Sure, I know a lot of projects have been on GH since before MS bought it, but they’ve owned it for quite a while now, so we really should be seeing better migration out by now, no?
Codeberg is nonprofit which seems more in the spirit of the Linux ecosystem overall. GH is for-profit…
EDIT: All right, all right, I’ve gotten schooled. Thank you, O wise ones; I didn’t realize how much Microsoft literally depends on Linux, among other things. I will proceed to shut up.
GitHub has been around for nearly 2 decades and was largely considered a mostly good thing until maybe the past couple of years. Also important to add that Microsoft seems to mostly have left it alone for the first couple of years (possibly with the exception of Atom, which it left very alone)
In addition to people just generally being slow to change, changing can take quite a bit of effort for some projects for varying reasons. Many of those same projects struggle to keep up with the maintenance workload, so they’re not going to jump at the chance to add more work to their plates.
Finally, some people just don’t care. For instance, the MIT license being popular is pretty hard evidence that FOSS doesn’t necessarily mean anti-corporate, and for many users GitHub still more or less does what it says on the tin.
Though I will say if the service disruptions and ad-injection bullshit continue you’ll only see GitHub competitors grow. GitLab seems to be going after their enterprise customers with some success.
For instance, the MIT license being popular is pretty hard evidence that FOSS doesn’t necessarily mean anti-corporate, and for many users GitHub still more or less does what it says on the tin.
I’m pretty sure that MIT license is that popular out of ignorance, instead of an informed decision to allow corporate to steal and make money out of their code.
Two main reasons: history and network effects.
GitHub was an independent company for a decade that provided a vastly superior service to what it replaced, primarily SourceForge. And it was free for FOSS projects, while charging for closed ones.
The improvements paid for by the closed source customers trickled out to everyone. So, it became the best place for FOSS developers, large and small. And as more people moved to GH, the more reason there was to move to it.
Of course, it was constantly bleeding money and eventually had to do something. That ended up being selling to MS.
There was a lot of trepidation about this, but for the first few years they not only kept their promise about supporting FOSS, but actually made it better by allowing small private repos to get many of the services that were previously gated for open FOSS or paid repos.
And the alternatives were stil not as good, and just as importantly didn’t have the user networking that GH does.
Now, some FOSS people are starting to look elsewhere, Codeberg, self-hosted Forgejo, and others. They have come a long way and are nearing feature parity, particularly for smallish projects. But the network effects of discovery and reputation are strong, and GH still provides a few more useful features.
I’ve moved my private repos to self hosted Forgejo, but my public ones are still on GH as push mirrors. I’m not ready to give up the discoverability and Mac/Windows CI runners that I can get from GH for free. I hope to be able to some day, but not yet.
Like many other social media sites it’s partially network effects.
I joined Github and others, years ago to report bugs in software. But now I rage quit Github. No more bugs from me unless you move your application to a more acceptable platform. I suggest every bug reporter user do likewise. Screw Microsoft.
Hmm, good point… I am an avid bug reporter…
I believe the core reason is that, when MS bought it, and while they make it worse day by day, the number of projects in Github was already huge and it just keeps growing. That being said, it is still the main platform to find FOSS projects, and to have your project be found.
A lot of people are migrating though. The good thing about the FOSS community and philosophy is that they don’t really need to rely on shitty companies like Microsoft. They can (and many actually do) just move on, at least regarding their own personal projects.
I must’ve missed this meme if this is some sort of repeat.
no, thats just what a friend of mine said genuinely. unfortunately, gh (or rather it’s features) is necessary in some cases. such as free ci, bandwidth and storage.
Been on this post before but just noticed you mentioned “Linux project” as if everything open source (or even source available) is Linux. Quite the ignorance…
Huh? I am aware; I didn’t say “all Linux projects,” did I? Of course I already know that there are already some on Codeberg and elsewhere, but I still wanted to address the behemoth.
I am not talking about the git provider, I am talking about “Linux project”. I know we are kind of on “@[email protected]”, but how many tools you use do you think are truly Linux specific? Even some long time linuxisms like libinput and DRM have been ported over to BSDs for example.
True, I always look for cross-platform ones whenever possible…
A friend of mine sees using GitHub as microslop paying reparations to open source.
Right, like how Micro$lop :
- blocked repository search without login (while it worked before the acquisition)
- pushed in the most traditional Micro$lop fashion for its own product, e.g. Copilot, with in product ads
- use repositories as ways to feed its own set of products, e.g. Azure for OpenAI, in order to push for code generation while ignoring licenses
and all the other things (please feel free to make this list more comprehensive) as “reparations”?
It’s the same old "Embrace, extend, and extinguish " (EEE) scheme they’ve been (sadly successfully) running for decades now.
Amuy new projects are codeberg. But github has a default 10gb repo space. Imagine everyone suddenly wants that on codeberg, the cost alone would force them to shut down or have other forms of income than donations.
I didn’t know the repo space was that different. That does play a factor in all this…
Arguably the biggest contributor to the Linux ecosystem is Red Hat, a for-profit company that offers its technologies to the Israeli military among other things. The biggest contributor to the Linux kernel is Red Hat, while the second biggest is Meta. The Linux ecosystem is not inherently nonprofit!
Wow I went to fact check that claim and it’s actually no exaggeration. Here is the AP article.
Google and Amazon provide cloud computing and AI services to the Israeli military under “Project Nimbus,” a $1.2 billion contract signed in 2021, when Israel first tested out its in-house AI-powered targeting systems. The IDF has used Cisco and Dell server farms or data centers. Red Hat, an independent IBM subsidiary, also has provided cloud computing technologies to the Israeli military, while Palantir Technologies, a Microsoft partner in U.S. defense contracts, has a “strategic partnership” providing AI systems to help Israel’s war efforts.
Crazy to see Palantir, Google, Microsoft mentioned alongside …Red Hat.
Github was around for a long time before MS bought it.
I know, but more people left Twitter after it became X, for example, so migration is totally possible.
You seem to think that the idea is that linux and most FOSS projects are some carebear nonprofit charity organization. You are wrong.
In most cases the idea is that open source work is there because it is easier to share technological progress if multiple companies work at it. And because of this it is just better than the alternative. The linux kernel is worked on by multiple large corporations that are in the business of making money using servers. If these servers run better then they make more money. To make them run better for them they need to implement their features and because of the licence and the ecosystem they need to publish these modifications back to the upstream.
All this works so good because a lot of companies make a lot of money with it.
Github will be used as long as it does not interfere with the workflow or with the legal aspects, nobody cares about the spirit nearly as much as you think
Fair, but what about the Copilot-pockmarking? And they’re always one step away from a paywall… Why wait until it gets that bad versus at least duplicating elsewhere now?
Why wait until it gets that bad versus at least duplicating elsewhere now?
so why aren’t you volunteering your time and effort to help at least one project migrate, instead of just complaining they haven’t?
I like your action-oriented thinking! However, I’m not complaining; I’m warning and inquiring. I also didn’t name/target any particular project; I was just thinking about the relative size of the two orgs and I find myself just generally living in the FOSS space and trying to encourage it as much as possible over for-profit in today’s era of hyper-greedy capitalists, more and more.
I posted here first to check why people aren’t moving before bothering to assist with migrations myself, and I’m glad I did because I’ve come to agree that due to Git’s distributed system, it’s generally not worth it and is probably good enough for devs to pack their bags quickly enough should Microsoft pull any further shenanigans. Should that day come, sure, I’d be happy to help!
