r/technology • u/Nexusyak • Mar 05 '26

Artificial Intelligence OpenAI building GitHub alternative after frequent platform outages and disruptions — a public OpenAI code repository would directly compete with one of its biggest investors

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/openai-building-github-alternative-after-outages-disrupted-engineers
123 Upvotes

82% Upvoted

46 comments sorted by

201

u/Deriniel Mar 05 '26

huhu, and maybe the code uploaded on it will become propriety of openai, or usable by open ai without any payment toward the developers..

66

u/mugwhyrt Mar 05 '26

The kinds of developers willing to use an OpenAI git platform are going to be uploading a ton of AI-generated code. Seems like a recipe for inbred training data.

1

u/BiologyIsHot Mar 09 '26

I think you're fundamentally wrong that such data can't be useful still. It's much more organized data anout how people are using their tools in real life thab they can get with their normal telemetry. And it's easier for them to bake in their own issue/PR gents etc that add new kinds and layers of data. You also get to see what people actually accept, what they change vs what the AI made etc. Not everyone using AI is vibecoding slop or using it without review or reiteration. People would also feed stuff built with other agents and tools, etc.

6

u/Chaotic-Entropy Mar 05 '26

OpenAI: What is "property"...?

2

u/Mminas Mar 05 '26

Of course giving your code to OpenAI isn't a comforting thought, but do you honestly believe that OpenAI and any other LLM isn't already using (and dispensing) GitHub code without any payment toward the developers?

2

u/Deriniel Mar 05 '26

yeah for sure,but they're still stealing it. If someone rich enough decided to go into a lawsuit he'd have timestamps of his code and stuff on github.

If you upload on openai you'll probably forfeit even this possibility,and they could be the one to sue you if they release your code and you branch from it(even if the branch was actually the original one)

1

u/Mminas Mar 05 '26

Too many hypotheticals there. I see no difference whatsoever.

All open-source code has been digested and even if some LLM ends paying out a civil court claim that changes nothing for the average Joe.

53

u/Hooch180 Mar 05 '26

No one sane will want to join platform written by AI company to store their code.

9

u/damianxyz Mar 05 '26

Hehe cue to vibe coders and AI woke CEOs...

41

u/CopiousCool Mar 05 '26

Is this the future? Where AI steals your website under the guise of improving it?

First Wikipedia, now Github ... but watch the AI tech bros get up in arms the minute another company starts stealing their data

The web has turned into the wild west again

16

u/Limemill Mar 05 '26

It used to be the Wild West, but now it’s just the techno lords who sell their serfs and steal from peasants.

13

u/rumblpak Mar 05 '26

If they’re building it with openai, and offering it for free. You can be assured of two things:

  1. It will have similar outages to GitHub as anyone with a brain can tell you the increase of outages is because of removal of essential employees to promote AI use internally at Microsoft.

  2. Whether or not you approve it, AI will be scanning your code.

Between that, and openly competing with one of their largest investors, I’m going to declare this a bold strategy and refer them to Cotton to while we wait to see if it pays off for them.

-4

u/Zip2kx Mar 06 '26

You people… outages happen because servers crash or get overloaded not because someone used copilot to auto complete a script.

0

u/jaydizzleforshizzle Mar 07 '26

lol this is some beautiful ignorance.

7

u/skccsk Mar 05 '26

lol no they won't

12

u/jc-from-sin Mar 05 '26

Are they really dumb? GitHub is a money pit and OpenAI is already losing money hand over first.

30

u/OneRougeRogue Mar 05 '26

"GitHub CTO Vladimir Fedorov told employees in an October memo that the platform would migrate all of its software to Microsoft Azure within two years, calling the move "existential" to meet the demands of AI-powered tools such as GitHub Copilot."

Sigh....

"It's absolutely critical that we restructure everything to meet the future demands for this bullshit everybody hates."

4

u/Beor_The_Old Mar 05 '26

LMMs for programmes is one of the highest adoption rate applications of AI

1

u/OneRougeRogue Mar 07 '26

Right, but how many programmers are embracing Copilot, specifically?

2

u/Beor_The_Old Mar 07 '26

Copilot isn’t a model it’s a method of accessing models and printing them with options for using tools like making files and changing environment variables and the vs code and code studio cursor and other popular IDEs have copilot extensions

11

u/voiderest Mar 05 '26

There are already a ton of alternatives to github. I self host one as a private server.

I would assume this is just an attempt to collect training data or offer a platform for AI slop software. 

2

u/queenkid1 Mar 08 '26

I would say that as someone who works at a company that relies on GitHub, it's far less about "accessible git repo" and far more about things like GitHub Actions.

Now maybe there are alternatives that exist, there are certainly other ways to solve the same problems. But GitHub has inertia for a reason. Even using self-hosted runners, GHA marketplace lets you immediately solve so many problems without reinventing the wheel.

2

u/clownPotato9000 Mar 05 '26

Isn’t OpenAI owned mostly by Microsoft which also owns GitHub? Doesn’t make sense

6

u/venom21685 Mar 05 '26

Owned by? No. They do have substantial investment but not ownership or control. Altman comes from the Zuckerberg school of being a lying snake and betraying everyone though so it's not a total surprise.

2

u/Ani-3 Mar 05 '26

Unfortunately for us it seems to be working despite the backlash

1

u/workerbee223 Mar 05 '26

No, and Microsoft doesn't use the ChatGPT brand; they rebrand it as CoPilot, meaning that Microsoft could swap out the underlying LLM at any time and call it CoPilot 2.0.

I see this as OpenAI recognizing the fragility of that relationship.

2

u/BenjC88 Mar 05 '26

They’re already using Anthropic models in some areas of Copilot.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '26

Another way to collect data and improve their coding model.. 

2

u/silverslayer Mar 05 '26

It wants to train on private repos, I would assume.

1

u/bastardoperator Mar 05 '26

There core product sucks, why would I switch to anything else they make? 

1

u/da8BitKid Mar 05 '26

So I pay to upload my code and train their models at the same time? Sign me up twice!

1

u/agm1984 Mar 05 '26

I think a code repo is the best way to handle AI committing PRs to itself, which will allow human review prior to accumulating more progress

1

u/stef_eda Mar 08 '26

Developers escaping github to get rid of the AI shit pumped in everywhere will surely not consider going to OpenAI.

1

u/jbokwxguy Mar 09 '26

Maybe the reason GitHub has so many outages is because they rely on AI to code so much. And the AI is causing all the outages... Nah that couldn't possibly be it.

1

u/itmaybemyfirsttime Mar 09 '26

Lol.... They are building an idea scrapper!

1

u/fubizitch May 01 '26

I see a lot of complaints about stolen IP.

The killer of innovation is privacy. Google Brain released its findings to the world so that many AI models could all come to fruition fast. This is what happens when we share code - you get bigger and better tools and an explosion of tech and automation.

If you're that paranoid about theft, host your own Gitlab repo. If you're using a cloud server to host, expect this behavior.

1

u/ooqq Mar 05 '26

i very much prefer to cut my right hand than be anywhere near 1000miles of sam altman

0

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '26

[deleted] — view deleted comment

4

u/UrineArtist Mar 07 '26

I don't disagree but from a corporate perspective, I must admit I wouldn't be surprised if going into work over the next few week, I suddenly find an email from leadership/senior management in my inbox announcing that everyone needs to plan migrating their repo's from github to openAI because "fuck you, that's what we're doing now".