April 2016 Summaries

GitHub Satellite is an event taking place in Amsterdam on May 11, where the European developer community can learn from organizations like Facebook, Heroku, GOV.UK, and Spotify about their software development and open-source contributions. The event will feature a keynote from GitHub CEO Chris Wanstrath, talks from GitHub engineers and executives on topics such as scaling GitHub, DevOps workflows, and building cross-platform apps with Electron. Panels will include discussions on the importance of software development in all companies and the role of open-source maintainers, with sessions led by GitHub leaders like Kakul Srivastava and Brandon Keepers. Attendees will also have the chance to hear from nonprofits like Fred Hutch and Code to Inspire, which use technology to foster inclusivity and health improvements. Additionally, there will be opportunities to receive personalized Git and GitHub assistance from the Services team.

The Patchwork event in Atlanta on May 6 is designed for technical writers, content creators, documentation experts, and anyone interested in learning Git and GitHub, especially beginners and mentors looking to assist others. The casual, hands-on workshop offers learning modules on Git and GitHub, with no coding experience required, and allows attendees to work at their own pace with guidance from community mentors. The event, hosted by GitHub and local mentors, aims to provide newcomers with the experience of merging a pull request and contributing to the open-source community while offering mentors the opportunity to share their knowledge. Taking place at The Garage in Atlanta, the event is wheelchair-accessible and provides food and refreshments, with registration required for both participants and mentors.

GitHub Enterprise 2.6 introduces several new features and enhancements aimed at improving team workflows and communication, based on community feedback. This release offers tools like Issue templates and pre-receive hooks to streamline development processes, as well as options for more flexible code reviews, including the ability to filter changes by commit and squash merge commits for a cleaner history. It enhances communication by allowing drag-and-drop file uploads, emoji reactions, canned replies, and a text formatting toolbar for easier styling of comments without markdown. Administrators can also set custom messages for developers and suspended users on sign-in pages. Overall, GitHub Enterprise 2.6 aims to provide a more efficient, customizable, and user-friendly experience for development teams.

The 2016 Dodgeball Tournament promises an exciting day of friendly competition, team bonding, and impactful community support, set to take place on June 5th at the newly renovated Palega Recreation Center in San Francisco. The event aims to raise over $100,000 for local nonprofits, including At the Crossroads, Precita Eyes, One Degree, and Californians for Justice, by leveraging new pricing and sponsorships. Teams can participate with a $5,000 buy-in, and sponsorship opportunities are available for those unable to play. The tournament follows the World Dodgeball Society’s rules, requiring teams to have 10 players on court, with up to 15 members for substitutions, including at least two women. The proceeds will support diverse causes like youth homelessness, mural arts, technology-driven community resources, and educational justice. Space is limited, and the deadline for team registration is May 25th, encouraging interested participants to sign up promptly.

Webhooks are a robust feature of GitHub that facilitate integration with internal tools and third-party services by allowing subscriptions to specific activities on the platform, which trigger notifications to external web servers via HTTP POST. These webhooks are commonly used for tasks like triggering CI builds, deploying applications, or updating external bug trackers. In response to user feedback, GitHub has expanded the range of events to which users can subscribe, including editing or deleting issue or pull request comments, changing a repository’s visibility, and deleting a repository. When edits occur, the webhook payload highlights the changes made. These new webhook events are now accessible on GitHub.com, with additional details available in the developer blog and documentation.

A year after Jekyll sites on GitHub Pages gained access to repository and organization metadata through the site.github namespace, GitHub has transitioned to using the community-driven GitHub metadata Jekyll plugin. This change simplifies the process of previewing sites locally by allowing users to replicate the exact same build process GitHub Pages uses in production. To achieve this, users need to add the jekyll-github-metadata gem to their site's configuration if they are using the GitHub Pages gem. Additional details and guidance on using repository and organization metadata are available in the plugin and repository metadata documentation.

GitHub Satellite is an event that highlights how technology is reshaping the workplace, featuring a panel discussion hosted by GitHub’s VP of Product, Kakul Srivastava, with engineering leaders from prominent European companies like Tesco, Zalando, UBS, and KPN. The discussion focuses on the evolving role of developers and the shift toward modern software development practices, often initiated by individual developers within organizations. It also explores the challenges of advocating for change, securing executive support, and the essential tools and integrations that companies leverage in their software strategies. Additionally, the panel delves into the significance of open source software, discussing how organizations organize around and contribute to open source projects, and the impact on developers.

An upcoming Patchwork event in St. Louis on April 26 at CIC@CET offers a casual and interactive workshop for beginners to learn Git and GitHub, with guidance from GitHub employees and local mentors. Aimed at both novices and experienced mentors, the event provides a self-directed learning environment where participants can choose from modules such as Introduction to Git, Introduction to GitHub, and Creating a Site with GitHub Pages, all without requiring prior coding experience. Attendees will gain hands-on experience by working on their projects, with the opportunity to leave with a merged pull request and a boost in confidence to participate in the open-source community. The event includes snacks and networking opportunities, and attendees are encouraged to RSVP and create a GitHub account in advance to maximize their experience.

