Moving away from GitHub?

asdfLin

Hello.

It is always unfortunate to see a great open source project like Principia be locked away in Microsoft's proprietary Git service GitHub. While the Git repository is easy to clone and mirror elsewhere, additional functionality provided by GitHub such as the issue tracker and pull requests cannot be mirrored and only serve to lock you into their ecosystem preventing you from migrating to a Free alternative such as Codeberg. When you use GitHub for a project you also force all contributors to interact with GitHub, reinforcing GitHub's network effect.

For more information about the reasons to not use GitHub see https://sfconservancy.org/GiveUpGitHub/ from the Software Freedom Conservatory.

Are there any plans to move Principia's development away from GitHub? It is a good idea to do this as soon as possible while the project is relatively young.

ROllerozxa

Unless Github does a Sourceforge I don't see any reason to completely move off of it.

Like if they start lacing repository releases with malware, force Microsoft accounts upon everyone, fork the Git protocol into a proprietary one or automatically turn every repository into an NFT then I would reconsider but the current points are not nearly bad enough to justify moving. I'm by no means a FOSS zealot and have no issues with the Github server software staying proprietary or them offering Copilot AI services under the Github branding as long as they don't severely disrupt open source projects like ourselves being on the platform.

One of the things that I would want to stay on Github for would be their very powerful CI machines, which we use extensively for making releases much more painless as it takes care of compiling and making builds on all three platforms for each commit. Hosting our own CI is not going to happen, I don't know if Codeberg has any substantial CI infrastructure and last I heard of GitLab's CI it required credit card verification (I only have a debit card) but maybe they're willing to give exceptions if asked.

Setting up a mirror of Principia related repositories on Codeberg sounds like a good idea though. We'll just be using Github as our canonical source until anything actually happens with Github.

(P.S. Claiming that the issue tracker or pull requests is a type of lock-in is pretty dishonest. pull requests are simply a connection to a branch in a forked repository which can be cloned and stored locally, and issues can be exported from GitHub or even scraped. It would not be any kind of hinderance to a real migration effort)

freelikegnu

Posted by ROllerozxa
Unless Github does a Sourceforge I don't see any reason to completely move off of it.

Is it me or does the pot of water feel a bit warmer?

http://techrights.org/n/2024/02/06/GitHub_is_Still_Waning_Under_Microsoft_No_Wonder_It_Shut_Down_I.shtml

asdfLin

Posted by ROllerozxa
Unless Github does a Sourceforge I don't see any reason to completely move off of it.

Microsoft has already shown that they will abuse their control as a corporate entity owning GitHub, just like Sourceforge has and still does to the unfortunate projects that remain. If you do not recognize that this is happening you are delusional.

Just admit that you are a Microsoft fanboy who is perfectly fine with them owning GitHub because in your corporate bootlicker eyes they can do nothing wrong. You will stick to the sinking GitHub ship until there is nobody else left and it turns into a ghost town like Sourceforge and only then do you realize "Maybe I was wrong and those people who were telling me to move were right?". Yeah right.

Posted by ROllerozxa
One of the things that I would want to stay on Github for would be their very powerful CI machines, which we use extensively for making releases much more painless as it takes care of compiling and making builds on all three platforms for each commit. Hosting our own CI is not going to happen, I don't know if Codeberg has any substantial CI infrastructure and last I heard of GitLab's CI it required credit card verification (I only have a debit card) but maybe they're willing to give exceptions if asked.

This is one of the most ridiculous argument I've heard for staying on GitHub. Do you know why they have such great CI offerings? Because they can provision however much cloud space in Azure as they like! You cannot reasonably expect Gitlab or Codeberg's CI to be able to compete with someone that can pull compute out of thin air for free. You need to lower your expectations to compensate and be aware that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

I am disappointed in you. Please do better.

ROllerozxa

I have begun mirroring Principia-related repositories on Codeberg based on some advice from a friend of mine: https://codeberg.org/principia/ Currently they are read-only but I heard that apparently it is possible to also mirror the issue tracker in both ways as well as accepting pull requests from the Codeberg side that can be merged and propagate to Github. I'll have to look further into that.

That being said, you (asdfLin) are a toxic individual. I am not a Microsoft fanboy nor am I a corporate bootlicker and I am insulted that you would say such a thing about me. If it weren't for the fact I had already looked into mirroring our source repositories elsewhere I probably wouldn't have done it, especially after this thread. Your attitude is counterproductive to the views you hold and I hope you do not behave in this manner in any other open source project.

I don't think there's much else to discuss, so I'll go ahead and lock this thread.