 So, there is a post going around that looks like this, and Brody Robertson made a video about this yesterday. Now, I will say that Brody does a very good job of explaining his argument, though I think he could use some better examples over why his argument makes sense, but that's really beside the point, because I want to delve a little bit deeper into this idea. So, I'm not going to read this, everyone's probably seen it, especially if you troll Reddit at all. The idea here is that GitHub portrays itself as something that it's not. So Brody argues that GitHub is actually a distribution platform, because a lot of developers use it as a distribution platform, which is absolutely true. I would argue that it's not as blatantly a distribution platform as an app store. So you could say that, or I would argue that GitHub is not an app store because they bury the binaries, they bury the source code, actually, not necessarily they bury the source code, they bury the releases of the source code. So this little spot over here is where all the source code that it has been released as official releases exists. Obviously, this is where all the source code that is currently being worked on is located. This is where the releases are. And if this were an app store, this would be horrible design, right? Because this is where you need to go if you want to get the binaries or whatever of the application that you're trying to download. If you wanted the debt package, you have to go there in order to actually get it. So the argument that GitHub is a distribution platform is true, but it's not so black and white as that. Because I think that GitHub is for a particular segment of the population. And I'm not talking about developers. So Brody talks about how some people argue that GitHub is for developers only. That's absolutely not true. Now, is there a segment of the usage of GitHub that is for developers only? Yes, if you're posting on GitHub, you're a developer of some kind with, you know, obviously, there are layers and levels and degrees to these things. Like I post stuff to GitLab, I'm not a developer, but I post code to GitHub or GitLab. And that's what GitHub and GitLab are forced to post code too. But there's also another aspect of these services where they're more user facing, they're community facing, so people go there for access to software in addition to you being able to post there. The question becomes, of course, is there a social contract that is signed between the developers who post their code and the users who come to get their code? And the answer to that question is really, really effing complicated, especially when you're talking about open source. And I say this knowing that everyone knows this, but when it comes to free and open source software, the developers owe the users absolutely nothing, like literally nothing. The vast majority of people who post open source software specifically on GitHub probably are doing so for $0. They're just doing it because they're either interested in the project or they thought that they're going to help out whatever the case, right? They're doing it out of probably the goodness of their heart on their own dime. Therefore, they don't owe the community anything. So the argument that there needs to be some kind of effort made on the part of developers who distribute on GitHub to make their distribution of that software more quote unquote noob friendly doesn't really fly with me all that much simply because of the nature of GitHub and GitLab. And it all goes back to the idea that this here is not an app store. It's not an app store. It may be a distribution platform, which Brody argues that it is, and I would agree. But just because both the GNOME Software Center and GitHub are both distribution platforms does not make them equal. It also does not make them palatable to the same audiences, if that makes sense. So GitHub and GitLab are for specific audiences where as the GNOME Software Center or Discover or PAMAC or the Snap Store or FlatHub, whatever, their audience is much broader. And I think that the differentiation between those two scenarios, those two audience bases, if you will, is an important one. We have to realize that just because there are binaries on GitHub being distributed does not necessarily mean that those binaries are on an equal playing field to those that are distributed through the repositories of your given distro. And what I mean by that is that the audiences themselves tend to be different. But I will concede that every once in a while the audience is of them do cross. So and they cross both ways. More technical users, a lot of times will get their software from GNOME Software Center. Less technical users will sometimes go to Google and find themselves on a page that looks like this. And the most interesting question that we will pause it today is asking the question, does this suit new users? And should there be an effort on the prior developers and maybe GitHub itself to make this page here more accessible to new users? And where Brody and I will differ, I think that this would be the case, is that I don't think that there needs to be an effort on GitHub to make it more usable for new users. Now, normally on my channel, I'm very much make things as accessible for noobs as possible because I am a noob and I always will be one. That's the way I consider myself. I'm not a developer of any kind. I have base level knowledge of a lot of things as they say a jack of all trades, a master of none or whatever the saying is. I don't even know today. It's been a very long day. But the point is, is that I don't know, you know, I'm not an expert on Linux. I know some people think that I'm an expert on Linux. I'm absolutely not an expert on Linux or any open source software. I use them. I know how to use them in some cases, sometimes even very well. But there are still many things about, say, for example, OBS, which I use every single day that I don't know how to do. Same thing with audacity or Firefox or whatever. That's just the situation. I think that that qualification is important because everyone has a different level of skills. They also have a different level of interest in learning new skills. If you're like the guy who made this post, chances are you're not interested in learning new skills. And if that's your situation, GitHub and GitLab are places you should stay away from. Now I know that sounds very gatekeeper-y. If that, definitely not a word, but it does sound like I'm being a gatekeeper, or in this case, GitHub is a gatekeeper. And I suppose you could argue that's true. But the way that I look at it, and this is going to be, this is going to show my Microsoft roots, and I apologize for this, but I was a Windows user for a very long time. I worked alongside IT for a very long time. And one of the things, if you remember back, and I don't even know if it's still a thing because I haven't been in the IT space in a while, but there used to be this thing called