GitHub Satellite, the inaugural international event in the GitHub Universe conference series, is set to take place on May 11, 2016, in Amsterdam, gathering 500 attendees to explore impactful technologies. The event will feature sessions led by prominent GitHub figures such as CEO Chris Wanstrath, VP of Social Impact Nicole Sanchez, and Head of Open Source Brandon Keepers, alongside talks from customers, partners, and open source maintainers focusing on software for social good. Organized into two tracks, "Discover" and "Develop," the program aims to introduce attendees to transformative software ideas and provide practical advice on modern development practices, open source project management, and GitHub integrations.

CodeConf LA is set to take place from June 27-29, 2016, in Los Angeles, focusing on systems engineering projects and practices within the open-source community. The conference aims to feature thought-provoking and insightful sessions that challenge attendees' perspectives on the open-source ecosystem. Organizers are seeking speakers with diverse backgrounds and experiences to cover a broad range of topics, from systems programming practices to scaling applications. Both novice and experienced speakers are encouraged to submit proposals by April 29, 2016, at 11:59 pm PST, with the goal of creating a compelling and varied lineup for the event.

GitHub enthusiasts can now express their passion for the platform while staying hydrated with a new water bottle available for purchase in the GitHub Shop, as announced by Brandi Firestine.

Richard Davey, the creator of the popular open-source HTML5 game framework Phaser, shares his journey and insights in a GitHub Developer Profile blog series. With 34 years of experience in game development, Davey developed Phaser using Pixi.js for rendering, and it has become one of the most starred game frameworks on GitHub thanks to contributions from a vibrant community and his company, Photon Storm Limited. Davey reflects on his early inspirations from the demoscene and his experience with 8-bit home computers, which fueled his passion for programming and game development. He emphasizes the importance of perseverance, community feedback, and adapting to new technologies like JavaScript's evolving capabilities, which he plans to leverage in the next generation of Phaser, called Lazer. Davey also highlights the significance of open-source collaboration and the human aspect of software development, advising newcomers to focus on projects that inspire them and to engage respectfully with the developer community.

GitHub has implemented various strategies to address content injection vulnerabilities, notably through the use of a Content Security Policy (CSP), which has evolved significantly over the years. Initially, the CSP was relatively simple, allowing for certain trusted domains to maintain backward compatibility, but it has since been refined to include more restrictive directives as both the policy and browser support matured. The current CSP focuses on mitigating risks such as Cross Site Scripting (XSS) and scriptless attacks by restricting the sources of JavaScript, images, and other web resources, while also addressing specific vulnerabilities like HTML injection and dangling markup attacks. GitHub's approach includes both prevention and detection measures, with an emphasis on using dynamic CSP policies for specific endpoints to ensure a "least privilege" setup. Despite these advancements, GitHub acknowledges that no policy can completely eliminate all content injection threats, so it continues to explore additional defenses and strategies to mitigate potential attack vectors that CSP does not cover. The ongoing refinement of these policies and practices demonstrates GitHub's commitment to enhancing security while adapting to new challenges and research findings.

Patchwork is returning to Europe with an event in Reading, UK, on April 19, designed for beginners in Git and GitHub, as well as mentors willing to assist others in learning. Hosted at GROW@GreenPark, the workshop provides a casual and informal environment where participants can work through learning modules at their own pace with guidance from community mentors. Attendees will have the opportunity to engage in hands-on activities, such as creating a site with GitHub Pages, and will leave with a merged pull request and increased confidence in contributing to the open-source community. The event promises a night of collaboration, learning, and networking, complete with food and refreshments, and encourages both new learners and experienced mentors to RSVP.

GitHub has developed DGit, now renamed Spokes, as a distributed storage system to enhance the availability, reliability, and performance of serving and storing Git content. Unlike traditional systems that relied on RAID and DRBD for replication, DGit operates at the application layer, maintaining three copies of each repository on different servers to ensure continuous availability even if some servers fail. By storing repositories on fast local SSDs and using Git protocols for synchronization, DGit minimizes latency and allows for efficient handling of read and write operations. This system reduces the need for paired identical servers and manual intervention during failures, enabling a more flexible use of heterogeneous file servers and improved resource utilization. DGit's rollout involved a gradual transition, starting with GitHub's internal and private repositories, before moving on to high-traffic public repositories, ultimately aiming to enhance GitHub's scalability and fault tolerance.

