bird.

I know people can link to github, but that's not always possible (mobile apps?) even though people use github..

Raphael
Twitter previously used some stock bird art, but the logo was just the bubble letters. Now they have an original bird logo. But 3rd party Twitter stuff can use arbitrary bird art, or maybe the old stock one since it's unclear who owns it.

I think a good solution would be a new open license logo, like the Minefield logo as opposed to the restricted Firefox logo.

tjogin
githacking left me with the impression that it was an official github thing, because of the octocat.
chrisbaglieri
@defunkt

We'll get on that ASAP. Nothin' but love.

scalyweb
Great idea!

Where is my e-mail going? What are you planning to do with it?

Also, there is no identification on who is running the project.

chrisbaglieri
Hi. We're Chris (@chrisbaglieri), John (@codingjester), Josiah (@bluepojo), and Aaron (@aaronfeng). This company was born over the course of 54 hours at Philadelphia Startup Weekend.

The emails will be used once and only once, to announce when we're open to the public.

scalyweb
Thank you. Perhaps add that to the site and you'll give off a lot more "warm and fuzzies."
chrisbaglieri
Added a quick note about only using emails once and only once. We'll add an about page in the coming day profiling each of us.
pdelgallego
Congrats for a great startup weekend.

I love the idea. A couple of months ago I created gistcube[1], It was a weekend project to learn a bit about Mongodb and Sinatra. Gistcube is a way to discover interesting gist in github. You can vote up, add to favorites, tag gists, and alos sign up to interesting/tags gist using rss.

[1] http://gistcube.com

Raphael
Cool drop shadow.
pdelgallego
Thx man, was my first attempt to design anything.
axod
Not really sure what this is/does. Can someone summarize? Is it search/social thing built on github?
chrisbaglieri
Social is a little misleading. It's more about connecting developers to projects. For contributors, it's about finding projects that would be of interest to them. For maintainers, it's about finding developers to fill the needs of their projects.
js2
I would like to suggest that folks consider working on git itself. The git mailing list is very friendly and supportive and you will be making a valuable contribution to the git community. You'll also have an opportunity to brush up your C skills with guidance from some excellent C hackers.

If you aren't a C coder, you can help to improve the documentation (really, just pick a man page, there are many that can use improving). Or, look at it as an opportunity to learn C -- some parts of git are quite advanced, but there's also lots of areas that are easy to work on.

See the git wiki for some areas that can use love:

https://git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Janitor

https://git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/ToDo

https://git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Wishlist

(Sadly the wiki is down right now, so please paste those links into google and click the cached link.)

So go on, get yourself listed on http://git-scm.com/about

:)

wyclif
Thank you for this-- just the reply I was looking for. Out of curiosity, which man pages need the most work right now?
js2
How about the fetch and push man pages:

http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-fetch.ht...

http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-push.htm...

Even the summaries are terrible:

git-fetch - Download objects and refs from another repository

git-push - Update remote refs along with associated objects

Now, I haven't been a git newbie in ages, but I imagine a beginner asking "what is this objects and refs about?" How about:

git-fetch - Download changes from another repository

git-push - Upload changes to another repository

(Warning: there will be lots of back-and-forth on the mailing list about doc changes. Old timers tend to want the man pages to be technically correct, even though I think this makes the documentation harder on beginners. I suppose the argument is that the man pages are reference type documentation, but I still think there's lots of room for improvement.)

freedrull
Man pages are suited to be as terse and technically correct as possible. I say leave the wording that is easier on beginners to web tutorials and books.
JohnnyBrown
This is neat, i intend to use it. I've been thinking recently it would be great if there was "OkCupid for code" and once you have enough data to predict good matches for people <=> projects you could do some interesting things.
mkramlich
that page is purdy but it really should explain what it's about. what's the plan. all i can tell is that it involves Git and they want an email. to be more specific: what is it beyond what we already have today with something like GitHub?
chrisbaglieri
For developers, we're about connecting them to projects that they'll likely be interested in contributing to; these projects may or may not be most forked or trending. A lot of repository identification is word of mouth which, for those on on the outer rings of the open source community, may be lacking. We want to change that.

For maintainers, we're about finding developers to fill the needs of their projects. Open sourcing is step one, promoting and keeping traction can be tough. We want to arm maintainers with more to help accomplish this.

For businesses that rely on the open source code contributors and maintainers support, we want to provide a platform that they can leverage whether it's support or issue resolution. Businesses win because they get fixes, for example. Maintainers and contributors win being rewarded for their efforts.

We have several other ideas we're exploring; lot's more to come.

mkramlich
thanks! i recommend putting something like what you said on the project's home page, or, just a link off of it.
farnsworth
Text is cut off on the right side of the boxes on iPhone. I love the idea though.
codingjester
Shit. We totally didn't even think about mobile our bad. Once we get some sleep and probably get back from our day jobs, we'll see what we can do about it.
farnsworth
Not a huge problem, just polishing.
albertzeyer
I really hate the global web proxy at my university (RWTH Aachen).

   (1, MALWARE, Phishing, Domain has unusually high traffic volume for a very recent registration. Identified as a phishing or spam-related site., BLOCK-MALWARE, 0x0b216460, 1296449561.941, QAAAAQAAAAAAAAAAG/8ACP8AAAD/AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=, http://githacking.com/)