Migration to independent platform for provision of source code

[linux-lukas]

A. Problem / Goal

Since the purchase of GitHub by Microsoft in 2018, a dependence on the BigTech corporation can no longer be denied.

On the one hand, I can understand why GitHub was chosen as the platform for making source code available: "Everyone is here".

On the other hand, I see the danger of a vendor-lockin effect and that open source projects become centrally dependent on Microsoft. In my eyes, this is very dangerous for free and open source software and hardware projects.

In the medium and long term, the goal would be to become independent of GitHub and thus of Microsoft. The Gitea-based Codeberg project of Codeberg e. V. in Berlin would be a good choice here.

There are also (legal) problems with compliance with the licence of GitHub functions, such as the co-pilot.

B. Solution

My considered solution to the problem described in A. would be the following:

A user of this open source project creates a user account on https://codeberg.org/
If necessary: This user creates an organisation for the project.
A "personal access token" is created on the GitHub account, which has appropriate rights to the organisation repositories, using the developer options in the settings.
all repositories would be migrated with this access token into the ownership of the organisation created in step two.
Regarding step four, there is an entry in the documentation of Codeberg: https://docs.codeberg.org/advanced/migrating-repos/

C. Alternatives

A possible alternative would be to perform the first three steps as described in B. A possible alternative would be to perform the first three steps as described in B., and modify the fourth step to include a mirror of GitHub. So that all issues and such that would be created in the GitHub repository would be transferred to the Codeberg repository.

D. Responsibilities

I would see the responsibility in the owners of the repository and, if necessary, additional project participants.

E. Other

Basically, a look at the documentation of Codeberg is not unwise: https://docs.codeberg.org/

Should it be necessary to manage repositories in organisations, this is also possible under Codeberg, see: https://docs.codeberg.org/collaborating/create-organization/

Regarding licensing there is a page in the documentation of Codeberg: https://docs.codeberg.org/getting-started/licensing/

Funfact 1: The Pixelfed maintainer has written on Mastodon that he is considering migrating the Pixelfed project away from GitHub, to Codeberg: https://mastodon.social/@dansup/10869007146309141

Funfact 2: Aral had migrated - also on Mastodon - to Codeberg for his GitHub projects as well as those of his Foundation, which he organised together with another person, Small Technology, or is still migrating: https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/108651118032076133

[borgmanJeremy]

I appreciate the detailed post but I'm very happy with GitHub and the engagement it drives.

I do mirror it to a local gitea instance in case GitHub goes down in flames. My mirror includes all the issues and post history.

[linux-lukas]

I can also completely understand what you mean. If this has not quite come across, I apologise.

The reflection on a separate Gitea instance is good, especially in view of the fact that a federation, as already known from the Fediverse, is coming into visible proximity. https://social.exozy.me/@ta180m/108631221939677386

This could then also be used to migrate to this own instance in the medium and long term, once federated cooperation has been fully implemented in Gitea.

[mmahmoudian]

I have been on Codeberg for quite some time (about a year I guess) and am monthly donor via Liberapay. I also closely follow the ActivityPub integration of fediforge team for Gitea (example), and am a big advocate of federation.

All these said, Github provides few things that codeberg doesn't:

• contributors and community: as you said, everyone is here
• Github Actions: this needs an infrastructure that none of the gitea instances and almost none of the gitlab instances provide. It works flawlessly and we rely on it for checking and packaging
• integration: many tools are working fairly well with github (including rysolv which we use for source bounty) but almost none work smoothly for Gitea instances.

In spite of the points above, having a read-only 1-to-1 automated mirror on Codeberg (with issues, PRs, discussions and etc) would be ideal. When the ActivityPub gets integrated in Gitea, I would personally start thinking about potential migration and suggesting it to @borgmanJeremy and other devs. Until then, I believe at most a readonly mirror is the only move that worth the headache.

Thanks for opening the discussion. Since the launch of copilot and the licensing issues I have been thinking about this but I every time land on the same conclusion.