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Why developers are ditching GitHub for Codeberg and self-hosting alternatives

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Re: Why developers are ditching GitHub for Codeberg and self-hosting alternatives

#151
post #82

As a developer who ditched Github and decided to self-host, there is only one reason. It's not technical difficulties, politics, nor AI. It's Microsoft. Like Apple, Facebook etc, I have a deep loathing for Microsoft and I want to remove as much of it from my life as I am able. I now run Git on a pi using Gitea and Forgejo. I can now upload files of a size unheard of in GitHub, Claude can make a PR by itself that I ca…

Microsoft's human rights stain will take decades to wear off (just like Meta, Google, and Amazon).

Eh, the stain will only grow worse over time.

They certainly are not doing anything to start bleaching it right now.

Re: Why developers are ditching GitHub for Codeberg and self-hosting alternatives

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Proceeds to list but a handful of remotely meaningful repos I'm pretty sure, shortly after the motorized vehicle was made commercialy available, there were only a "handful of remotely meaningful" people and companies who stopped using horses. Do tell: How many horses are around on todays streets?

This is not an effective argument, given that these smaller services are uniformly retrograde in functionality.

Agreed, if there was something actually better to switch to then I'd be interested. But seems unlikely for that to happen now - it's easier than ever to build a new github, at least the app itself but i doubt someone's gonna bother with the business effort needed to actually build it up as a reliable, trustworthy option that you know will be around for a while, which is a process that takes years when you know you're going to get disrupted. It would probably have to be open source to get early adopters to use it but somehow be nicer to use than GitHub, and there's basically no money to be made

Re: Why developers are ditching GitHub for Codeberg and self-hosting alternatives

#153
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're talking about the article featured on HN just day(s) ago I’m not.

Engaging :) Are you perhaps talking about "Top researchers leave USA for the Netherlands" then that was also on the HN frontpage just days ago? There been so many articles, surveys and papers about how scientists and researchers are leaving the US for the last 1-2 years, that it's hard to keep track. Still, I'm curious to understand what you actually read.

No, I’m talking about an article I saw maybe 10-12 months ago on a major news site, perhaps The Guardian.

Individual reports of scientists leaving are meaningless without overall statistics. If there is a net outflow of scientists from the US, I’m not aware of it, and I certainly haven’t seen any actual statistical evidence for it.

Re: Why developers are ditching GitHub for Codeberg and self-hosting alternatives

#154
post #82

As a developer who ditched Github and decided to self-host, there is only one reason. It's not technical difficulties, politics, nor AI. It's Microsoft. Like Apple, Facebook etc, I have a deep loathing for Microsoft and I want to remove as much of it from my life as I am able. I now run Git on a pi using Gitea and Forgejo. I can now upload files of a size unheard of in GitHub, Claude can make a PR by itself that I ca…

Microsoft is a mafia that sometimes produces code (poorly).

Re: Why developers are ditching GitHub for Codeberg and self-hosting alternatives

#156

FYI that Codeberg is currently holding a vote to broadly ban projects written mostly using AI, so its not a neutral space for hosting your projects like GitHub: https://codeberg.org/Codeberg/org/pulls/1253 https://tldr.nettime.org/@tante/116880003584050912

I've been on Codeberg for my projects since September but will pull them if this happens. I see no definition of what "mostly using AI" means and refuse to be "punished" for the choice of tooling I use. The tone and content of the thread on Mastodon is absolutely toxic.

I'd rather self-host than deal with the ambiguity and threats. Invariably from people who don't even make anything.

I have plenty of concerns around "AI" and project governance and IP law. My projects are copyleft, I'm in favour of free software, bleah bleah bleah.

But this just looks like pitchforks and mob behaviour.

Re: Why developers are ditching GitHub for Codeberg and self-hosting alternatives

#157

Mostly because developers (me included) don't like to be told we are being laid off due to AI that was trained on our free open-source hobby projects.

It sucks, but that ship has sailed. I'm not sure how they'll handle the issue of most new repos being AI generated, if they continue using new code for training. If the world accepts LLMs as a valid method for license washing, I don't see how I can fight it.

Re: Why developers are ditching GitHub for Codeberg and self-hosting alternatives

#158
post #15

Sentiment for/against GitHub aside... "Why X are doing Y" articles like these pretend that the premise of "X are doing Y" is true, conveniently skipping to the "Why" before proving that the premise is even accurate in any meaningful way. This is why I never buy headlines that start out with "Why". > developers are ditching Proceeds to list but a handful of remotely meaningful repos against the hundreds of thousands o…

Agree with the headline part, but the second part not so much.

As someone mentioned it's about the trend.

I have heard from people at multiple major open source projects that what is keeping them at Github at this point are free GH Action credits that they get and they couldn't really afford CI/CD if they left. Meaning numbers would be bigger if GH wasn't "paying" projects to stay.

Re: Why developers are ditching GitHub for Codeberg and self-hosting alternatives

#159
post #5

Did we all forget that GitHub’s military-industrial complex owners over at Microsoft made sure to send the “business as usual” signal to the USG when they refused to stop helping ICE violate human rights en masse? This was during the kidnap-and-rape-kids-in-cages days and before they started a general policy of kidnapping and/or summarily executing law-abiding citizens in the street. There are more reasons now to dis…

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Re: Why developers are ditching GitHub for Codeberg and self-hosting alternatives

#160

+ predatory pricing hikes for AI + not honouring yearly commitments plans

I'm still paying $4 a month for GitHub since I keep some repos private, which was down from the $8 a month or whatever before Microsoft acquired GitHub, are you saying there's a price hike for AI services or something else?
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