Show HN: GitClassic.com, a fast, lightweight GitHub thin client (pages <14KB)

[heythisischris]

Hey HN,

I posted GitClassic here 2 months ago- since then I've rebuilt most of it based on what people asked for.

https://gitclassic.com

What's new: Issues, PRs w/ full diffs, repo intelligence (health scores, dependency graphs), trending/explore, bookmarks, comparison tool, and advanced search.

Every page is server-rendered HTML- No React, no SPA, no client bundle, pages under 14KB(gzipped). Try loading facebook/react and compare it to GitHub load times.

Public repos work without an account, Pro adds private repo access via GitHub OAuth.

Stack: Hono on Lambda, DynamoDB, CloudFront, 500KB Node bundle, cold starts usually <500ms.

What's missing?

Thanks, Chris

[EE84M3i]

It might be prudent to double-check git's trademark policy.

https://git-scm.com/about/trademark

[dijksterhuis]

> In addition, you may not use any of the Marks as a syllable in a new word or as part of a portmanteau (e.g., "Gitalicious", "Gitpedia") used as a mark for a third-party product or service. For the avoidance of doubt, this provision applies even to third-party marks that use the Marks as a syllable or as part of a portmanteau to refer to a product or service's use of Git code.

> Please be aware that GitHub and GitLab are exceptions to this Policy because they are subject to explicit licensing arrangements that pre-date, and thus take precedence, over this Policy.

[fc417fc802]

That seems overly broad. Is there precedent for that?

[seanhunter]

That seems pretty normal to me. Try this thought experiment. Suppose I make an accessory that adds an ironing board to the back of F150 trucks[1] and I call my company “Fordboard”? Do you think that portmanteau is a trademark violation or not? I think Ford probably would fight and win against me if I did such a thing, in particular because I am using the registered mark (Ford) to refer to the actual thing so I can’t pretend that’s just a coincidence. That is also the case here with gitclassic. If I called my guitar shop that I might have more of a leg to stand on.

There’s more discussion of the legal aspects of portmanteau words here https://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2020/07/almost-everything-you-...

[1] I didn’t say it’s a good business idea, I came up with the portmanteau first.

[fc417fc802]

Well you aren't referring to a truck or even a vehicle. However I agree that your example product is intimately related to the trademarked item just as it is in this case. That's exactly why I'm wondering about precedent. It seems overly broad to me, a layman, but could well be the established status quo.

I would naively expect it to depend on whether the mark could reasonably be confused by a customer with the name in question. To that end fordboard and gitclassic seem problematic since they read like two separate words, one of which is the protected mark. In contrast, something like gitea seems like it ought to be in the clear - no one is ever going to think "git [space] ea huh wonder what ea by git is". (Ford should totally release a vehicle under the name Board that would be hilarious.)

> it is better when there is an overlap in the distinctive sound of the two words.

From the article you linked - this matches my intuition and is largely why I feel like gitea ought to be in the clear. Unfortunately it seems to be about trademarking portmanteaus as opposed to the creation of portmanteaus using one or more trademarks. (More is better - my next terrible idea is gitzurite.)

[lemagedurage]

Wow, that feels quite restrictive. "Classic for Git" would be allowed, but it doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

[PufPufPuf]

So magit is also in breach?

[Pay08]

Maybe since it's free and therefore not a "product", it's fine? But then you also have things like gitkraken, which is certainly a service.

[Zee2]

What about Gitea? Hmm…

[dijksterhuis]

only thing i found after a relatively quick sleuth

https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/issues/4175

[yomismoaqui]

What about Gitfuckyourstupidtrademarks, is it a kosher name?

[superkuh]

I haven't been able to read most text on github on my old system with a good screenreader because the browser is outdated and can't run the github javascript applications fully correctly. This gitclassic interface is a lifesaver. From my VPS IP I got blocked but from my home residential IP it worked fine.

The github accessibility team has consistently ignored tickets about the lack of text for years. In the sense that they'll fix it for a month then revert and make it even worse. And that's fine, Microsoft is a business and making a profit is their goal. Supporting people who want text in the HTML doesn't make money.

[AnonHP]

I had a quick look and bolted out within half a minute. Trying to open an organization or repo throws an error. There’s a featured comparison section on the homepage, and tapping on the first one leads to a message saying free tier allows two things to be compared and a pro subscription allows more. Why put this as the first in this section then?

Seems like this is not fully baked yet and it pushes for pro subs a little too soon.

[bityard]

Github has been very anti-scraping lately, to the point that I can't even browse it in my browser's private mode. This seems to be impacting your implementation as well:

"Well, that didn't work API rate limit exceeded for 18.220.172.92. Want 5,000 requests/hour instead of 60? Sign in for free to use your own GitHub API quota. Sign in with GitHub If you keep seeing this, open an issue"

Update: Another try and it did work. However, I take exception to your app's assertion that my project is unmaintained. I would call it "stable" and further claim that your assertion is borderline libel. (And its pretty insulting that the rationalization is apparently hidden behind a paywall.)

[hmartin]

One of my repos that I just pushed the one thousandth commit to an hour ago is marked unmaintained lol

[zetanor]

Golang is also "unmaintained" so you're in good company.

[nake89]

I had to go check. You're right: https://gitclassic.com/golang/go Made me chuckle. Then when I click it it doesn't explain why it is declaring it unmaintained. Pretty insulting. Not a good user experience at all.

[bojle]

Really like this, thanks for making it!

It appears that rendering for code blocks (```) is still not implemented (see here https://gitclassic.com/llvm/llvm-project/issues/100045).

Would love to see this grow

[Paulo75]

Pretty cool, one thing that would be useful: some kind of alerting or watch feature. Like "notify me if this repo's health score drops below X" or if a dependency gets a CVE. Would make it useful for teams that maintain a lot of open source dependencies.

[itake]

403 forbidden. I'm in Vietnam, so maybe its blocking my location?

[eipi10_hn]

Accessing from Vietnam, I got a blank page. Use VPN to Hong Kong, the page works.

[stingraycharles]

No issues here from Cambodia.

[RestartKernel]

Nitpick, but it bothers me that your logo icon is not vertically aligned with your logo text. (Neither is it visually aligned.)

[SoKamil]

I miss those Bootstrap era clearly distinct buttons with subtle gradient and a border.

[ranger_danger]

Bootstrap is still alive and well, I use it for all my sites and never had any complaints.

[pixel_popping]

Am I missing something? website return a white page, a bit too classic :p

[vldszn]

I needed this, thank you

[whalesalad]

The irony of this looking exactly like gitea is not lost on me.

[PufPufPuf]

I tried opening my profile and got

> Error: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'replace')

...this might need a bit more time in the oven