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submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by onlinepersona@programming.dev to c/programming@programming.dev

They slowly started locking down the platform for people without accounts and it has been really annoying to use the website since. First it was not possible to search for code, then even searching for issues got more and more difficult with it randomly failing, and now it's gotten to the point where I can't search for a fucking project anymore!

Github's search is becoming as bad as reddit's, where if you want to find anything, a secondary service like SourceGraph, GrepApp, or even a dumb search engine is better. Sometimes those haven't indexed what I need (especially code search), so I have to download the bloody tarball and rg for whatever the fuck it is I was looking for. Sometimes it will also block the VPN I'm using, so I have to proxy to a non-VPNed machine. The world could do without these unnecessary roadblocks.

What also grinds my gears is requiring an account to contribute. There is no way to send in a patch, raise an issue, or anything without an account there, so by if a project being on github, you have no choice but to give Microsoft your data to participate in opensource. Don't get me wrong, mailing-lists are filth, but and I'd rather claw my eyes out than participate in any project demanding their use, but Microsoft being the "lesser evil" is not a good look.

Please, for the love of opensource, get your project off of github, please. It's a monopoly at this point and doing microsoft things. This isn't the end and they'll probably do more stuff to see how far they can push it. We'll all be the boiled frogs.

Yes, I know they have a CI and some other features, but if all you're doing is hosting your code, please consider an alternative.

Possible alternatives in alphabetic order:

  • Codeberg (could have federation in the future)
  • Gitlab (has CI)
  • ~~OneDev (no git SSH clone but feature-rich)~~ not an instance for the public
  • Radicle (no CI, but federated)
  • Sourcehut (minimalist, but fast as fuck)

or maybe others will suggest more.

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[-] fxomt@lemm.ee 149 points 2 years ago

Codeberg is criminally underrated. The UI is great, it's 100% open source, it has CI, and it will have federation in the future. It's a shame more people don't use it. Piefed/river and a bunch of cool niche projects are on it though :D

The lemmy developers should seriously think of moving lemmy to codeberg, it'd be in line with lemmy's anti-corporate stance.

[-] kabi@lemm.ee 63 points 2 years ago

The choice every developer has to make is between having a potentially successful project, with contributors and community engagement, or hosting their stuff on an open platform. PeerTube even has a GitLab of their own, and yet they host their main software on GitHub, because they simply have to.

[-] fxomt@lemm.ee 44 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Yep, codeberg is great for personal/hobby or small projects, but beyond that it's not ideal. The worst part is git is a decentralized protocol; yet github has centralized it, basically forcing developers to use it if they want their projects to live, or get a job. It's a vicious cycle.

But i still think developers should migrate to codeberg, if all of us just wait for codeberg to get big to use it, there'd be no users in the first place. Even if you put your project as a mirror, it's still a step, or even better: vice versa, see river.

[-] 0x0@programming.dev 22 points 2 years ago

That's BS, if the software's good people (i.e. devs) will find the source, unless all they do is spent their day on the github website.
Most fine software i find is through social media and websites, i then proceed to checkout the code.

[-] kabi@lemm.ee 18 points 2 years ago

I get that, and I even made an account on PeerTube's GitLab just to submit a tiny fix on a secondary project of theirs, but do you think an average issue submitter would bother? I do not. And it's not as simple as this process separating the wheat from the chaff, either.

[-] mesamunefire@lemmy.world 13 points 2 years ago

I am seeing a LOT of the emulation crowd over at codeberg and other type of sites. Its gaining some popularity which is nice.

[-] Kissaki@programming.dev 7 points 2 years ago

You picked one concern of multiple: Code discoverability of an already known project.

Multiple times I have found project sources on their own platforms, and when I would have contributed tickets or code, I did not because of requiring yet another account on yet another platform, with whatever yet unknown signup workflow.

And there is man other concerns, some of which the comment you are replied to mentioned.

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[-] JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 7 points 2 years ago

I really don't understand it.

It is 5 minutes to create an account and you can even use the same SSH key everywhere technically.

Then just put a bit config per website and it literally requires nearly 0 additional work ever. You can commit to all the different places practically simultaneously.

I guess you have to go to different websites for issues and I don't know if codeberg specifically has CI/CD tools, but I don't get why devs refuse to work on things outside github.

