GitHub Is Not Open Source, A Rant

Content warning: this is a rant from a teenager who has strong opinions.

Okay...

However, it holds a monopoly on software.

You don't know what a "monopoly" is.

they could just go “Boop! You’re gone!” and there’s nothing I could do about it other than move forges.

Yeah, nothing you could do about it, other than moving to one of the many other git hosts. Monopoly!

And then after listing off a whole bunch of alternative git hosts...

Centralization is not bad by itself but it’s bad when there’s no other option. There just needs to be ways to contribute to code without having to use Github.

You have plenty of ways to do that, and you know that because you just listed them. Github is not a monopoly.

Also, I don't see the concept of open source mentioned at any point in this rant.

I would recommend that you check Codeberg - it uses Forgejo. If you're interested in self-hosting, you can also run your own Forgejo instance.

Did you just discover this? It's a Microsoft site after all.

The fact that GitHub is owned by Microsoft alone makes it not open-source.

GitHub isn’t.

The code on it is.

You could use gitlab, or something else.

It is indeed surprising how a Microsoft-owned site has become the default home for open-source projects. Have people thought this through?

1. You can use other forges, but they have the exact same issues as GitHub. You need to make an account, you need to accept terms of service and if they feel like it (or are forced by a court) they'll ban you and your repository.

2. git send-email exists. So it's not like you absolutely can't contribute to projects that are hosted on GitHub.

At some point in the future gitlab will get federation, but that's not a solution for now. It'll take a while.

The fact GitHub is not open source on their servers is not really a problem for me, there are many open source platforms to host code. And for centralized platform I won't be able to change anything myself anyway.
My rant would be about having to run their proprietary code on my machine to use GitHub.

So tired of seeing these posts.

Nobody worth listening to is complaining about creating an account on GitHub. Ubuntu brainstorm was a huge success and you had to create an account for that too

It literally takes 30s.

And github has a hugely comprehensive API that allows developers to easily move if that want to.

If Microsoft Open sourced the backend, the reality is, nobody would look at the code, and everyone would still use GitHub because it's reliable. Vs code is open source, and I'm willing to bet community contributions are limited

And open sourcing the backend just means Oracle will take the code, and set up their own server for marginally cheaper and make GitHub worse.. That's what they did with red hat

It'll follow the enshitification path of every other big-tech site, give it time.

If you can't wait, https://gitea.com/

Gitlab or Gitea should integrate with Arweave and Fediverse. Fork if needed.

Develop a decentralized Github alternative.

Microsoft owns Github. It's iron how popular Github is for open source.

Limitless Peace

https://alternativeto.net/software/github/?license=opensource

OP, if you want an arguably easier escape from MS GitHub, have you considered not using Git? The unfortunate current truth is these two are married to the point that a lot of new (& even experienced) folks think MS GitHub is Git & even if you start a project elsewhere, somebody will fork it onto the platform the the SEO bots will put their fork at the top of the ranks. You might be better off choosing a different DVCS all together as the interoperability will be much more difficult. That said, it wouldn’t just be to escape Microsoft, but also since there are a lot of interesting, less explored ideas in the space (like how learning functional or object-oriented code for the first time will broaden your perspective for tools & ideas you already know). Personally, I find the Patch Theory-based VCSs pretty compelling so it could be worth it to dig into Pijul or Darcs.