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> Open Source has become synonymous with GitHub, and we are too small to change that. It's kind of sad that this is true. I'm guilty myself, I contribute to p

> Open Source has become synonymous with GitHub, and we are too small to change that. It's kind of sad that this is true. I'm guilty myself, I contribute to projects on GitHub more often than on any other platform. And when I search for open source projects the first page I use is GitHub.

enriquto 3y ago
Be part of the solution, not part of the problem. You can use some other forge and keep an up-to-date github repository as a read-only front.
- SushiHippie 3y ago
  I don't host my own repositories on GitHub, I host a gitea instance myself.
- clintonb 3y ago
  What exactly is the problem?
  - mikecoles 3y ago
    Shouting under the rock, "Microsoft!"
politelemon 3y ago
I will admit, I've often searched for $project_name github to get to their repositories. It shouldn't matter but it's just a force of habit now. That said I do feel some joy when I see a project on Gitlab and am happy to contribute there, eg FDroid.
gdevenyi 3y ago
A lot of this is SourceForge's fault. They had a sizable lead and completely bungled it.
- bastawhiz 3y ago
  It's not just that they dropped the ball, they actively sabotaged whatever goodwill they had built by adding malware to software. Not only was this a massive hassle, it ruined the reputation of lots of FOSS projects with folks who just wanted to use some of the most popular consumer-ish open source software like Filezilla. While SF was crapping where they eat, GitHub built a lot of trust and goodwill with a lot of people.
  - viddi 3y ago
    It should be noted that the malware bundling was done when SourceForge was owned by DHI Group, Inc. And now, for many years already, SourceForge has switched owners (BIZX/Slashdot). They have undone the bundling and are now trying to manage it like it was managed before. It seems like it's going well. I would consider SF a viable Github alternative, but the bad reputation caused by a temporary owner just seems to stick forever.
    - Ferret7446 3y ago
      Just goes to show how much damage you can do to a brand by betraying your users. I still won't use SourceForge, fuck them.
    - techdragon 3y ago
      The Sourceforge UI and overall experience is still a decade or more behind the experience on GitHub and most of the other modern and maintained equivalent sites/services like Fossil, GitLab, Gitea, etc That ancient feeling UI doesn’t win them a lot of forgiveness, if the only notable change has been “we took away the malware” and the site continues to remain stagnant, SourceForge will continue to feel very inferior to more modern alternatives.
    - lifthrasiir 3y ago
      SF's development was also essentially stalled during that period, and the current owner has to do much more things other than (proper) management to cope with competitors. If you need a proof, compare SF with Gitea/Forgejo.
NooneAtAll3 3y ago
I found Codeberg being good substitute
ahartmetz 3y ago
Open Source = a Microsoft property... I don't want it to be true and I will act like it isn't true for things I have influence over - i.e. it's not the first choice for hosting a repository. Some people don't even know the difference between Git and GitHub...
- sweetgiorni 3y ago
  > Some people don't even know the difference between Git and GitHub... I have also found this to be the case, even with engineers that have years of experience. It's both impressive and awful.
beanjuiceII 3y ago
I love having this central location even though git is distributed, mainly because having to go to multiple Git hosts of varying quality would be a pain in the ass.
krick 3y ago
Is it? I don't know, I don't use it for personal (actually personal) stuff, but if I actually want to publish something — I'd do it there. If I want to contribute to something — it's way easier to do it on Github than most other places. It makes searching for code easier too. If Microsoft decides to abuse the monopoly, or if Gitlab/etc. would actually be much better, I don't imagine it would be very difficult to switch. Well, yeah, sure, Github Actions and issue history are somewhat of a vendor-lock, but it's not that bad, I suppose. Maybe Copilot (made possible by the huge non-commercial codebase on Github) being somewhat unfair advantage to other commercial alternatives is a bit troublesome, yeah. But otherwise I just don't see why Github being a de-facto standard is bad. In fact, I am somewhat annoyed when a really popular project doesn't have a Github repository (mostly because it makes filing an issue, or even reading existing issues much more difficult in most cases). So I'm actually glad to hear that some big projects feel pressed to migrate to github. What's even a problem with that, apart, maybe, for github actions, that honestly suck? (Maybe I should add: I am a git hater, and do think that mercurial is just unquestionably better, but this battle is lost long time ago, so I don't suppose it's the topic of this discussion.)

enriquto 3y ago

Be part of the solution, not part of the problem. You can use some other forge and keep an up-to-date github repository as a read-only front.

