alt Hacker NewsThat seems to assume some sort of… maybe unfounded linearity or something? I mean, I’m not sure I agree that GitHub is nearly a commons in any sense, but let’s put that aside as a distraction…
The idea of the tragedy of the commons relies on this feedback loop of having these unsustainably growing herds (growing because they can exploit the zero-cost-to-them resources of the commons). Feedback loops are notoriously sensitive to small parameter changes. MS could presumably impose some damping if they wanted.
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And indeed MS/GitHub does impose some "damping" in the form of things like API request throttling, CPU limits on CI, asking Homebrew not to use shallow cloning, etc. And those limits are one of the reasons given why using git as a database isn't good.
> That seems to assume some sort of… maybe unfounded linearity or something
Not linearity but continuity, which I think is a well-founded assumption, given that it's our categorization that simplifies the world by drawing sharp boundaries where no such bounds exist in nature.
> The idea of the tragedy of the commons relies on this feedback loop of having these unsustainably growing herds (growing because they can exploit the zero-cost-to-them resources of the commons)
AIUI, zero-cost is not a necessary condition, a positive return is enough. Fishermen still need to buy fuel and nets and pay off loans for the boats, but as long as their expected profit is greater than that, they'll still overfish and deplete the pond, unless stronger external feedback is introduced.
Given that the solution to tragedy of the commons is having the commons owned by someone who can boss the users around, GitHub being owned by MS makes it more of a commons in practice, not less.