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Why FOSS projects are using proprietary, privacy invasive infrastructure? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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As you can easily notice, today many open source projects are using some services, that are… sus.

For example, Github is the most popular place to store your project code and we all know, who owns it. And not to forget that sketchy AI training on every line of your code. Don't we have alternatives? Oh, yes we have. Gitlab, Codeberg, Notabug, etc. You can even host your own Gitea or Forgejo instance if you want.

Also, Crowdin is very popular in terms of software (and docs) translation. Even Privacy Guides and The New Oil use Crowdin, even though we have FLOSS Weblate, that you can easily self-host or use public instances.

So, my question is: if you are building a FLOSS / privacy related project, why using proprietary and privacy invasive tools?

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Well, keeping an infrastructure like github is very expensive. Other solutions like gitlab are no real solution as gitlab itself is also not completely FOSS. Codeberg is a relatively new kid in the block, and sustainability in the long term is still not proven. Gitea/Forjego requires you to selfhost your repositories and that's something not everybody can afford/take the time to do.
So, we have a situation of a standard de facto, when one company took the space and constitued a monopoly, forcing the users to use it or be invisible otherwise.
So, there you have the reason: visibility in a market dominated by just one actor.
How to fight this situation? There is no much way as individuals, a partial solution is to use a FOSS solution and then mirror on github for visibility. Of course this is limited as individual solutions wont change collective problems, but FOSS groups doing the same are no longer individuals but communities so with time we may have a way to get out...

EDIT: s/go/get

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

Gitlab is still a better step in the direction. You at least have a path to using FOSS instances.

Gitlab working on federation along with Forgejo is big step in the right direction.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Codeberg seems cool, even though I saw it go down a little while ago. I still believe the internet wants to be free. There's no guarantee GitHub won't eventually start charging for more things.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I like codeberg, but they also removed a torrent project I was working on because it didn't comply with german law. Kind of unavoidable when you use any centralized service, especially in a country that's severely anti-piracy.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

That's worrying, I guess federation is the way to go

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Oh, I agree with that (I use a selfhost solution -gitea- myself). I was just pointing to what I think is the current situation and why is like that :)