Move code to GitLab or Codeberg

[julianfairfax]

Checklist

• I checked, but didn't find any duplicates (open OR closed) of this issue in the repo.
• This issue contains only one feature request. I will open one issue for every feature I want to request.

What feature do you want?

It would be nice if the project's code were moved to GitLab or Codeberg.

Why do you want this feature?

GitHub is not an open source platform, and being owned by Microsoft makes it more of a danger to open source projects, rather than a help.

[bubelov]

I'm not sure if I understand the threat. The code is stored on my PC and many other contributors also have their own full copies. Microsoft can indeed shut down GitHub or ban certain users, but it won't affect us at all since we can always push the code to any other platform. We're in no way dependent on GH, it's just a backup storage with zero leverage.

Or do you mean spyware and analytics? I don't like the fact that Microsoft can track the contributors, but is it really different from GitLab or Codeberg? They're all registered in US direct sphere of influence so they can be easily coerced to spy on users or act maliciously on behalf of the government.

We do have some contributors who avoid GitHub, they just send me the patches and crash reports via email. I'm not against the idea of setting up a few repo mirrors on other platforms so people can avoid touching Microsoft servers when cloning the code.

[julianfairfax]

The threat in my view is that everything on GitHub is subject to Microsoft's will. Of course, if they shut down the whole platform, you could always reupload your project somewhere else, but it would be very hard to find all your users and let them know it has moved and whatnot.

I don't like having so much power in the hands of a company that has a history of acting against open source software. And I don't really buy the idea that they have now changed. They didn't buy GitHub out of altruism, or even to profit from it. They want to control open source.

[vv01f]

@julianfairfax you have a point distrusting such company. just git itself is decentralized. gh usp is the mass of devs alongside with features that help those devs quite a bit and keep them around. codeberg and others may be ideologically "nicer", but that is the sole advantage I can identify. the nice part with free software is, we do not need to maintain control of the code, it is supposed to roam unlike proprietary stuff. maybe therefor we should see it differently: as long as we do not depend on msft/gh, we can make them pay for developing and hosting free software. all the cost for traffic et al they have to compensate and that weakens their position on other "bad" business operations. this you can achieve with using gh even without investing in msft stock. as long as we have a copy, we're fine. even better would be to sync not only code but also the issue/pr conversations as well. any suggestions on that direction?