alt.hn

3/8/2026 at 2:24:03 AM

Give Up GitHub – Software Freedom Conservancy

https://sfconservancy.org/GiveUpGitHub/

by nreece

3/8/2026 at 4:28:13 AM

If they want people to move, it seems like they need a longer list of recommended alternatives? For example, It looks like Codeberg only wants to host open source projects.

by skybrian

3/8/2026 at 9:38:21 AM

I haven't really seen many alternatives besides what's listed, and looking for it (FOSSin my personal development, closed source at $WORK).

Imho the best options there are

- GitLab (if you want someone else to host your things, and be full featured),

- cloud provider-based repos (GCP, AWS has git hosting, if e.g. you are already using them, but it's a subset of features, needing to tie in other services to be a full replacement), or

- go down the self-hosting route if you have the capacity. GitLab is pretty easy to self-host, and there's forgejo, both mentioned in the doc.

Either way you are looking at paying for hosting, one way or another, which for commercial projects should be a baseline. The question is what to pay for, versus what the team should do itself if they can.

by imrehg

3/9/2026 at 12:24:10 AM

Git itself is decentralized, and we can use email to send patches, but GitHub's role is more like a social network to discover and "star" projects.

I really hope Forgejo/Gitea can get federation to work to the point where we can ditch GitHub, they already have the federated star feature [1] - I'm doing my part by hosting my own Forgejo instances and using Woodpecker CI + my own CI/CD system, and it's faster than GitHub Actions.

[1]: https://codeberg.org/forgejo/forgejo/pulls/1680

by khuedoan

3/9/2026 at 1:48:59 AM

Vervis already has federated git forges working.

by ranger_danger

3/8/2026 at 6:59:43 AM

Moving mostly to codeberg was a simpler affair than I expected. It's been a breath of fresh air. Its like github without the gamification, ads, copilot, and social features.

by accelbred

3/8/2026 at 2:38:31 AM

Great article. I used to love GitHub until they went full corporate.

by gzoo

3/8/2026 at 7:43:18 AM

Can you elaborate on it? I've only noticed more GitHub features post Microsoft acquisition.

GitHub Actions and Copilot integration are pretty much a staple at my workplace.

by PradeetPatel

3/9/2026 at 4:00:44 AM

I've been using GitHub for over 2 decades now so its not that I don't still love them. I just worry that GitHub will become just another arm of Microsoft's AI strategy. It FEELS like the platform is being reshaped around monetizing AI rather than serving developers but that's just my opinion.

by gzoo

3/8/2026 at 10:22:12 AM

Actually, I might be one of the few people who started off with codeberg and then later went and used Github.

one of the reasons I started using Github was the stars feature. I had my own shiori database that I used to manage in docker/portainer until I one day removed docker to get podman and the data went with it and I was new to linux :/

I had some cool projects/articles in it. Unfortunately, I lost them. So I started github solely for the purpose of 1) Starring projects , 2) Actually raising issues on projects like deno and some minor other projects[0]

The third point is that nowadays, someone asked me share me you github profile, we definitely need to use a better terminology for this because I don't wish to explain to them about the reasons why I am not using github...

Another minor nitpick about not using codeberg is that its unclear how they treat source available licenses. I have been thinking about source available licenses too and it seems like codeberg doesn't really support that. I am also not quite sure on how the private repository licenses have to work within codeberg either.

Codeberg pages also has some issue. I remember trying 2 years back trying to make a codeberg page and there was only a single decent youtube video about it and It took my whole day to learn how to do it even though it was very simple compared to github which has almost thousands of videos telling about how to use its pages feature.

I can again go to Codeberg. I am not attached to Github but developers have to come be with me on codeberg together so that new coders feel familiar with having the first git provider as codeberg and not Github. I did it and I had enough friction to create github.

If we want codeberg to thrive over github. We have to change these issues. I do believe the #GiveupGithub is right in the sense that it will move developers in flocks if the movement succeeds.

So I guess we all developers have to sign up and atleast migrate our projects into codeberg at the very least for it to even have a chance on breaking the effects of github.

I do believe that codeberg UI is much snappier than Github which feels like a joke nowadays sadly and the downtimes of Github are another story.

[0]: like (trying to make keyboard make sound on monitor on wayland) and so I essentially made issues on all softwares that I found to be not working one day. Its essentially a wayland protocol security feature but yea, it got offtopic

by Imustaskforhelp

3/8/2026 at 4:20:32 AM

I'm guessing someone saw me post this link in the muJS post earlier, which I got massively downvoted for. And then again when I said I didn't want to use github because of the AI training.

by majorchord

3/9/2026 at 10:59:23 AM

forgejo all the way

by clot27

3/8/2026 at 1:48:07 PM

[dead]

by Astral09