Open source devs consider making hogs pay for every Git pull

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Submitted ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨floofloof@lemmy.ca⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/28/open_source_opinion/

cross-posted from: lemmy.zip/post/59925975

Opinion: Careless big-time users are treating FOSS repos like content delivery networks

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otter@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

Fox, who also oversees Apache Maven, a popular Java build tool, explained that its repository site is at risk of being overwhelmed by constant Git pulls. The team has dug into this and found that 82 percent of the demand comes from less than 1 percent of IPs. Digging deeper, they discovered that many companies are using open source repositories as if they were content delivery networks (CDNs). So, for example, a single company might download the same code hundreds of thousands of times in a day, and the next day, and the next. This is unsustainable.

GitHub added rate limits for unauthenticated users last year

github.blog/…/2025-05-08-updated-rate-limits-for-…

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lambalicious@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Making big companies pony up is always good.

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SnoringEarthworm@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

a single company might download the same code hundreds of thousands of times in a day, and the next day, and the next

Why would anyone ever need to do this?

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- deltaspawn0040@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Laziness. Why designate storage for a downloaded repository when you can just use the blazing fast company network to make someone else’s storage your storage?
  
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- lepinkainen@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Shitty CI system
  
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- poke@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Maybe they’re building containers every day? Idk. Can’t think of how that’d blow up into thousands without some sort of VM or containerization dependency.
  
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- echodot@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  The explanation is earlier in the quote you just copied. They’re using it as a CDN
  
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Tywele@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Why does this article repeat itself? It reads super weird.

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- RIotingPacifist@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  It’s the register they’re been writing slop articles (sometimes with interesting news in the middle), since before AI was called ML.
  
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texture@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
ohhhh i misinterpreted the title as meaning hogs like right wing cranks. LOL

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