My name is Wuzzy and I’m strong supporter of free software. Because of this, my activity on GitHub is limited. I only use it to contribute to other free software projects like Luanti.
You will not find my own code here. (No, forks created exclusively for pull requests don’t count.) My own code is hosted on Codeberg.org.
I reject GitHub because GitHub is not free software and suffers from the JavaScript Trap.
The JavaScript Trap is a huge deal, actually. It has de-facto normalized webbrowers shipping proprietary code to its users. While we can’t fix the web, we can fix our workflows in our own software projects by removing proprietary software from all steps in our workflow.
If the free software movement wants to truly win, we have to go free software all the way. It is unacceptable we’re tolerating a massive proprietary platform like GitHub and have integrated in our workflow so deeply.
If your project is on GitHub and you care about freedom, please consider migrating to a free platform. The more people embrace actual freedom, the easier it will become for all of us.
I recommend Codeberg.org. It is run by people who are very pro-free-software, has a very similar interface, easy migration and is very stable. I have had very good experience with it. We free software people have to stick together. :-)
Before you actually migrate, please make sure to read their documentation first in order to avoid ugly surprises.
Alternatively, consider self-hosting.
In one word, compromise. In an ideal world, I could just abandon GitHub. However, that would not actually accomplish anything. Reasons why I still use GitHub include:
- Reach out to free software projects in order to convince them to move
- Be able to contribute to certain projects (like Luanti) at all and report bugs
- Complain about GitHub :-)
- And finally, it’s still kinda usable without running JavaScript, but it’s very buggy and I have to fall back to workarounds (but this is PAIN)
The sad irony is, if I’d abandon GitHub entirely, it would essentially lock me out of the development many important free softwares. Even reporting bugs could become tricky. So the least I could do is to raise awareness for now.
To learn more about me and what I do, check out my personal website.
Follow me in the Fediverse.
This text is in the Public Domain, released under CC0 1.0.