Re: Why Host Emacs Packages on GitHub? (Microsoft vs Freedom)

I made the same excuses in the past, and I could not even keep making them to myself seriously after a couple years of watching Microsoft censor various repos.

At some point people put code on GitHub before it had "network effects".

If a package is useful enough, people created accounts on GitHub to get help or contribute.

Maintainers need to stop rationalizing away their -choice- to centralize code on GitHub.

We do not need governments to help here. The political votes that matter are every repo that someone chooses to not host on GitHub, or at a minimum mirror elsewhere. The more useful your software with fewer alternatives, the more "network effect" power you wield to get someone to sign up for something besides GitHub.

I started Stagex, which is as far as I know still the only oci-native, deterministic, multi-signed, and full-source bootstrapped Linux distribution that exists.

If you want easy deterministic containerized builds of software without trusting any single human in your compilation path, Stagex is the only option.

My shameless plugging aside, I chose to host this exclusively on Codeberg in spite of the major financial sponsors all being on GitHub.

Already we have 8 contributors and the ~200 most common packages needed for most python/tcl/perl/lua/c/c++/go/rust software with more language support in progress by volunteers.

We built Stagex to ensure a fully open and transparent supply chain for any software to be built with, and that starts with using a Git host that shares these values.

Codeberg also donated unlimited free CI/CD via woodpecker as is available to most projects that apply since their funding is exclusively for social good.

We will self host eventually when forgejo supports federation so our instance can still get contributions from Codeberg users.

Git was built to be decentralized and that is never going to happen under Microsoft.

I know it is harsh but if you have a popular project and exclusively host on GitHub, you are why we are in this monopolozed-network-effect situation, and you have the power to change it.

https://codeberg.org/stagex/stagex

https://sfconservancy.org/GiveUpGitHub/

I agree with many of OP's points, but I don't think OP is addressing the suggestion of using Codeberg, which I believe is a reasonable alternative to GitHub.

It provides a GitHub-like experience, so it solves the OP's problems with SourceHut.

Regarding discoverability, I doubt anyone finds projects through GitHub's search or discoverability features, but rather through a search engine like Google or DDG and online communities. So the project should be similarly discoverable if the source was in Codeberg.

The main friction point I can see is that many won't have a Codeberg user, so they'd need to sign up in order to collaborate, while most already have a GitHub account.

Yes, particularly as a blog post (with the context of continuous ongoing discussions)

Re: is a longstanding abbreviation for

* In the Matter of ...

* With Regard to ...

* In Reference to ...

and the article discusses matters arising from the asked question "Why host on Github?".

Yes I agree with your assessment. MSFT has already started putting things like search behind a log in barrier for example.

I think it's prudent to mirror to another hosting service, even if it's just a Gitlab or similar instance that is only accessible to the repo author. That way they can always pivot away from GitHub by productionizing the backup.

Codeberg supports account creation and sign-in with GitHub login, so there really are no excuses IMO.

One extra click for any existing GitHub user to comment on a Codeberg repo.