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What we really need is a decentralised git forge using something like ActivityPub. We cannot keep relying on companies to host open content for us.

fabianhjr 6y ago
ActivityPub is federated like git is distributed. You can add several remotes from different servers (or peers in case of single user instances hosted at home) Even though other sites like GitLab exist that GitHub remains a near-monopoly default doesn't bode well for attempting to migrate to a completely decentralized system as default. There are decentralized extensions of git (like git-ssb). Addenda: Git is also not well suited for a lot of decentralization due to how branches are modeled. Patch-theory based systems like darcs and pijul would need more adoption before code repositories could be decentralized.
- djeiasbsbo 6y ago
  I understand that but there is a difference between just git and the forge, which is GitHub in this case. If I fork a project on GitHub it has a fork relationship on the platform itself. This makes it very easy to interact with the original project. However, without an actual GitHub account I can't contribute back to the project at all. If I have for example my own Gitlab server I have the ability to clone a project from GitHub and maintain my fork on my server. However, to contribute back, I will still need to bring my changes back to GitHub first. What a federated implementation of such a "git hosting/collaboration platform" would allow me to do would be to fork a project from another instance to my self-hosted instance. It would benefit every open-source project that would be willing to host their own instance. I could then easily contribute back into the main project without needing an account on their instance. It would also make it much harder to take down a project with a DMCA like this because forks of it would exist across instances, meaning claims would have to be sent to each maintainer of these instances. In this case, they were simply able to list all of the forks on GitHub and because GitHub is one website, all of them were taken down, seemingly without any further inspection wether the claim covers these forks as well. I realise that this is difficult to implement but I think mastodon is a great example of how such federation can work in practice.
- SoniEx2 6y ago
  What if... you kept github in the loop? What if you could make a federated/decentralized git that doesn't care whether the git repo is made available by github or my-fancy-federated-git-host?
  - fabianhjr 6y ago
    > What if... you kept github in the loop? It is like wanting to keep Twitter in the loop when migrating to federated alternatives like the Fediverse. Twitter (or Github) wont federate in good faith and will actively attempt to capture as much users as possible. > What if you could make a federated/decentralized git that doesn't care whether the git repo is made available by github or my-fancy-federated-git-host? Git is distributed already; remotes work like that.
    - SoniEx2 6y ago
      Yeah Twitter doesn't work because it's not simply hosting the posts that you interact with elsewhere. Github is simply hosting the repos. Git is decentralized already. That's the key difference between Twitter and Github and why I made GAnarchy the way I did. and also why I make a point of hosting a GAnarchy instance on github pages and encouraging others to do the same. (self-hosted is better of course, but.)
rapnie 6y ago
Yes, like https://forgefed.peers.community/ https://forgefed.peers.community/ which is exactly that.
- miguelmota 6y ago
  Probably a dumb question, but don't federated services eventually lead to centralization? for example SMTP is federated but most users are on gmail, IRC is decentralized but most users are on freenode server, etc. users tend to choose the services/instances with the most users, which is what makes github currently very valuable.
  - cedilla 6y ago
    IRC isn't federated in that sense, users on EFnet can't interact with users on freenode, so the network effect works in that case. Gmail has an enormous market share (about 40%) but I don't think that's related to the nature of SMTP, more about their incredibly competitive free tier and the decidedly not federated groupware for their business offering.
  - djeiasbsbo 6y ago
    That could very well be argued. However, I still have the ability to run my own Email servers and communicate with user who use gmail. If gmail decided to ban a number of accounts due to something like a DMCA claim, I would be unaffected by that. The same is not true on GitHub which is one Website. Every fork of this project on GitHub was affected by this claim...
    - beagle3 6y ago
      Gmail killfiled a domain I was running on a small but reputable ISP I had used since 2001 (there were no spam or reputation issues in 17 years). They did let one-in-20 or so emails through, but everything else got to gmail recipients’ Spam folder. I wasn’t able to troubleshoot this with Google tools, and there’s no one to talk to at google. (Worst thing, you get no feedback - except realizing a month later that someone didn’t get an email you sent) I gave up and replaced small ISP with fastmail. My bottom line is that, no you can’t really run your own SMTP server anymore unless google, Microsoft and fastmail let you, by virtue of hoisting 90% of your recipients.

