Because GitHub is incredibly reliable, it'd take more than zero effort to move it, and I'd lose whatever small community I've already built up around it.
This is like asking "Why are you still using Facebook" and you'll get very similar answers.
I've been mirroring all my public projects on GH and Codeberg using CI to keep things in sync, and add a note to my README's [1] explaining that both can be used. In practice the vast majority of OSS contributors are on Github so it's just not reasonable for smaller projects trying to grow to be anywhere else. Larger projects have enough pull that they can do what they want.
But why not using Github, if I develop my open-source projects mostly alone and if I don't care about Microsoft supporting US and Israel governments?
And in case if it will be no longer possible (if Github will be fully enshittificated) it's relatively easy to switch to another platform, much more easier compared to switching from Facebook or Twitter.
While I don't use GitHub for personal projects, I don't see how moving off GitHub solves anything. If you are open source contributor, then repositories you interact with are public, and there is nothing preventing anybody (including GitHub) from using your code for any purpose. If you contribute to a public repository on any public platform, be it Codeberg, sourcehut or GitLab, your activity is public, issue you create are public[1], everybody knows who changed what in the code.
The social media effects are twofold, on one hand I think stars and contributors count, contributor profiles are great to see what is popular, but it went a little too far when they added scrollable home page. Virtually everyone has an account on GitHub, the best way to make your project visible and ease the contribution threshold is to put your project on GitHub.
What I would like to see is federated git, so that some protocol allowed different git servers could communicate with each other, which will make moving off GitHub much easier.
[1]: except for sourcehut I guess, which does not have issues or pull requests?
For me, I begrudgingly use GitHub for my personal projects because GitHub Actions is free. If I move elsewhere, I'll have to stop providing precompiled binaries for OS's that I can't cross-compile for from Linux (eg. macOS).
> Features like GitHub Actions, Copilot, and Codespaces also creates vendor lock-in.
It is possible to use GitHub Actions in ways that do not create vendor lock-in. (Unfortunately this is not always the case.)
> GitHub tracks user behavior through telemetry data, including all interactions on the platform
You might be able to work with using only the API, like I do (I can't log in anyways (due to forced 2FA that doesn't work), so I have to use the API). (There might still be server-side logging, but this should prevent client-side telemetry.)
> and GitHub Copilot uses the publicly available source code to train its AI
Publicly available source code is public and can already be used by anyone anyways.
> Rather than promoting quality software, it has become a matter of "stars" and "likes".
I think that you do not have to use these features; you can still host a mirror of your repository. I find the "stars" and "likes" to not be very helpful anyways. It is a problem that many people try to overemphasize these features, though.
> GitHub's decision-making processes regarding policy changes and feature implementations has no regard for users and it can change at any time
I do believe that there are significant problems with their policies, so they are right about that part.
> Consider open source self-hosting solutions
I think having multiple mirrors is more helpful, whether or not GitHub, Codeberg, etc are some of them. (You might want to mention the multiple mirrors in the README file. Some projects on GitHub already do this.)
The hashes can be used to identify git objects regardless of which mirrors are being used, and you can also have signed commits.
16 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 37.9 ms ] threadThis is like asking "Why are you still using Facebook" and you'll get very similar answers.
- Important open source projects should not use GitHub (2020) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43688417 - 73 comments
- Ditching GitHub (2024) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44826484 - 65 comments
- Why Microsoft is Evil https://programmerbear.com/why-microsoft-is-evil/
Related questions with same answer: Why do you still use Facebook? Why do you still use LinkedIn? Why do you still use YouTube?
Are those moving away from Github, also dropping Typescript, .NET, Electron, npm, VSCode,....?
[1] https://github.com/arcuru/eidetica#repository
And in case if it will be no longer possible (if Github will be fully enshittificated) it's relatively easy to switch to another platform, much more easier compared to switching from Facebook or Twitter.
The social media effects are twofold, on one hand I think stars and contributors count, contributor profiles are great to see what is popular, but it went a little too far when they added scrollable home page. Virtually everyone has an account on GitHub, the best way to make your project visible and ease the contribution threshold is to put your project on GitHub.
What I would like to see is federated git, so that some protocol allowed different git servers could communicate with each other, which will make moving off GitHub much easier.
[1]: except for sourcehut I guess, which does not have issues or pull requests?
It is possible to use GitHub Actions in ways that do not create vendor lock-in. (Unfortunately this is not always the case.)
> GitHub tracks user behavior through telemetry data, including all interactions on the platform
You might be able to work with using only the API, like I do (I can't log in anyways (due to forced 2FA that doesn't work), so I have to use the API). (There might still be server-side logging, but this should prevent client-side telemetry.)
> and GitHub Copilot uses the publicly available source code to train its AI
Publicly available source code is public and can already be used by anyone anyways.
> Rather than promoting quality software, it has become a matter of "stars" and "likes".
I think that you do not have to use these features; you can still host a mirror of your repository. I find the "stars" and "likes" to not be very helpful anyways. It is a problem that many people try to overemphasize these features, though.
> GitHub's decision-making processes regarding policy changes and feature implementations has no regard for users and it can change at any time
I do believe that there are significant problems with their policies, so they are right about that part.
> Consider open source self-hosting solutions
I think having multiple mirrors is more helpful, whether or not GitHub, Codeberg, etc are some of them. (You might want to mention the multiple mirrors in the README file. Some projects on GitHub already do this.)
The hashes can be used to identify git objects regardless of which mirrors are being used, and you can also have signed commits.