New repository settings for configuring pull request access

I hadn't heard, but you're right. And they've clearly taken account of the negative impact a particular group was having on the ecosystem.

From the FAQ on https://hacktoberfest.com/ :

> Do I still submit pull requests to earn swag?

> Pull requests and merge requests will no longer count toward Hacktoberfest rewards. It’s easier than ever to submit low-effort spam PRs to projects, so we’re listening to maintainer feedback and no longer actively incentivizing PRs. That being said, we certainly still encourage you to work on open source and share your work with the world during Hacktoberfest. Our new format focuses on learning and building together while reducing the burden of low-effort contributions on maintainers.

Good to see them adapt to the times. Using maintainers as free labour via PR abuse was such a 2023 way of being a parasite to the free software community. The new, cool way of doing it is to endorse the technology that can wash free software of those pesky copyleft licenses and unevenly distribute the expertise it encodes to the corporations who can pay for the most tokens.

I imagine in order to really notice this in the course of your routine, you'd usually be either maintaining open source repos (exposed to the vast amounts of AI-driven PRs), or submitting PRs to open source regularly.

While that was a nice change, don't kid yourself: Github was the dominant platform before that for a reason, and the alternatives were either behind in features or very new. I'm doubtful that if they still had the old pricing structure for private repos that it'd change anything about their success.

Also, the old structure reflected their focus/encouragement of open source, something this change does even more to move away from.

At the same time, I don't view this as a huge issue, though it does make me wish it was easier to get activity details on forks so even if a repo is locked down it would let you see where PRs "went".

I never thought I’d see the day where somebody who works at the DoD would spend their spare time trying to get random open source projects (even one that already has a CoC) to accept the Contributors Covenant via GitHub pull requests. We truly are living in an enlightened age.