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by myaccountonhn 859 days ago
Hey! More funding options for open source is incredible.

Have you thought about opening up the platform to more than just Github? Having Github be the sole source for all open source projects is not very healthy for the ecosystem. There are other platforms like Codeberg and Sourcehut.

2 comments

Yes, supporting more platforms is definitely something I see as part of our mission and long-term development. Started with GitHub since it's where most open source initiatives are hosted + analysis on large registries, e.g npm, pypi, confirmed that almost all of them where.

We're big fans of other platforms and looking forward to expand our support. But main focus now is helping open source developers on GitHub get meaningfully more funding & helping more than a few work on it full-time to even start small businesses. Once we've achieved that & proved our product can make a big difference, it's time to expand.

I understand and agree with the sentiment, but "why only GitHub?" comments are practically at the top of every similar HN thread. There's certainly no harm in asking.

The question strikes me as naive though, akin to asking "have you thought about using precious capital and momentum on .00001% (clearly exaggerated) of the DVCS market?"

The sad truth is "healthy for the ecosystem" isn't really profitable. I'm sure supporting other platforms is harmless in a roadmap/backlog, but seems like wasted effort early on in a company's development to split their focus.

If we don't fight this concentration of power, we're doomed to a Microsoft future. You might make good profit for a few quarters on the way there, but "not healthy for the ecosystem" is a gross euphemism for what's at the end of that road.
I'm not sure I agree, and as a rule of thumb don't really see much value in the arguments of those who seemingly can predict the future, especially when spreading FUD is the primary mechanism for supporting their prediction.