fabianhjr 6y ago

ActivityPub is federated like git is distributed. You can add several remotes from different servers (or peers in case of single user instances hosted at home) Even though other sites like GitLab exist that GitHub remains a near-monopoly default doesn't bode well for attempting to migrate to a completely decentralized system as default. There are decentralized extensions of git (like git-ssb). Addenda: Git is also not well suited for a lot of decentralization due to how branches are modeled. Patch-theory based systems like darcs and pijul would need more adoption before code repositories could be decentralized.

djeiasbsbo 6y ago
I understand that but there is a difference between just git and the forge, which is GitHub in this case. If I fork a project on GitHub it has a fork relationship on the platform itself. This makes it very easy to interact with the original project. However, without an actual GitHub account I can't contribute back to the project at all. If I have for example my own Gitlab server I have the ability to clone a project from GitHub and maintain my fork on my server. However, to contribute back, I will still need to bring my changes back to GitHub first. What a federated implementation of such a "git hosting/collaboration platform" would allow me to do would be to fork a project from another instance to my self-hosted instance. It would benefit every open-source project that would be willing to host their own instance. I could then easily contribute back into the main project without needing an account on their instance. It would also make it much harder to take down a project with a DMCA like this because forks of it would exist across instances, meaning claims would have to be sent to each maintainer of these instances. In this case, they were simply able to list all of the forks on GitHub and because GitHub is one website, all of them were taken down, seemingly without any further inspection wether the claim covers these forks as well. I realise that this is difficult to implement but I think mastodon is a great example of how such federation can work in practice.
SoniEx2 6y ago
What if... you kept github in the loop? What if you could make a federated/decentralized git that doesn't care whether the git repo is made available by github or my-fancy-federated-git-host?
- fabianhjr 6y ago
  > What if... you kept github in the loop? It is like wanting to keep Twitter in the loop when migrating to federated alternatives like the Fediverse. Twitter (or Github) wont federate in good faith and will actively attempt to capture as much users as possible. > What if you could make a federated/decentralized git that doesn't care whether the git repo is made available by github or my-fancy-federated-git-host? Git is distributed already; remotes work like that.
  - SoniEx2 6y ago
    Yeah Twitter doesn't work because it's not simply hosting the posts that you interact with elsewhere. Github is simply hosting the repos. Git is decentralized already. That's the key difference between Twitter and Github and why I made GAnarchy the way I did. and also why I make a point of hosting a GAnarchy instance on github pages and encouraging others to do the same. (self-hosted is better of course, but.)

rapnie 6y ago

Yes, like https://forgefed.peers.community/ https://forgefed.peers.community/ which is exactly that.

miguelmota 6y ago
Probably a dumb question, but don't federated services eventually lead to centralization? for example SMTP is federated but most users are on gmail, IRC is decentralized but most users are on freenode server, etc. users tend to choose the services/instances with the most users, which is what makes github currently very valuable.
- cedilla 6y ago
  IRC isn't federated in that sense, users on EFnet can't interact with users on freenode, so the network effect works in that case. Gmail has an enormous market share (about 40%) but I don't think that's related to the nature of SMTP, more about their incredibly competitive free tier and the decidedly not federated groupware for their business offering.
- djeiasbsbo 6y ago
  That could very well be argued. However, I still have the ability to run my own Email servers and communicate with user who use gmail. If gmail decided to ban a number of accounts due to something like a DMCA claim, I would be unaffected by that. The same is not true on GitHub which is one Website. Every fork of this project on GitHub was affected by this claim...
  - beagle3 6y ago
    Gmail killfiled a domain I was running on a small but reputable ISP I had used since 2001 (there were no spam or reputation issues in 17 years). They did let one-in-20 or so emails through, but everything else got to gmail recipients’ Spam folder. I wasn’t able to troubleshoot this with Google tools, and there’s no one to talk to at google. (Worst thing, you get no feedback - except realizing a month later that someone didn’t get an email you sent) I gave up and replaced small ISP with fastmail. My bottom line is that, no you can’t really run your own SMTP server anymore unless google, Microsoft and fastmail let you, by virtue of hoisting 90% of your recipients.