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[-] TimLovesTech@badatbeing.social 36 points 2 years ago

They are on Codeberg, but it's only as a github mirror.

[-] fxomt@lemm.ee 11 points 2 years ago

I didn't know, thanks. But last commit was 8 months ago :(

[-] Valmond@lemmy.world 14 points 2 years ago

I never sat foot on github, but moved from some shady place to Codeberg and it's just fantastic. It just works.

Only thing missing is some 5/10€ monthly plan where you get a golden leaf or something :-p

On a more serious note, gotta check out how to support them in some meaningful way.

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[-] mesamunefire@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago

I'm looking forward to when they implement fediverse integration.

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[-] Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world 73 points 2 years ago

While I agree about most of your gripes. I don't think requiring an account to contribute is unreasonable. I can underdtand not wanting to create an account and give them personal info and such. But if that is your stance, stop using them entirely. Giving them code is even worse.

[-] communism@lemmy.ml 72 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I support moving off GH but

There is no way to send in a patch, raise an issue, or anything without an account there

Currently this is the case everywhere? With the exception of projects that take email patches, currently all the options are centralised/not federated, and even if e.g. Forgejo finished adding ActivityPub integration you'd still need an account on some Forgejo instance to contribute. Same for email patches; they still require having an email address. If it's specifically about giving MS your data, sure, although iirc the only data they actually require is an email address. You can use duckduckgo's duck addresses to get one that's relatively anonymous (i.e. can be deanonymised by duckduckgo but I doubt anyone's conspiring that hard to deanonymise a random github user).

[-] kautau@lemmy.world 29 points 2 years ago

Yeah and that makes sense. There’s plenty of examples of open source projects that have had their issue trackers flooded with politics rather than real issues and they have to then spend all their time policing and cleaning that up and that’s using GitHub’s user reg system and basic protections against spam accounts. Without requiring any sort of auth or user reg that would be impossible

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[-] Phoenix3875@lemmy.world 33 points 2 years ago

Specifically for the rate limit issue, a lot of nix's derivations are hosted on GitHub and now and then the rate limit problem comes up when I rebuilds a dev environment.

Nixos.org is kind enough to host gigabytes of cache, but to get a ~40MiB tarball, we need to beg at the door of M$. Path dependency is really a trap.

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[-] atzanteol@sh.itjust.works 31 points 2 years ago

Yes, I know they have a CI and some other features

Github actions are terrible - fight me.

commit: actions
commit: actions
commit: actions
commit: actions
commit: actions
commit: actions
commit: actions
commit: actions
commit: actions
commit: actions
commit: Another actions fix
commit: Fixing actions
commit: Fixed issue with actions
commit: Actions not logging in properly
commit: typo in actions
commit: Created GH actions!
[-] sirdorius@programming.dev 21 points 2 years ago

Just commit to a different branch, and then rebase to main. If you're putting this shit into main, it's not the tool's fault.

[-] eager_eagle@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago

act drastically reduced the amount of back-and-forth getting actions right for me

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[-] kryptonidas@lemmings.world 6 points 2 years ago

Lol this is literally me right now. (Well waiting for another run to probably fail) So also on here.

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[-] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 31 points 2 years ago

I used codeberg and liked it. This is a good reminder to try to stick with it moving forward

[-] flubba86@lemmy.world 24 points 2 years ago

I use Codeberg and even paid to be a member, because it goes directly to support the development of forgejo.

[-] qaz@lemmy.world 24 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)
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[-] Thorry84@feddit.nl 23 points 2 years ago

I see projects move over to Gitlab a lot lately, but without porting over the issues. That means a huge amount of history and discussions are lost. If you want to find out why something is the way it is, old issues would be a goldmine. Sometimes they are still up on archived GitHub, but not always.

[-] StrikeForceZero@programming.dev 9 points 2 years ago

It's a shame because how gitlab is basically begging to be bought out and hides a lot of useful features behind subscriptions.. I remember when it was originally just a GitHub clone way back when.

[-] tyler@programming.dev 21 points 2 years ago

Complaining about needing an account to contribute is wild to me.

[-] mox@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 2 years ago

I read it as needing a Microsoft account, and having to accept Microsft's terms and conditions, in order to contribute to an unrelated (and probably open-source) project. That's a valid complaint.

