someone explain to me like Im five

github is basically like google docs for programmers.

people on your team can edit files together and it keeps backups of everything in case bob gets wasted again and deletes half your code base

soundcloud for people who play portal

I see! i thought whatever you post there is for everyone to see sort of like reddit but more tech focused

I heard of something on there a while ago that seemed super useful and I had no idea what to do with the code

this is what made me think of it outta nowhere.. crazy

gizmodo.com/the-worst-leak-that-ive-witnessed-u-s-cybersecurity-agency-leaves-its-digital-keys-out-in-public-on-github-2000760330

Good explanation fam. S*** is very confusing when you're new at it, but it's one of those things that you need to force yourself to learn if you're getting into programming. Pretty sure it's like non negotiable unless you like losing your code or something

Yeah you can have private and public GitHub repositories. It's usually good practice to never leave credentials or keys in the code, regardless if it's public or not, so these folks really f***ed up big time doing that on a public one.

They probably had some AI agent do it lmao.

This is an original sequence of words if I ever seen one

I'd say it's like that too in the form of Google Drive where you can make folders publicly viewable or just shared links

cause when projects are "finished" and have a public version people usually link their github project page for download/install instructions

and then when they want to fix stuff/update it, it would all be done over there on said github

and then the tech people that really care or want to even help "contribute" can suggest changes or fixes too but like if all u want is the download link and how to install it would be all there

wholesome :​
im sure u can charge tho if u want right? post stuff behind a paywall if its smth u worked hard on and wanna profit off it

Not really. Charging for software kinda goes against the spirit of open source (making ur code repository open to the public). The idea is anything society depends on shouldn’t be locked behind a paywall or closed off from the public. And you shouldn’t have to just take a companies word that their software is safe and they aren’t doing anything harmful on their side. Majority of big projects get sponsored by a company usually or they have a foundation behind them so the devs are compensated and can work on it with an income stream. But generally if ur looking to turn a profit off ur code u wouldn’t make it open source. At the most you’ll see a small “make a donation” / “buy me a coffee” link.

A lot of start ups too will make a project open source and use it as advertising for their real revenue stream. Like “here is our database code for free. You can download it and host it on your own servers, or pay us $10 a month to host it for you on our servers”

There is also a lot of different licensing for open source. Some will let u use it for free but if you modify it u cant turn a profit, some let u modify it and turn a profit but that project also needs to be open source, some let you do whatever you want no rules

S***s so 2015 bro find a new skill

I see!

ok yeah forgot it's all open source would be weird to use a paywall

It's not quite like Google Drive, but that's a decent laymen's a***ogy tbh... The thing that sits it apart is how you get s*** into GitHub. The part that trips people up is that changing or uploading a file is not as straightforward. You have to save the file(s), stage the change with git add, commit it to your local repo, and then push that commit to GitHub.

It also gets more complicated when your local repo and the GitHub repo drift apart or you're using multiple repos (sometimes you even drift yourself apart from your local repo and have to fix that). For example, if someone else pushed changes online and your local copy is behind, Git will reject your push until you pull/fetch those changes. It’s kind of like Google Drive in the "save my files here" sense, but it’s more specific and version controlled. It’s not just “create folder, upload files, share".

In the end, the purpose is for you to have very granular backups of your code. Every time you commit to GitHub, it's like a snapshot of your code, and it saves it so that you can go back to that exact spot if something f***s up down the line or you want to fork it into something different. And then you share your "production" repo, which is the stuff you're releasing to the public.

Gonna assume you’re unemployed or non-Tech?