[fnid]

How can github fire EY when EY was giving them free stuff. Why doesn't github just pay EY for the services they are using?

This is another failure of Freemium. GH is only able to provide such large repos because they get free infrastructure.

I can't really blame EY for bailing. The partnership is no longer equitable. GH is getting something for nothing. I shouldn't say nothing, it's something, but it's not enough.

[scott_s]

If your service doesn't meet my needs, it doesn't matter how cheap it is - including $0. According to my understanding, EngineYard doesn't meet GitHub's needs anymore.

[mtalantikite]

I don't think that's totally fair to say, we've put a considerable amount of effort into GitHub over here at EY, across all of our departments. GitHub offers a great product and it's really amazing to see them grow so fast, but that success also introduces a whole lot of new problems to the situation, many of which can be quite costly to solve.

It's just a conclusion that makes the most sense for both sides of the arrangement.

[marclove]

EY is worth every penny they charge because they provide an incredible quality and commitment of service. They are without a doubt the best hosting company I've ever had the pleasure of working with. Not only are they quick with assistance 24/7, but they all know what they're doing.

This really shows poorly on the guys at Github. It sounds like EY went out of their way to accommodate the growth rate (I have yet to hear the Github guys dispute that) and just because EY was asking to be paid for all the hard work, Github was unwilling to, for once, be paid...Github ditched them.

[grandalf]

If the expectation was to be paid, then EY would have offered a contract with a future non-free date. Nobody expected this eventuality, or if they did both sides were OK with reaping the benefits in the short term.

[marclove]

What about appreciation for a company that essentially helped sponsor your company's incubation?

One of the things I appreciate about EngineYard, and the Ruby development world in general, is that they appreciate the benefit of helping to incubate open-source and small startup operations. It's about re-investing back into the community. They did this when they helped incubate a startup company with some great programming minds behind it, which they knew would assist in the rapid development of open-source Ruby libraries.

But it seems GitHub hasn't absorbed any of that mindset by their move to ditch their supporter as soon as they're in a position to show appreciation for the help by actually paying for the service they receive for once.

[scott_s]

And what if GitHub can't afford EngineYard?

[marclove]

I find that hard to believe. They're one of the most popular and successful companies in the Ruby community and they have paid accounts that they've been collecting on for quite some time now. EY has thousands of customers who pay them every month and can afford it. How would it be that one of their most popular customers who doesn't pay anything for hosting wouldn't be able to pay them for once?

[grandalf]

EY is super expensive. Also most of the cost is for support techs who can read/understand ruby code and gems. Chances are the github guys don't really need that.

[technoweenie]

How many of those customers have VC funding? Github is completely bootstrapped.

[freetard]

scott_s is scott shacon and works for github

[ptomato]

No he isn't. http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=scott_s

[ionfish]

No, it's not. Scott Chacon's surname starts with a C, not an S.

http://github.com/schacon

http://progit.org/

[tlrobinson]

Do you know if RackSpace will be giving GitHub free infrastructure? If they're not then do you expect them to fail?

FWIW, I first heard about Engine Yard through GitHub, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

[fnid]

I do not expect rackspace to give them free infrastructure, no. I also don't think this will cause them to fail. They're pretty smart folks and they have revenue coming in, so they'll probably be fine.

After reading more into the thread and the issue being mainly with GFS, then perhaps it won't be that difficult to improve performance at Rackspace because they'll control the hardware and be able to use any file system they want.

Knowing why they can't run at EY clears up a lot of the questions. The scalability at EY is simply too limiting for GH, paid or not. It probably doesn't make sense for EY to install a new file system simply because GH wants it and GH probably can't afford, or doesn't want to afford the amount that it'd take for EY to move all their customers to a more scalable file system.

If you look beyond all the drama here, this really is a rational decision on both sides. It's a testament to the community here that two groups parting ways in such a dramatic way can both participate in this very comment thread together and with civility. It speaks volumes and I think everyone involved has handled themselves very well.

I can't imagine this is a pleasurable experience for either group, but when one party wants something the other is unwilling to provide and in this case, it's true of both EY (different file system) and GH (compensation for the change) it's rare for both to understand the other side's perspective and avoid irrational name calling and bickering. I'm glad this breakup hasn't gone down that route.

[tolmasky]

Come on, its not fair to say something for nothing. As much as you can't belittle the importance of infrastructure, you also can't act as if its the only thing that matters. GitHub obviously has a product outside the raw hosting they provide, and each additional user brings on extra work on their end.

For all we know it could have been equally lopsided in the other direction: if EngineYard was sending them tons of traffic through free accounts, it could have proved costly in terms of support and negative effect on paying customers.

We of course don't know.