Open source the SourceTree source code

Craig Phillips June 9, 2017

New SourceTree versions are frequently released with serious new bugs and issues which negatively affect large groups of users.

Atlassian are frequently very slow to address and fix these bugs, with some of them hanging around, unresolved, in JIRA for months if not years.

Open sourcing the SourceTree code would allow the community to contribute to both fixing bugs and issues within the SourceTree product as well as introduce long requested new functionality.

10 comments

Jeremy M
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June 9, 2017

Dear Craig,

This would effectively make them move to open source though.. and might bring even greater security risks. So I doubt that they will be doing that.

Friendly Regards

Craig Phillips June 12, 2017

Yes, "moving to open source" is exactly what I'm asking for.

I don't believe that there would be greater security risks, and in fact if anything, there would be fewer security risks as there would be many more eyes viewing and reviewing the source code and able to spot any potential problems.

Many other tool and utilities operate on an open source basis, for example, Microsoft's entire .NET Core stack, the Visual Studio Code editor, Github's Atom Editor, and even Mercurial's TortoiseHg GUI client, along with many, many others.  

Atlassian would maintain control of the repository and would be the ones to approve or deny any pull requests, but others in the community would have the option to submit code for potential inclusion that can ultimately only help and improve the SourceTree product.

 

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Jeff Lewis June 16, 2017

It would also let us tailor versions of SourceTree for our own use. Case in point, a lot of Git users are trying to bridge between other more traditional VCSes and Git and fill in the gaps by enforcing practices like 'you must include the branch name in the commits since Git doesn't track that'. We could add a feature to automatically prefix the branch name.

Mind you a scripting system with triggers wouldn't hurt. Most other VCS clients have this concept. Again, something that could be done if it's open sourced.

rowan stringer July 23, 2018

These points are very valid. I would love an answer to these from an Atlassian representative. I want to be able to make SourceTree a more customisable tool to fix some of its usability issues - especially no error message when trying to create a BitBucket pull request from a branch that has not yet been pushed!

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Alexey Strelkov June 29, 2017

Totally agreed. Some frustrating bugs are unresolved for years. Also, I catch myself thinking that I want to add some useful features or research performance issues on big repositories.

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melvinrayherr July 17, 2017

Totally agreed. There are small usability issues that bug me and I've often whished I could just open a PR fixing the issue. The number of open tickets discourages any new ones.

kdpuvvadi September 10, 2017

Totally agreed, and one thing i don't get is GPL states that if you include GPL software into your project and you should make the end product GPL too (as far i know). Sourcetree uses ton on Opensource products and a lot of them are GPL. And Matt from Automattic(wordpress) was arguing about Wix using wordpress content editer in their android app and not making the app opensource. 

leonelsr July 9, 2018

Actually the GPL only says you can use GPL'ed code on your for-profit closed source software. BUT you need to say that on your software and include a copy of (or a link to) the GPL with it. And, of course, if you modify any GPL program, you need to make the modified sources repositories public.

SourceTree already includes open source software into it and already does list all of them and their licenses in the about dialog. They are not obliged to make the entire program open source.

But I really wish they did!

And GPL is not the only Open Source license out there... Google Chrome, for example, uses the BSD License on its Chromium counterpart.image.png

brettz9 May 20, 2019

Actually GPL (if not the LGPL) is viral, so it imposes the same requirements on Sourcetree if they were to bundle the GPL code to make their code under the GPL terms as well. For the above-mentioned libraries that are just "downloaded by" Sourcetree, I don't think there is any issue, but I can't tell from the above if any of those GPL items are actually bundled.

konecnymichael November 10, 2017

YES! This needs to be done.

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KaiFalkowski August 22, 2018

Would be awesome if sourcetree became open source!

As already mentioned there are many feature requests open for years (e.g. supporting git's --color-words) which could be done by the community.

And talking about security: security by obscurity is not the right way. Bugs can be spotted & fixed much faster if everyone has the chance to review the code.

twome December 6, 2018

I very much support this. I'm not concerned about the Atlassian developer's work on SourceTree, which has been very good. I'm concerned about the autocratic power a private, for-profit company has to eventually defund or corrupt SourceTree, such that the developers' work goes to waste and the worldwide git userbase loses the only good gratis git GUI.

I would be happy to contribute towards a one-time bounty or continuous funding in order to open-source SourceTree and provide for its current maintainers to continue their work.

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ChuckieAJ
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March 2, 2021

What I would like to know is how you handle the dark / light theme toggle. I have an Xamarin.Forms app and when I set the UserAppTheme to the various choices the window does not change.

Mursaleen July 27, 2021

1000% Agreed!!

Trevor May 30, 2022

Any thoughts on this Atlassian?

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