[-] GammaGames@beehaw.org 8 points 2 years ago

You’re not okay with anonymous malicious prs? How prude! /s

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[-] blind3rdeye@lemm.ee 21 points 2 years ago

I've stopped using github because I hate advertising and nags. Probably most people don't care much about it, but for me github nagging and 'reminding' me about copilot is just so off-putting that I immediately want to leave the site. I don't want my attention stolen like that.

[-] oce@jlai.lu 19 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

It was easy enough to introduce Git with a self hosted Gitea at my work place 4 years ago. I see Codeberg is based on a fork of Gitea called Forgejo, so I guess it is also good.

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[-] ulterno@programming.dev 14 points 2 years ago

without these unnecessary roadblocks

But then how will they harvest your data?

[-] paddythegeek@lemmy.ca 13 points 2 years ago

Enshittification is everywhere.

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago

The fundamental flaw of autonomous, individualistic organizing is that it puts a ton of weight on a handful of people.

As soon as a corporate entity sweeps in and offers a huge payout in exchange for less work, the temptation to sell out becomes severe.

[-] lobut@lemmy.ca 13 points 2 years ago

I sound like a corporate shill but like, I don't know if this is due to abuse.

GitHub actions and certain things were free until the crypto bros started abusing it. There are certain challenges that happen at scale.

[-] mrkite@programming.dev 12 points 2 years ago

Gitlab just reduced their monthly ci minute cap.

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[-] calcopiritus@lemmy.world 11 points 2 years ago

If I have to search something in a repo, I just clone it and use my IDE. GitHub search sucks, but I don't think it's possible to have a web experience that is on par with an actual environment an IDE.

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[-] proton_lynx@lemmy.world 10 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Yes, I know they have a CI and some other features, but if all you're doing is hosting your code, please consider an alternative.

Don't worry, their CI is pure garbage.

[-] thatsnothowyoudoit@lemmy.ca 9 points 2 years ago

That’s not very nice.

To garbage.

I mean, at least in a pinch you can burn some garbage to stay warm. Its going to suck but not as much as actions.

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[-] Valmond@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago

But people said it wasn't a big deal if microsoft bought it all up!!?

[-] mvirts@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago

Gitlab probably isn't much better these days but at least it's open sauce. Until I build a forgejo instance it's gitlab for me.

[-] 0x0@programming.dev 9 points 2 years ago

That's M$ doing their EEE-dance as usual. Actions is pretty egregious, my company's decided that All must be in the cloud™, even CI/CD, so Actions it is... Soon enough, bit by bit, a lot will depend on GitHub's functionality and there you have it, full circle, it'll be a pain to move elsewhere. Or do you still think all GitHub is is a git front-end?

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[-] thingsiplay@beehaw.org 8 points 2 years ago

The thing is, having a "centralized" place makes it easier to cooperate with others, with a single account. Monopoly is probably not the right word here, because nobody is really dependent on Github. And the core functionality of hosting the code and builds for free does come at no cost (money) at all. All Git functionality work. It is still Git.

I don't see anything in Github that is against Open Source and Libre Software. The features like searching might not be optimal, but that's just a feature of the site. On the other hand, I'm also just a little guy who does scripting and small CLI tools. So it does not matter at all what I do. In the end, I do not feel the need to stop using Github, despite disliking Microsoft a lot.

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[-] Kissaki@programming.dev 7 points 2 years ago

Account requirements seem like a worthwhile safeguard against spam.

Projects can still use and accept emails or whatever outside of GitHub.

[-] litchralee@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I also want to note that in the year 2025, GitHub still does not support IPv6. Folks behind CGNAT in IPv4-starved geos suffer, as does everyone developing for all-IPv6 networks. And it's not like they can't do it, seeing as their various subdomains like pages.github.com have working IPv6 already.

[-] robinshen@programming.dev 7 points 2 years ago

Want to mention that OneDev does support SSH clone. Only that SSH access to code.onedev.io is turned off (code.onedev.io is not a public hosting service, it is set up to develop OneDev itself).

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[-] mesamunefire@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago

I hate that they started taking down emulation repos more and more. They have a majority and heavy visibility for companies.

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this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2025
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