forgeFed — julian

Open tech, be afraid.

Wed, 15 Nov 2023 21:24:00 +0000

Open tech, be afraid. Be very afraid. Microsoft owns both Visual Studio Code “VSCode” and MS-GitHub, two intertwined and utterly proprietary product-service ecosystems with a bit of open-source in their core to lure us in. Because they love open source? Yeah, no.

Soon after leaving GitPod whose technology links the two, Geoffrey Hunt last year explained their strategy and what it's doing to our open tech world, in a great and “harrowing” article, “Visual Studio Code is designed to fracture” https://ghuntley.com/fracture/

“The future of software development tooling that is being built is closed as ****, and people seem to be okay with it...”

This is why MS-GitHub is not our friend.

This is why falling for their trick, disguising MS-VSCode as a neat “free” editor, will come back and haunt and hurt us.

Vendor lock-in double-whammy. Using open source as “a financial weapon”.

”... the biggest challenge for Gitpod, GitLab, Datacoves, OpenBB, Foam, et al lies ahead – developing open language tooling for each community where Microsoft has forked the communities over to proprietary language servers...”

If we have a grain of public spirit, if we are motivated at all by the Freedom that's supposed to be afforded by Free-Libre Open-Source Software, we must #GiveUpGithub, we must recognise the trap, we must choose truly open #FreedomTech.

On Open Source and the Sustainability of the Commons, Ploum, 2024
We need to talk about your Github addiction, Ploum, 2023
I Can't Wait for Forge Federation, Wrily, 2023
Your FOSS Project Deserves its Own Domain, Wrily, 2023
FOSS Apps Live in FOSS Forges, Wrily, 2022
FOSS Apps Live in FOSS App Stores!, Wrily, 2022

#awesomeFOSS #selfHosted #GiveUpGithub #DitchDiscord #forgeFed #forgeFederation #Forgejo #Codeberg #useOpenTools

Follow/Feedback/Contact: RSS feed · Fedi follow this blog: @julian@wrily.foad.me.uk · matrix me · Fedi follow me · email me · julian.foad.me.uk Donate: via Liberapay All posts © Julian Foad and licensed CC-BY-ND except quotes, translations, or where stated otherwise

I Can't Wait for Forge Federation

Wed, 04 Oct 2023 09:19:34 +0000

I was just preparing a Merge Request to contribute upstream, when I noted,

You can review my merge request in the web UI at my TraxLab (gitlab) repo. Obviously you can't click the “Merge” button (until Forge Federation is done — there's an awesome project to check out).

It still grieves me that open source devs push me into working with Microsoft Github. Sure I understand the argument to use it “because it's convenient right now and 'everyone' is there” but to me there's a more important value I wish to uphold:

Millions of Free Software developers forgot why it matters to own their tools.

... says ForgeFriends.org, continuing ...

They know, better than anyone, how to fix and improve them. But when they choose to collaborate only via the most popular proprietary software forges, they are denied the right to use their skills and cannot work with fellow developers who are banned because they reside in the wrong country. They have been made to believe that the tools they use daily to craft their own software are out of reach. As if their software was a product that could be separated from the other software running the tests, allowing changes to be merged or bugs to be filed. But software is a process, and whoever controls it ultimately decides what the developers can do and how they communicate.

I'm looking eagerly to the great work of the forward thinking folks involved in ForgeFriends, the ForgeJo forge and Codeberg.org hosting, who are turning forge federation from a dream into reality. They are creating one of the most important movements in the open source software world today. I am keeping my eyes open for a grant opportunity or other financial support, as I would love to join them in making it happen.

FOSS Apps Live in FOSS Forges
GitLab: some discussions ongoing

#awesomeFOSS #selfHosted #giveUpGithub #forgeFed #forgeFederation #ForgeJo #Codeberg #FreedomTech

FOSS Apps Live in FOSS Forges

Sat, 19 Nov 2022 21:41:09 +0000

Software is a process, and whoever controls it ultimately decides what the developers can do and how they communicate.