SushiHippie 3y ago
I don't host my own repositories on GitHub, I host a gitea instance myself.
clintonb 3y ago
What exactly is the problem?
- mikecoles 3y ago
  Shouting under the rock, "Microsoft!"

politelemon 3y ago

I will admit, I've often searched for $project_name github to get to their repositories. It shouldn't matter but it's just a force of habit now. That said I do feel some joy when I see a project on Gitlab and am happy to contribute there, eg FDroid.

gdevenyi 3y ago

A lot of this is SourceForge's fault. They had a sizable lead and completely bungled it.

bastawhiz 3y ago
It's not just that they dropped the ball, they actively sabotaged whatever goodwill they had built by adding malware to software. Not only was this a massive hassle, it ruined the reputation of lots of FOSS projects with folks who just wanted to use some of the most popular consumer-ish open source software like Filezilla. While SF was crapping where they eat, GitHub built a lot of trust and goodwill with a lot of people.
- viddi 3y ago
  It should be noted that the malware bundling was done when SourceForge was owned by DHI Group, Inc. And now, for many years already, SourceForge has switched owners (BIZX/Slashdot). They have undone the bundling and are now trying to manage it like it was managed before. It seems like it's going well. I would consider SF a viable Github alternative, but the bad reputation caused by a temporary owner just seems to stick forever.
  - Ferret7446 3y ago
    Just goes to show how much damage you can do to a brand by betraying your users. I still won't use SourceForge, fuck them.
  - techdragon 3y ago
    The Sourceforge UI and overall experience is still a decade or more behind the experience on GitHub and most of the other modern and maintained equivalent sites/services like Fossil, GitLab, Gitea, etc That ancient feeling UI doesn’t win them a lot of forgiveness, if the only notable change has been “we took away the malware” and the site continues to remain stagnant, SourceForge will continue to feel very inferior to more modern alternatives.
  - lifthrasiir 3y ago
    SF's development was also essentially stalled during that period, and the current owner has to do much more things other than (proper) management to cope with competitors. If you need a proof, compare SF with Gitea/Forgejo.

NooneAtAll3 3y ago

I found Codeberg being good substitute

ahartmetz 3y ago

Open Source = a Microsoft property... I don't want it to be true and I will act like it isn't true for things I have influence over - i.e. it's not the first choice for hosting a repository. Some people don't even know the difference between Git and GitHub...

sweetgiorni 3y ago
> Some people don't even know the difference between Git and GitHub... I have also found this to be the case, even with engineers that have years of experience. It's both impressive and awful.

beanjuiceII 3y ago

I love having this central location even though git is distributed, mainly because having to go to multiple Git hosts of varying quality would be a pain in the ass.

krick 3y ago

Is it? I don't know, I don't use it for personal (actually personal) stuff, but if I actually want to publish something — I'd do it there. If I want to contribute to something — it's way easier to do it on Github than most other places. It makes searching for code easier too. If Microsoft decides to abuse the monopoly, or if Gitlab/etc. would actually be much better, I don't imagine it would be very difficult to switch. Well, yeah, sure, Github Actions and issue history are somewhat of a vendor-lock, but it's not that bad, I suppose. Maybe Copilot (made possible by the huge non-commercial codebase on Github) being somewhat unfair advantage to other commercial alternatives is a bit troublesome, yeah. But otherwise I just don't see why Github being a de-facto standard is bad. In fact, I am somewhat annoyed when a really popular project doesn't have a Github repository (mostly because it makes filing an issue, or even reading existing issues much more difficult in most cases). So I'm actually glad to hear that some big projects feel pressed to migrate to github. What's even a problem with that, apart, maybe, for github actions, that honestly suck? (Maybe I should add: I am a git hater, and do think that mercurial is just unquestionably better, but this battle is lost long time ago, so I don't suppose it's the topic of this discussion.)