Tech News This Week: GitHub Shake-Up, HTTP/2 Security Flaws, and Open Source Burnout

From Envy to Existentialism: Tech’s Week in Perspective

The week began with an unusual juxtaposition of ideas about ambition, value, and perspective.

In a recent essay, Ben Stansel examined the vast sums circulating in Silicon Valley and the constant comparisons that come with them. “We don’t do the math to measure ourselves. We do the math to compare ourselves,” he wrote. His observation was followed by a sharp illustration of the hierarchy of envy — from recent graduates looking up to designers, to billionaires looking up to other billionaires, in an endless loop of dissatisfaction.

A much older sentiment offers a counterpoint. The biblical figure Job, after losing everything, said: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away.” Together, the two perspectives frame a week where questions of worth, purpose, and legacy intersected with the news shaping the technology industry.

Open Source Regrets

An Ask HN thread sparked a wave of candid responses about the downside of open source contributions.

While many developers celebrate open source as a path to learning, visibility, and community, others shared experiences marked by burnout, personal cost, and toxic feedback. One contributor recalled releasing a buggy script at age 14, only to be told by a senior developer to “kill yourself” — a comment that drove them away from the project for years.

Another reflected on two decades in free and open source software, regretting the imbalance between the time spent on strangers’ projects and the relationships left neglected.

Leadership Change at GitHub

GitHub’s CEO, Thomas Donkey, announced his departure to start a new venture. Donkey, who assumed the role in 2021, cited a return to his “startup roots” as the motivation for the move. A successor has not yet been named.

Security Risks in HTTP/2

Research from security expert James Kettle warns that HTTP/2 introduces vulnerabilities not present in HTTP/1. Despite its appearance as a simple protocol upgrade, Kettle identified flaws in both implementations and the underlying RFC that enable “desync attacks” unique to HTTP/2. High-profile websites have already been targeted in demonstrations of these exploits.

PHP 8.5 to Introduce Pipe Operator

The upcoming release of PHP 8.5 in November will include a native pipe operator — a feature common in functional languages like F#, OCaml, and Elixir. Its addition stems from an effort that began in 2016, inspired by Facebook’s Hack language, and aims to streamline data transformations within PHP codebases.

AI Faces Record-Breaking Copyright Lawsuit

A copyright class action against Anthropic could become the largest of its kind in history, potentially involving up to seven million claimants.

The plaintiffs allege that copyrighted works were used without permission in training Anthropic’s AI systems. With statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work, the case could result in catastrophic financial exposure — not just for Anthropic, but for the AI industry as a whole. Industry groups warn that a loss in this case could set a precedent that affects every company developing generative AI.

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