Debug with SSH(1) is still one of our (CircleCI) most loved and praised features. I really believe that these little QoL features can make a world of difference for sw developers and engineers, and this stays a strong focus for us.
This is exactly what my team told me when they switched from Concourse CI to CircleCI. I was surprised, this wasn't really discussed, but the pressure on the team to deliver features was increasing, and they were struggling to much with all the tooling instead of delivering functionality. So they deciced to switch to something not so sexy but dependable and stable. Funny thing, about 1 year later we got acquired by CircleCI :)
I like to compare CircleCI to a Volvo, not the most sexy thing in the world, but when you need something dependable that gets the job done and helps you to focus on what really matters, getting from A to B, it's one of the bettter choices.
Then you should use proprietary solutions. Open source solutions are written by developers for themselves. They are not writing it for you. They have no reason to write them for you. You are not paying them. It is a labor of love they are doing for themselves.
Yet as a bonus they are offering it to you for free as a gift with the hope that if it doesn't work for you, you can improve it or hire someone you can.
If you only care about consuming open source but not contributing, by all means you should buy proprietary solutions.
This is a subthread of "I wonder why matrix isn't more widespread at this point". When people reply why it doesn't work for them, that's not time for "you didn't say thank you".
> "They are not writing it for you."
From matrix.org[1]: 'The values we follow are: Accessibility rather than elitism. Empathy rather than contrariness.' ... 'act as a neutral custodian for Matrix ... for the greater benefit of the whole ecosystem, not benefiting or privileging any single player or subset of players. For clarity: the Matrix ecosystem is defined as anyone who uses the Matrix protocol. This includes (non-exhaustively): End-users of Matrix clients. Anyone using Matrix for data communications'
> "They have no reason to write them for you."
How are Matrix/Element going to get anywhere with their mission to replace proprietary chat networks if they don't write their new one for millions of ordinary people to be willing to use?
> This is a subthread of "I wonder why matrix isn't more widespread at this point".
Exactly. My point is that the question itself is misplaced. It reflects a consumer mindset, which makes sense when you are paying for a product, but feels out of place with open source projects built largely through voluntary effort.
However noble the foundation's mission sounds, the reality is that Matrix is a complex protocol sustained by people investing their time and energy because they care about it.
It will not magically solve every user problem. If something does not work for you, the constructive path is to help fix it or at least propose concrete improvements. Otherwise, choosing a proprietary solution is perfectly reasonable but expecting open source projects to behave like consumer products is out of place.
Yes, it is not popular, for the reasons I already mentioned.
What puzzles me is why so many HN comments, including yours, frame this purely in consumer terms: "If this open source tool doesn't meet my needs, I'll switch to a proprietary one."
And that is perfectly fine. Use whatever works for you. No issue there.
What seems misplaced is the expectation that Matrix must be popular. Why should it be? It is not your project, and you are not contributing to it. Where does this expectation of its popularity come from?
Matrix already serves its developers and contributors. If it does not serve you, you can either help improve it or choose a proprietary alternative. Both are reasonable paths.
What feels off is the dismissive tone suggesting that if Matrix is not widely adopted, something must be wrong and proprietary options are therefore superior. In reality, this is just how open source works: projects exist to serve those who build and support them, not necessarily the mass market.
There is nothing wrong with an open source project not meeting everyone's needs, leading some people to choose proprietary alternatives. Remarks like "This is the fastest way to get people to say: I hate proprietary solutions but at least they work" or "OK great. I guess you answered why Matrix is not more popular" are not really the decisive critique you think they are.
Open source and proprietary software each have legitimate roles. For some use cases and users, open source tools are a better fit. For others, proprietary solutions make more sense. Popularity alone is not a meaningful measure of value and choosing what works best for you is entirely reasonable either way.
> What seems misplaced is the expectation that Matrix must be popular. Why should it be? It is not your project, and you are not contributing to it. Where does this expectation of its popularity come from?
Partly it's the wish and need for particular project to succeed. They use/like it and want their friends to do so, but then getting brought down by the reality. And communication software is all about critical mass..
Also the promises given and then seeing them not delivered. Everyone can't be builders..
Just to be clear, have been using Matrix from around 2015 with friends and family. Keeper of souls..
> What seems misplaced is the expectation that Matrix must be popular. Why should it be? It is not your project, and you are not contributing to it. Where does this expectation of its popularity come from?
Brother, what even are you talking about? Have you read their missiom statement? They specifically say they want to maximize the number of users and maximize the number of self hosted networks.
You saying they don't want to be popular is, with all due respect, completely from your ass. Matrix and Elements mission statement has them declaring they want to be as popular as possible.
Yes, I read that and directly addressed that in my reply to @jodrellblank above. Repeating it here:
"However noble the foundation's mission sounds, the reality is that Matrix is a complex protocol sustained by people investing their time and energy because they care about it. It will not magically solve every user problem."
> You saying they don't want to be popular is, with all due respect, completely from your ass.
Perhaps you should read my messages more carefully. Try to read to understand instead of reading to respond. Not even once I mentioned anywhere that they don't want to be popular. I said that they aren't popular coz of $REASONS. I said they cannot be popular without help. Are you helping them? I help them by sending small fixes to issues that annoy me. I am trying in my own way to make it a little better. How about you? Are you here only to complain or are you doing anything to help them become a little more popular?
