I'm starting to wonder whether operating a shared #code-hosting platform is only possible with sponsorship. #Gitorious collapsed because their paid hosting couldn't cover their costs (which includes the cost of free hosting). I don't believe #Github ever publicly released figures, but I do remember hearing a rumor that they were not profitable before #Microsoft purchased them. #Bitbucket still persists, but #Atlassian has made so many changes to their offerings that IMO, using their platform is putting everything that touches it at risk. #SourceForge went to all sorts of dangerous extremes to try to monetize the huge number of repositories they host (most of which appear to be residue of projects that have either died or moved their active repos elsewhere).
#GitHub's proprietariness has always been an unseen landmine, but like its predecessors #SourceForge, #GoogleCode, #CodePlex etc, projects have chosen based on present convenience (FOSS friendly, zero or low price for non-profit projects and individuals, large numbers of users --> potential for drive-by contributions). However, the big issue with GH and the others listed above was that to some degree, they were the center of gravity for code-hosting in their respective time periods.
#DVCS software such as Git, Breezy, Mercurial, Fossil, Darcs, Pijul and so on could be used to enable a much more distributed hosting model--and should be. If people and projects do not have to join a specific #code-hosting site in order to contribute to a project / attract contributors, the allure of sites like GitHub starts to fade.
I believe moving over to #Codeberg is a big improvement over relying on #GitHub (which, as #SourceForge once was, is the center of gravity for FOSS projects' development).
I closed all my repos on GH some years back. I kept one or two repos on #BitBucket for years, but they were basically dead. When BB rid itself of #Mercurial ( #hg ) and switched solely to #git, I took advantage of the opportunity to close my account there.
That said, large numbers of people moving en mass from GitHub to Codeberg would just move the problem to a different platform. The problem being people rely heavily on a centralized service.
As for GitHub, I still have my account, and with job-hunting, I really need to put something there. Seriously, I have had some places send rejection notices because they couldn't see any evidence (on GitHub) that I knew anything about the job. But I really only want GH to be a secondary mirror of a main repo hosted elsewhere.
Thansk for everyone who recommended #Codeberg to their friends, collaborators and favourite projects.
Although not everyone moved to Codeberg because of this (which is fine!), we spread awareness about alternatives and that development does not equal #Git**b. This is what matters!
Going to have to put something up there for job-hunting purposes. I'll use it as a backup or something, so I've got content there, but whatever I do is not entirely dependent on their goodwill. We all know that we shouldn't willingly give corporations the ability to control us, but I'm hoping to be one of the few that acts on this knowledge.
@geniusmusing I’ll read the article later, but does this mean that #Microsoft is going to assist in overturning the vastly unjust #DMCA law? I mean, #GitHub is significant to developers, but to the outside world, they’re invisible. But if Microsoft as a whole says “DMCA is unfair, unjust, and hurting copyright and patent dependent industries by enabling cartels like #RIAA and #MPAA to freely trample on smaller, independent content producers and the people who just want to enjoy music and movies”, some of those empty-headed congressionals might listen.
I'm not big on #GitHub (even before Microsoft bought them), but my impression of DMCA is that GH did not have any say about closing repositories.
The claims in the DMCA request may have been garbage, but #Microsoft GitHub doesn't get to choose. They have to disable access to those repos or be liable for any further damages the copyright abusing #RIAA claimed.
I don't know where I found this link, but it's important news: #Apple's main #CUPS repository (on #GitHub) has very few commits since the main dev left late last year. There's a new CUPS fork at OpenPrinting.org
For example, RagTag\.io was to provide hashtagging for the network. There were statistics hubs, a firehose, a find-your-friends service, and more. The repositories are still there, mostly without being touched for 6-8 years, but the primary service point (such as ofirehose\.com and ragtag\.io are almost universally gone, replaced by domain squatters and the like).