| ▲ | There is no official XScreenSaver GitHub repository(github.com) |
| 68 points by st_goliath 4 hours ago | 44 comments |
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| ▲ | metropolis_pt2 an hour ago | parent | next [-] |
| This fork is great: https://github.com/cowmix/xscreensaver |
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| ▲ | bcvvvy 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| GitHub is not authoritative and never should be considered as authoritative. Anyone can publish your stuff on there as your name. It’s a huge problem. Glad to see he’s at least put a placeholder on there. |
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| ▲ | altairprime 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The only thing missing is to mark it as Archived so that all of the GitHub features are turned off. |
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| ▲ | throwfaraway135 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| pros of having a Github repo: * people can find your project easily * stars are a pretty good indicator of authenticity * you can browse, search code right away * a place for people to contact you cons: * some maintenance * people have a place to contact you |
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| ▲ | TomMasz 32 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| This is totally on brand for JWZ. |
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| ▲ | amiga386 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Jeff Merkey is the person claiming the "xscreensaver" organisation on GitHub, despite it not being, and never has been, his project. He has promised to drop that and move the repo to /hisname/xscreensaver, but only if JWZ flatters his ego first. Sounds like he knows he's squatting on someone else's good name, but thinks he's so clever and well versed in trademark law that he'd be deliberately antagonistic all the way to the end of a huge legal bill. Just to force him to do the right thing. He knows what the right thing is and could do it at any time, but just look at his priors and tell me he'll do that: https://www.dmlp.org/threats/merkey-v-does https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitra... |
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| ▲ | johnea 21 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Once again, jwz shows that he's way ahead of the average corporate ass kiss... Github has gone to shit ever since it's purchase by M$ |
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| ▲ | createful 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| So what's the point of making a GitHub if you're not going to publish source code? Is this an inside joke? |
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| ▲ | nevon 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | To prevent impersonation and having people download potential malware from repositories posing as the official xscreensaver distribution channel. | | |
| ▲ | graemep 29 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I am pretty sure the distro packagers all know where to get the real code from, and its packaged for everything that runs X so minimal risk. Also assuming something on github is the official repo is dangerous anyway. There might be multiple repos with the same name, there might be a more actively developed fork and the official one might be unmaintained, etc. |
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| ▲ | Svip an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | May be also be relevant to link to JWZ's post about it: https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/10/gitsquatting/ | | |
| ▲ | barrkel an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | You cannot hotlink to jwz; he will redirect you to a testicle in an eggcup based on referer header. | | |
| ▲ | oneeyedpigeon 38 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Warning: it persists somehow, so you can't click on a link from HN, realise the problem, then copy+paste to correct it. Looks like you need to open an incognito window, use a different browser, or maybe otherwise clear your session. | | | |
| ▲ | severak_cz 41 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | Is it known why this is happening? | | |
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| ▲ | fg137 19 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I haven't seen a site that hurts my eyes this much for a very, very long time. | |
| ▲ | kouosi an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | it looks like the site is offline :( | | |
| ▲ | scbrg an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | jwz also famously special cases traffic from hacker news. You may have better luck if you copy & paste the link to avoid sending referrer headers. | |
| ▲ | lbriner an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | You need to open it incognito to avoid the Hacker News insult image! |
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| ▲ | numpad0 41 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | to prevent a malware or something showing up as the top result on Google Search? |
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| ▲ | cookiengineer 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Instead of providing a mirrored repository, they decided to intentionally not fixing the correctly identified problem while simultaneously still living 30 years in the past. Setting up a git mirror that auto syncs takes less than 2mins of effort. And way less time than writing up this README that's just there to lecture people. If it's about disagreement with github, there's also better alternatives. You can still setup the mirror and be done with it, and put the original repo links at the top in the README. |
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| ▲ | st_goliath 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The upstream has no public repository, neither on GitHub nor anywhere else. JWZ might not even use git in the first place, the source might be in a local SVN repo, or just a series of tarballs and patches, assuming it is version controlled at all. | | |
| ▲ | cookiengineer 37 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I didn't criticize the motivations to ditch GitHub. I applaud that. I criticized the intentional creation of a GitHub account just to write a README file wherein they say that there's no repository, instead of providing any useful information for people looking for a repository. If there's no repository and you go to such great lengths just to clarify that there isn't any, then maybe you can just push your code to codeberg or gitlab or a selfhosted gogs instance if you don't trust them? Nobody said that he MUST accept pull requests or MUST engage with any community at all. You can just disable all the features, I do that too since 4chan raided my repos in 2021 and GitHub didn't do shit about it. But this way at least there's no risk for people installing malware infiltrated forks of xscreensaver on their machines. And that's what is the important part that wasn't actually solved/avoided/prevented with that README file. | | |
| ▲ | amiga386 19 minutes ago | parent [-] | | The page provides useful information. It tells you where you can download the XScreenSaver source code (from https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/), and how you can send patches (via email) It doesn't need to provide anything else. Nobody is required to sign up to your preferred platform, or make their work available in a way you prefer to consume it. Get over yourself. If you want to contribute, contribute as requested. Or don't, the license allows you to host your own version, just be clear it's your version. JWZ went to great lengths on github.com, solely because some other shitheel registered the "xscreensaver" organisation and went out of their way to make it seem like it's official, and github.com's google juice means it outranks the real site. Hence the need for the effort to solve that problem (reputation management and SEO after a copycat misrepresents themselves as you) Putting a repo on Github, versus putting a notice on Github that there's no repo, does not change the risk of people installing malware. While someone else still has the top ranked page for your software, they remain the most likely place a moron in a hurry[0] will download from. You adding a repo doesn't help, you getting their repo removed, and salting it to prevent recreation, does help. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_moron_in_a_hurry |
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| ▲ | pil0u 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It's obvious that the author wants to make a statement, and has their own reason to not expose their work on GitHub. Setting up a mirror would probably contradict these reasons. | | | |
| ▲ | cxr 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > You can still setup the mirror and be done with it, and put the original repo links at the top in the README There is no original repo to link to. That's why the README says that there isn't one. > Setting up a git mirror that auto syncs takes less than 2mins Prove it. | | |
| ▲ | cookiengineer 31 minutes ago | parent [-] | | > Prove it. There's enough demo videos on how to use gogs, github or forgejo on YouTube. I have faith in your ability to use the YouTube search. |
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| ▲ | mykhamill 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Right now, I would love to live 30 years in the past. | | | |
| ▲ | bcvvvy 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Using a public source code hosting product is a choice. Also centralising everything in one place is a seriously bad idea. | |
| ▲ | messe 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Maybe someone should fork xscreensaver as xscreensaver-ng as a community project? Feel free. | |
| ▲ | antiloper 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > they decided to intentionally not fixing the correctly identified problem Which problem? | |
| ▲ | sick_of_slop 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Or they could not. It’s their project they can do what they want you are not entitled to their labour. |
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| ▲ | ytxm an hour ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Opening with the word "I" and continuing in that manner is the real reason there's no official xscreensaver repository |