This is not a commercial product, you know. It is an open source project developed and improved by volunteers like you and me. Yes, there is a foundation and there is a mission but that mission will not become magically true without help from people like you and me.
If you don't want to help that's alright. You can use proprietary software where the devs will give you the software you want in exchange for money. There's nothing wrong with that. But if you want Matrix to be more popular, people like us have to make it popular by contributing to it.
There is no need to get into an online argument with the developers. The open source software is still offered to you as a gift. You can modify it however you need and keep it for yourself.
The developers developed the open source software for themselves. Doesn't work for you? Too bad. But they are not going to develop it for you. Definitely not, when you are not paying them.
If it doesn't work for you, you shouldn't think, "Oh, I need to get into an online argument with the developers." Here's what you do.
1. Develop the fix/feature you need for yourself. If you cannot do it yourself, hire someone who can.
2. Send a pull request to the developers. But don't expect them to merge it. Remember they developed their stuff for themselves. You developed your stuff for yourself. If they merge, great. If they don't merge, you've still got your stuff for yourself.
3. If they don't merge your stuff, you could maintain a fork. Yes, it's a pain to keep your fork updated but you need to do your own work. Nobody else will do your work for you.
If all this is too difficult for you, why even consider open source? Just use proprietary software.
I truly don't understand the self-entitled HN comments that think for some strange reason that someone else should give you a software for free and then do all the work for you.
No, I don’t. It doesn’t apply here because the comment you responded to is written in such a sarcastic manner that you have to be willfully obtuse to miss it.
Did you even read the link I gave you? It already addresses exactly the scenario you mention. That no matter how obviously sarcastic the comment is, it can still be seen as a sincere comment. Please re-read it.
But TBH in this case I couldn't tell whether the parent comment was sincere or sarcastic. But that's not the point. Poe's law applies even when the comment is obviously sarcastic.
Meh, already got enough in my plate. That "do it yourself if you need it" is technically correct for FOSS, but only when people need it, not the case here until it gets so popular that the whole organization decides to use it ;-)
Almost nothing i assume. NI really lost the plot several years ago when the original founders left the company. Crappy after-sales support, lack of product vision and corresponding crappy execution, and a ton of technical debt all over their product-range. Plus competitors made better/right moves, came alongside, and then moved faster and better, leaving NI in the dust. It's sad to see a company that once was leading in several categories now in this state.
We (CircleCI) are still there, and doing just fine :) Out of interest, what are you currently missing and what would those "essential" V2 features be? tnx for sharing your thoughts!
I'd like to point out that CircleCI is typically faster (and more consistent) than GH Actions, and also offers a free tier (with more free build credits for opensource projects: https://circleci.com/open-source/)
Personally I believe that GH Actions' adoption was mostly a case of "we already use github as our VCS, so we get Actions for free with our MS licenses" combined with "hey, we can easily use all those Actions that people put online" (with all the security and compliancy issues that come with such a YOLO mindset lol)
CircleCI does only charge for self-hosted runners generated egress and/or artifact storage:
"Any Network Egress to CircleCI will be charged. At this current time, this includes CircleCI Caches, Workspaces, and Artifacts and will be charged at the normal rate according to your Usage Controls.
The only network traffic that will result in billing is accrued through restoring caches and workspaces, and downloading artifacts to self-hosted runners. Retention of artifacts, workspace, and cache objects will result in billing for storage usage.
Since your builds will not be running on CircleCI's Infrastructure, you will not be charged compute credits"
I think that's fair. In my personal opinion most people started using GitHub Actions because it “came for free with the VCS and/or our MS contract” and it was “good enough for the job”. Now might be a good time to look around at the alternatives again. There is a reason that f.e. CircleCI is doing fully focused CI/CD for 10+ years and is still going strong. Plenty of businesses don’t want to put all their eggs in one (MS) basket, for all kinds of reasons. I guess today one of these reasons became obvious.
CircleCI charges for concurrent job runs (which include self-hosted runs), no? They (you, I guess) obfuscate that by saying you get "Unlimited" if you take the "Talk to sales" route but that's not the same as not charging.
There simply is no free lunch, somewhere someone needs to spend effort and time on managing the orchestration layer for the runners, and there is also network traffic and storage in play that costs money. If you need a future-proof CI/CD platform, it takes some investment. I agree that the Github "pay per minute" approach doesn't feel right, most people would probably find a "pay per orchestration job" or something more acceptable.
Agreed there's no free lunch, GH is moving from more generous than the industry to as-generous (or less-generous depending on your opinion of per-minute versus per-job).
By default free plans can run 5x concurrently on self-hosted, 20x minimum for all paying customers, and yes there's a "talk to sales" for >20x on the pricing page
This. There are plenty of good/better CICD solutions out there, but it's tricky to compete with "comes for free with our VCS". I guess it's clear now there is no such thing as a free lunch. I feel it's a good thing for the "CICD industry" that people will be looking around to alternatives, and do a honest Total Cost of Ownership analysis.
1: https://circleci.com/docs/guides/execution-managed/ssh-acces...
(Disclaimer: i work at CircleCI)
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