Is this the start of a more frequent code-migrations out of Github?
For years, the best argument for centralizing on Github was that this was where the developers were. This is where you can have pull requests managed quickly and easily between developers and teams that otherwise weren't related. Getting random PRs from the community had very little friction. Most of the other features were `git` specific (branches, merges, post-commit hooks, etc), but pull requests, code review, and CI actions were very much Github specific.
However, with more Copilot, et al getting pushed through Github (and now-reverted Action pricing changes), having so much code in one place might not be enough of a benefit anymore. There is nothing about Git repositories that inherently requires Github, so it will be interesting to see how Gentoo fares.
I don't know if it's a one-off or not. Gentoo has always been happy to do their own thing, so it might just be them, but it's a trend I'm hearing talked about more frequently.
Coincidentally, my most-used project is on Codeberg, & is a filter list (such as uBlock Origin) for hiding a lot Microsoft GitHub’s social features, upsells, Copilot pushes, & so on to try to make it tolerable until more projects migrate away <https://codeberg.org/toastal/github-less-social>.
I'm really looking forward to some form of federated forking and federated pull requests, so that it doesn't matter as much where your repository is.
For those curious, the federation roadmap is here: https://codeberg.org/forgejo-contrib/federation/src/branch/m...
I'm watching this pretty closely, I've been mirroring my GitHub repos to my own forgejo instance for a few weeks, but am waiting for more federation before I reverse the mirrors.
Also will plug this tool for configuring mirrors: https://github.com/PatNei/GITHUB2FORGEJO
Note that Forgejo's API has a bug right now and you need to manually re-configure the mirror credentials for the mirrors to continue to receive updates.
GitLab has been talking about federation at least between instances of itself for 8+ years: https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/16514
Once the protocols are in place, one hopes that other forges could participate as well, though the history of the internet is littered with instances where federation APIs just became spam firehoses (see especially pingback/trackback on blog platforms).
I use GitHub because that's where PRs go, but I've never liked their PR model. I much prefer the Phabricator/Gerrit ability to consider each commit independently (that is, have a personal branch 5 commits ahead of HEAD, and be able to send PRs for each without having them squashed).
I wonder if federation will also bring more diversity into the actual process. Maybe there will be hosts that let you use that Phabricator model.
I also wonder how this all gets paid for. Does it take pockets as deep as Microsoft's to keep npm/GitHub afloat? Will there be a free, open-source commons on other forges?
I would love git-bug project[1] to be successful in achieving that. That way Git forges are just nice Web porcelain on top of very easy to migrate data.
So... git's original design
Arch Linux have used their own gitlab instance for a long time (though with mirrors to GitHub). Debian and Fedora have both run their own infra for git for a long time. Not sure about other distros. I was surprised Gentoo used GitHub at all.
Pretty sure several of these distros started doing this with cvs or svn way back before git became popular even.
I mean, gitlab is only from ~2019.
The first hit I could find of a git repository hosted on `archlinux.org` is from 2007; https://web.archive.org/web/20070512063341/http://projects.a...
>code-migrations out of Github
I hope so. When Microsoft embraced GitHub there was a sizeable migration away from it. A lot of it went to Gitlab which, if I recall correctly, tanked due to the volume.
But it didn't stick. And it always irked me, having Microsoft in control of the "default" Git service, given their history of hostility towards Free software.
So I've started to use it since that's the way things are going. It's pretty drop-in compatible with how I used to use Github contributions for Gentoo. There are currently 2 downsides I'm facing:
- It's slow for git command-line tasks, despite the site UX being much faster, git operations are really slow compared to Github.
- It doesn't have full feature parity with Github actions. Their CI doesn't run a full pkgcheck I guess, so it's still safer for a new Gentoo contributor to submit PR's to github until that gets addressed.
All everything aside, reviewing big pull requests on GitHub became nearly impossible - even with the simplest change view it makes you spend too much time on waiting for the page to load the necessary file first. The performance degraded significantly from what was the experience from 10 years ago. UI became an absolute mess. Maybe even vibe-coded.
They even have the gall to call it an improved UI for reviewing large pull requests. They must have let UI designers who've never written code before design it.
That's what happens when the whole company uses high-end macbooks and nobody has an older PC. It's been noted thousands of times on HN but these US companies make money head over fist and do not give a single damn about people on "lower" end devices.
IME those types of UI designers are way way way way more common, very few designers seem to understand the platform they are designing on and care more about aesthetics rather than proper platform designs.
I was familiar with the Gerrit workflow, but not the AGit workflow.
The original AGit blog post is no longer available, but it is archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20260114065059/https://git-repo....
From there, I found a dedicated Git subcommand for this workflow: https://github.com/alibaba/git-repo-go
I really like what I've read about AGit as a slightly improved version of the Gerrit workflow. In particular, I like that you can just use a self-defined session ID rather than relying on a commit hook to generate a Gerrit ChangeId. I would love to see Gerrit support this session token in place of ChangeIds.
I prefer the Gerrit workflow over any other git-based workflow, specially since it seems to be going the Jujutsu route in the future: https://www.gerritcodereview.com/design-docs/support-jujutsu...
Great to see important projects like Gentoo showing it can be done
This “Great Uncoupling” is well underway and will take us toward a less monocultural Internet.
codeberg is AMAZING and VERY VERY fast and snappy and EASY TO USE.
I REALLY recommend it
The reality of good competition is that competitors are built on good, cheap open source. No matter how decentral, a lot of users will want guards at the offramps and onramps. The only path for... everyone to create stronger competitive checks on services they rely on is to make sure that the open foundations are extremely strong.
The alliance any up-and-comers can make with the ecosystem is to develop more of what they host in the open source. In return for starting much closer to the finish line, we only ask that they also make the lines closer for those that come after them.
That's a bit of an indirect idea for today's Joe Internet. Joe Internet is going to hold out waiting for such services to be offered entirely for free, by a magical Github competitor who exists purely to serve in the public interest. Ah yes, Joe Internet means government-funded, but of course government solutions are not solutions for narrow-interest problems like "host my code" that affect only a tiny minority. And so Joe Internet will be waiting for quite some time.