MSDN. And MSDN was like a knowledge base slash software repository for all things Microsoft. And it's many more things than just that. But that's what I remember it as, like, especially when I was in college. I remember MSDN as being the place where you could go, even if you weren't a member of, like, an IT organization to get software. Like you could get Visual Studio, not like Visual Studio Code, but the actual full-branded Visual Studio, which would cost, like, a thousand dollars. You could go there and get it for free if you had a subscription, or if your organization had a subscription. And the way that I look at GitHub is kind of like that. Like, you would not expect a new user to be able to go to MSDN. And do everything that they say there. The they had a lot of technical documents there, a lot of documentation that was for IT professionals. And in a way, I consider GitHub and GitLab to be kind of like that. Now, the problem with that argument, of course, is that GitHub and GitLab are much more accessible broadly than MSDN ever was. So MSDN obviously required a subscription. And it also it required to it required you to have access to it in some form or fashion, whether it was your own personal subscription or an organization of your organization having a subscription. So it was much more behind a walled garden than GitHub and GitLab are. So my argument does fall apart a bit. But my general point is that GitHub and GitLab require are like I said earlier, that their audience is more technologically minded. And just because you can go there from Google doesn't necessarily mean that you should, but more so really, it's not that you shouldn't go there. It's that you should at least if you do go there, at least be willing to learn something to pass through the gates to, you know, install the software that you want to install, because there are certain technological things that appear all the time on GitHub. And if you aren't willing to learn those things and you're not the audience for GitHub, that's just the bottom line of it. Now, like I said, does that make me a gatekeeper or does that make GitHub a gatekeeper or whatever the they're calling it these days? Maybe. But things don't have to be for everyone. Right. GitHub is not the premier place to distribute software on Linux or on Windows or Mac or OS. It's not. It's a place where you can distribute software. It's an option for people, but it's it's a technical option. Right. It's a place where requires in order to have entry to it, you have to have some technical knowledge to do so, at least in a lot of cases. Right. There are other places like, you know, Software Center like Flat Hub, like Snap Store that are more generalized places to get software and those don't require the technical knowledge that GitHub and GitLab tend to do. And I think that that is the key distinction here that we need to keep in mind when we see people posting things like that GitHub post or that Reddit post or whatever, where they talk about how they don't understand GitHub, why it has to have code. GitHub has code because GitHub is about the code. That it's a place to store code. That's what GitHub is. Yes, it's also a distribution platform, but it's also primarily a place where developers go to store code. Are there other features like the ability to compile code there like to distribute binaries there? Yes, those extra features do exist. But the primary reason behind GitHub is to store code. And it would be really weird to go to a place and ignore its primary purpose because you want it to be something different. You know, if you go there expecting it to be an app store, you're going to be disappointed because it's not an app store. It's it's just not. Yes, it distributes software, but it's not an app store. And treating it as such, I think, does it a disservice because it does so many other things. Right. It's it's a multi-use tool for many different people, not only for users, but for developers and everything that goes into that ecosystem. Right. People who work alongside developers, people who just post their website web developers, all sorts of people use GitHub for many different things and trying to shoehorn it into being just an app store would diminish it in some way that would just be disappointing to the people who do use it for the most technical stuff. Right. So if you are the type of person who goes to GitHub and expects it to be an app store, coactually use an app store. You know, also, I think that there's something to be said if you want to get into getting software from places like GitHub and GitLab. If you if you find yourself often being funneled into those websites, having the willingness to learn some of the tools that you'll need in order to compile software, at least to install binaries, like you should there's one of the things I should talk about is that there's definitely and this kind of came up in Brody's video as well. There is a big difference between Gen 2 and installing a regular binary. So, yes, there are pieces of software where there are no binaries and you have to compile it if you want to use it. There are many examples. But if you go there to GitHub and GitLab, and you find a binary, you should have the expertise to in order to install it. That has nothing to do with the code, by the way. That's just another way of installing things like you would through an app store. So I think that just assuming that every piece of code that's on GitHub or GitLab has to be compiled is also disingenuous quite a bit because there's a lot of binary sound there as well. So I think that this is a much more complex thing than what some people are making out to be. But also, I think that, as I said, and just to wrap this up, not everything has to be for everyone. GitHub doesn't aim to be the universal source for all binary sourced applications. It doesn't aim to be that. It's a primary code repository system. That's what it is. And they're happy for that to be there. And I think that GitHub is happy to distribute software. And because that draws in other users as well, brings more people to the website, but it also they're not. I don't think that they've ever claimed to want to be an app store. So I think that trying to force something to be for everyone diminishes it for everyone as well. So that is it for this video. I know this was kind of a reaction video slash rant video, whatever. It's very rambly. I was just in the mood to do a ramble. So I did a ramble. If you want to, if you have any thoughts on this topic, you can leave those in the comment section below. I'd love to hear from you. You can follow me and Master Donor Odyssey. Those links will be in the video description. You can support me on Patreon at Patreon.com slash Linuxcast. You can also head on over to the store, which is available at shop.TheLinuxcast.org. There you'll find desk mats and hoodies and t-shirts and cups and magnets and all sorts of stuff. 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