April 2019 Summaries

GitHub has announced the successful migration of the Apache Software Foundation's projects to its platform, marking a significant transition for Apache, the world's largest open-source foundation. With over 200 million lines of code managed by a volunteer community, Apache's decision to integrate GitHub's repository and tools began in 2016, culminating in a complete migration by February 2019. This move simplifies project hosting and collaboration for Apache, aligning with GitHub's mission to support and grow open-source communities worldwide. The integration offers Apache a streamlined environment to focus on software development and community building, alongside 31 million developers globally. GitHub continues to engage with various open-source communities to address their specific challenges and support their transition plans, inviting further collaboration.

GitHub Satellite is an event taking place in Berlin, aimed at uniting developers, maintainers, and team leaders who are driving change through software. Scheduled for May 23, the event offers opportunities for networking with software influencers and gaining insights from industry leaders, including GitHub's CEO Nat Friedman. Attendees can explore new projects, participate in expert-led workshops, and leave with various swag items. Discounts are available for group ticket purchases, and a downloadable letter is provided to help attendees justify the trip to their leadership teams.

Retro-gamers are invited to an event at GitHub HQ in San Francisco, featuring a nostalgic discussion with Kevin Savetz and Steve Meretzky about their experiences at the gaming company Infocom in the 1980s. This event, scheduled for Friday, April 26, 2019, will also be livestreamed for those unable to attend in person. Attendees can expect an engaging atmosphere with snacks, drinks, and an exploration of the creativity required in early game development when imagination played a crucial role. Participants are encouraged to RSVP for this public event with limited capacity, promising an entertaining journey into gaming history.

GitHub is offering a Satellite Scholarship Program to enhance accessibility and inclusivity for its conference in Berlin on May 23, providing free tickets through Community Partners and an Individual Scholarship Program. The initiative, driven by GitHub’s Social Impact Team, aims to diversify the event by collaborating with local nonprofits and meetup groups. While the scholarships cover only the cost of admission, recipients are responsible for their travel and lodging expenses. Applications, open to individuals aged 18 and older, must be submitted by April 29, with notifications sent by May 6 and confirmations required by May 9.

Maintainerati is a one-day Open Space unconference organized by the Maintainerati Core Team in collaboration with GitHub, taking place the day after GitHub Satellite at the Spreespeicher Conference Center in Berlin. It aims to provide a venue for open source software maintainers to gather, share challenges, discuss best practices, and build community support. This event is designed for maintainers who often feel unsupported and face challenges such as work overload and inadequate resources. By attending, participants can engage with others who share similar experiences and contribute to creating a more vibrant and inclusive open source community.

GitHub has introduced Custom Open Graph Images for all repositories on GitHub.com, providing users with a new way to visually represent their projects when shared across platforms that support Open Graph. This feature allows users to set a custom image, which can enhance the appeal and brand of their project by capturing audience attention more effectively than a simple text description. The implementation process is user-friendly, with an available template to assist in designing the image, although it's important to note that some platforms may experience initial caching issues that affect how links are displayed.

Earlier this week, the European Union finalized the controversial EU Copyright Directive, set to take effect in two years, which diverges from the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by potentially imposing filtering technology on platforms hosting user-generated content. This law threatened the protections known as "safe harbor" which are crucial for platforms like GitHub that rely on notice and takedown procedures to avoid liability for copyright infringement. After discussions, EU policymakers exempted open source software development platforms from these new regulations, recognizing their irrelevance to the targeted copyright issues. GitHub, participating in a U.S. Copyright Office roundtable, emphasized the essential role of DMCA's safe harbor in fostering innovation and highlighted the distinct nature of software platforms compared to those profiting from copyrighted media. GitHub continues to engage with policymakers to ensure proposals consider the impact on developers and maintain the stability necessary for innovation, underscoring the risks involved in modifying safe harbor provisions.

In the March 2019 edition of Release Radar, a variety of innovative projects and updates were highlighted, showcasing developments across different technological fields. Storybook 5.0 was introduced, offering a new look and enhanced features for creating and testing UI components across various libraries like React and Angular. TensorFlow.js 1.0 celebrated its milestone release with improvements in API stability and performance for machine learning in browsers and Node.js. Quick 2.0 provided updates for behavior-driven development in Swift and Objective-C, while Vega 5.0 brought new customization options for creating interactive visualizations. The survival game Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead released version 0.D with significant enhancements to inventory management and gameplay. Additional projects included GIPHY's Celebrity Detector, which uses a deep learning model to recognize celebrity faces, and QuickChart, an open-source service for generating charts from URLs. The countdown CLI app, created by @antonmedv, was also featured, offering a simple solution for setting timed reminders in terminal environments.

Atom has introduced a new feature in its 1.37 beta version that enhances the pull request review process by allowing users to view and respond to review comments directly within the editor. This feature includes a dock next to the editor that displays comments, provides navigation between comments and code, and enables users to resolve comment threads, which advances a progress bar reflecting unresolved issues. Additional functionalities include showing diff formatting, expanding and collapsing comment threads, and navigating changes with line highlighting and gutter icons. Users need to be signed into GitHub for Atom to access certain features, like highlighting and icons, and can update their work by checking out different branches or refreshing comments. The design, aimed at creating an editing-centric experience, was developed based on user feedback, emphasizing the importance of an intuitive response flow and the use of emojis for expressing feedback. The feature also includes safety measures to hide potentially abusive comments. Users can access these enhancements by downloading the beta version and are encouraged to provide feedback through the Atom repository.

Probot is an open-source framework created by the GitHub Team that automates workflow on GitHub by responding to various repository events like new commits, comments, and issues. It is particularly useful in educational settings where GitHub Classroom is used, as it allows instructors to manage multiple student repositories efficiently by turning off issues and using a centralized discussion platform. The Probot Settings app, for example, helps teachers configure repository settings via a text file, enabling the automation of course setup and reflecting real-world workflows. Probot’s community has developed numerous apps that enhance project management, such as setting reminders and tracking to-dos, and it allows for the creation of custom apps to cater to specific educational needs. For instance, the GitHub Education Team employs Probot to help students learn by using apps that automate tasks like creating merge conflicts for educational purposes. Probot offers resources for building custom apps, including documentation and community support, making it a versatile tool for both educators and developers.

Major League Hacking (MLH) and GitHub have developed two hackathon starters—the Flask Hackathon Starter and the Node.js Hackathon Starter—to expedite the setup process for developers during hackathons, where time is often limited. These starters are designed to help both novice and experienced developers quickly get their projects off the ground by providing interactive examples and extensive documentation for building web applications. By focusing on two popular programming languages, Python and Node.js, and their respective frameworks, Flask and Express, the starters aim to enhance the learning experience by covering essential aspects such as API calls, authentication with OAuth, and database setup. This initiative seeks to prevent developers from getting bogged down in configuration details, allowing them to focus more on innovation and learning during hackathons.