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GitHub Mysteriously Blocks Developer for No Reason

Game developer Jason Rohrer says GitHub blocked his account and did not explain why. The company has since apologized and restored the account.

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is a hugely popular hosting site for code, making it a major contributor to the developer community. Indeed, dev's have come to trust and appreciate the -owned service. However, some of that trust may be on shaky ground following an incident with one developer.

Jason Rohrer was given a significant scare by GitHub when the company blocked him without explanation. As the developer of over a dozen games with code hosted on GitHub, including One Hour One Life, Rohrer was given no explanation why he was blocked.

“If you're thinking about using @github for your life's work, FYI, they may remove it without any warning or notice, based on some user ‘report' made out of spite. That happened today for the 5+ years of One Hour One Life work that I'm hosting there. They didn't even email me,” Rohrer wrote.

Rohrer says he was shocked by the company's unprofessional handling of the situation. GitHub CEO Nat Friedman reached out to Rohrer through Twitter and offered him an apology, suggesting this was an error on the company's part.

https://twitter.com/jasonrohrer/status/1136092621149880320

Friedman promised to look into the cause of the situation. However, Rohrer says despite this, he has still not been told why he was blocked in the first place, even though his account has now been restored.

“The biggest problem here was that I wasn't even emailed when my account was blocked. GitHub emails me notifications all the time. For such an active account with such a deep history, taking it down in a silent POOF with no notification? I was greeted with a 404,” he said.

Whether this episode will harm the code-sharing site's reputation with its 38 million users.

Desktop Version 2

Earlier today, we reported on the introduction of GitHub Desktop 2.0. The says the new version brings Stashing and Rebasing to GitHub Desktop for the first time. According to the company, these are the two most requested features.

Luke Jones
Luke Jones
Luke has been writing about all things tech for more than five years. He is following Microsoft closely to bring you the latest news about Windows, Office, Azure, Skype, HoloLens and all the rest of their products.

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