The elephant in the room is Microsoft. Open tech, be afraid. Be very afraid. Microsoft owns both VSCode and MS-GitHub, two intertwined and utterly proprietary product-service ecosystems with a bit of open-source in their core to lure us in.

Have the Freenode sell-out (2021) and the Twitter fiasco (2022) taught us nothing?

FOSS thrives in FOSS ecosystems.

In their “State of the Forge Federation” newsletter, ForgeFriends said it best:

Millions of Free Software developers forgot why it matters to own their tools. They know, better than anyone, how to fix and improve them. But when they choose to collaborate only via the most popular proprietary software forges, they are denied the right to use their skills and cannot work with fellow developers who are banned because they reside in the wrong country. They have been made to believe that the tools they use daily to craft their own software are out of reach. As if their software was a product that could be separated from the other software running the tests, allowing changes to be merged or bugs to be filed. But software is a process, and whoever controls it ultimately decides what the developers can do and how they communicate.

The source code and the development process of so many great Free-as-in-Freedom projects are currently hosted on the proprietary Microsoft Github. This makes me sad. In my strong opinion, to better serve FOSS as a whole they would GiveUpGithub and move to a FOSS software forge provider such as Codeberg.org and/or host a FOSS forge at their own domain.

How to Choose Freedom

provide a forge at one's own domain, using FOSS forge software such as Forgejo or Sourcehut or self-managed Gitlab-CE, either self-managed or rented from a service provider — Best option for freedom, independence, self-agency, large projects
choose a home at a public FOSS forge such as Codeberg or Framagit — Best option for new small projects, quick start, finding an existing community

These fine FOSS people do it right

... either at their own domain, or in a FOSS public forge:

Domain at Codeberg
FediLab at Codeberg
Fediverse Enhancement Proposals (FEP) at Codeberg
ForgeFed at Codeberg
Funkwhale at their own domain
GadgetBridge at Codeberg
Gnome at their own domain
Hubzilla at FramaGit.org
Interpeer Project at Codeberg
KDE at their own domain
KeyOxide at Codeberg
Libravatar at Ubuntu's LaunchPad.net
Mobilizon at FramaGit.org
Murena /e/OS at their own domain
NextPush at Codeberg
Plume at their own domain
Purism at their own domain
Simple-Matrix-Bot-Lib at Codeberg
(streams) at Codeberg
Ubuntu at their own domain
UnifiedPush at Codeberg
Vocata at Codeberg
Wordpress at their own domain
... and thousands more.

Pwned by Big Tech: these fine FOSS people need a nudge

I love these fine people. I value what they are making. I understand these fine people had to choose something and they chose to prioritise the convenience of Microsoft Github, but I feel more and more every year that our world of FOSS overall is stifled by being owned by such megacorps and I want to take a stand in support of prioritising our FOSS values. I would be joyful to see them improve their relationship to the FOSS world by putting their assets in FOSS infrastructure under their own control.

Authelia
Authentik
Calibre-ebook
Circles
Diary by Bill Farmer
Element [matrix] software
Elementary OS: AppCentre apps “must be hosted in a Github repository”
Fediverse Enhancement Proposals (FEP)
Gitea
Healthchecks
Homer by Bastien Wirtz
InfiniTime
Jellyfin
LibreTranslate
Mailspring
Mastodon
Navidrome
Nextcloud
ntfy
OpenAndroidInstaller
Photoprism
PocketCasts
Sandstorm
Syncthing
Traefik
Vaultwarden
WriteFreely federated blogging
YunoHost
... and thousands more.

(I'm linking only to their free/libre/open home pages, not to github.)

I'll repeat and emphasise, I love these fine FOSS projects I have listed here. I value, use, support, and/or contribute to, and recommend them to you for the fine work they are doing in free software world. I would also love to see them adopt FOSS principles when it comes to their choice of code forge.

More: #awesomeFOSS #selfHosted #GiveUpGithub #DitchDiscord #forgeFed #forgeFederation #Forgejo #Codeberg #FreedomTech #useOpenTools