Forgejo v1.21 is available and comes with significant improvements to Forgejo Actions and the Forgejo runner. It also brings better user blocking, many documentation improvements, a shortcut button to open new PRs, mail notifications when new users are created and more.
I'm running it in my homelab for projects I do not (yet) push anywhere public, and projects containing private items such as ssh keys. It is snappy and has a ton of features. I can imagine when the federation support works, one can set up their own git forge and contribute more easily to other forges no matter what software they run.
And, to be honest, that is already how git works if you use the email workflow. Here we just get a web based flow with federated issues and pull requests. But if email is enough for you, you can have a full federation with email and git.
Is a soft fork, its purpose is to specifically stay in step with the upstream and working on new features the upstream isn't ready/doesn't want. As far as I know, they're the devs working on federation between selfhosted/any other instances.
Jira requires atlassian to enhance their product in a fashion other than contract terms and pricing. Since most of their clue left - see "dead Sea effect" - and the remainders are seemingly coping with maintenance and some bug-fix, I just don't see that happening. And I'm okay with letting a bloated java web site just ... die.