GitHub has introduced a feature that displays when commits and tags are signed with a GPG key, providing an extra layer of security by verifying the source of contributions. Users can now see a badge indicating if a signature can be verified using any of the contributor’s uploaded GPG keys, ensuring that contributions to software projects come from identified sources. This enhancement is particularly beneficial for open-source projects and companies that require verification of commit authenticity. Users interested in utilizing this feature can upload their GPG keys via the keys settings page on GitHub and consult the GPG documentation for guidance on generating and signing with a GPG key.

Oncoscape, a project from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, aims to enhance cancer research collaboration by open-sourcing data and providing a visualization tool for researchers. This initiative is highlighted in the OctoTales video series, which showcases companies leveraging GitHub for improved teamwork. The Oncoscape team, including Desert, Lisa, Jenny, and Eric, seeks assistance in various areas, from CSS and D3 enhancements to complex computational biology tasks. Interested contributors can explore the project repository, which offers guidelines, labeled issues, and a cheat sheet to facilitate participation. The project encourages global collaboration to advance cancer research and is open to those inspired to contribute.

To support and stimulate the growth of the student hacker community, GitHub has partnered with Major League Hacking (MLH) to offer $1,000 grants and sponsored Hackcon tickets to new member hackathons, which are essential social gatherings for students interested in technology. These events enable students to learn, build, and share new creations over a weekend, with the funding being crucial for small, first-time hackathons. At Hackcon, organizers can gain insights from successful student hackathons, which is vital for their ongoing success. MLH, the official student hackathon league, provides organizational support, including mentorship, hardware labs, and industry connections, and has recently announced seed funding and B-Corp certification to reinforce its mission-driven focus. In the past year, GitHub and MLH have supported a community of 50,000 students across over 150 global events, and GitHub's involvement includes participation as mentors, guest speakers, and judges, while also providing free access to developer tools through the GitHub Student Developer Pack. Those interested in organizing a hackathon with GitHub's support can start an MLH member hackathon for the 2016-2017 season.

Community plays a crucial role in open-source projects, but disruptive individuals can negatively impact the collective experience. To mitigate this, organization owners now have the capability to block abusive users from public repositories, which restricts them from engaging in activities such as opening or commenting on issues or pull requests, forking repositories, and editing wiki pages. This blocking feature ensures that all related activities are documented in the organization’s audit log. For further guidance on fostering positive contributions, the community documentation articles offer valuable insights.

GitHub's Patchwork event on April 12 at Pipeline Philly offers a casual and informal setting for beginners to learn Git and GitHub, as well as for mentors to share their knowledge. Participants can choose from various learning modules, including Introduction to Git, Introduction to GitHub, and Creating a Site with GitHub Pages, without the need for prior coding experience. The event is designed to be self-directed and hands-on, allowing attendees to proceed at their own pace with support from community mentors. Attendees will leave with practical skills, including a merged pull request and increased confidence in contributing to the open-source community. The evening promises a blend of learning, networking, and socializing, with food and refreshments provided, and the venue is wheelchair-accessible.

GitHub Satellite, the inaugural international event in the GitHub Universe series, took place on May 11, 2016, in Amsterdam, drawing over 500 developers and open source contributors to explore the future of software collaboration. Erica Stanley discussed rapid prototyping for the Internet of Things, emphasizing the importance of using design thinking and accessible open-source tools to create well-integrated connected devices. Meanwhile, Facebook engineers Marjori Pomarole and Javier Marcos shared insights from their work on open source security, highlighting the development of a new GitHub project aimed at enhancing collaboration between offensive and defensive security professionals. Additionally, Gudmunder Bjarni from Heroku introduced the "Heroku Flow," a structured workflow for Continuous Delivery, which automates deployment to staging environments and facilitates the management of development environments via pull requests.

GitHub has introduced new options for managing commit history when merging pull requests, allowing repository administrators to better align with their preferred workflows. Historically, the merge button on GitHub created merge commits that retained all commits from a feature branch, resulting in a complex but detailed history. Now, the platform offers commit squashing, which consolidates work-in-progress commits into a single commit, making the history cleaner and easier to navigate. Administrators can choose to allow both merge commits and commit squashing, retain only merge commits (the previous default), or enforce commit squashing on all merges. These options provide flexibility in maintaining a project's history and cater to different preferences for repository management.

GitHub announced the discontinuation of support for the RDiscount, Redcarpet, and RedCloth markup engines on GitHub Pages, effective May 1st, in favor of standardizing on the kramdown engine due to its compatibility with popular features and its prevalence among users. This decision aims to streamline the authoring experience and reduce complexity for over a million GitHub Pages sites by aligning the Markdown experience on GitHub Pages with that of the broader GitHub platform, considering that the vast majority of builds either use kramdown or do not specify an engine. Despite the small percentage of users affected by this change, GitHub emphasizes the importance of transitioning before the deadline, providing guidance and support to aid users in updating their configurations. The move reflects GitHub's design philosophy of minimizing unnecessary complexity and enhancing user experience across its platform.