[jdw64]

My ponit was not against self-hosting.

It was more about the symbolism. If the goal is decentralization, “I moved to a personal forge I control” is the post's core idea. But framing it as “leaving GitHub for Forgejo” inevitably creates a new flag to gather around.

That may be useful and even necessary, but it also shows that decentralization movements often produce new centers, names, and identities.

[ses1984]

It's software, which can be infinitely and freely copied, people are going to copy it, and they should, because not everyone should write their own service from scratch (on top of an scm they wrote from scratch (on top of a language and operating system they wrote from scratch too)).

[jdw64]

I never suggested building everything from scratch. However, Forgejo is ultimately just a new dependency. Does abandoning GitHub Actions for Forgejo Actions eliminate lock-in? No, it’s merely a shift in dependency.

If the Forgejo core team announces tomorrow that their 'philosophy has changed' and overhauls the architecture, tens of thousands of 'independent' home servers will grumble, but they'll inevitably run git pull to update anyway. And eventually, they might migrate again. That cycle is inevitable, and I have no intention of denying it.

The issue in the context of this post is that it rejects dependency on GitHub while presenting Forgejo as the escape. If your defense is 'why reinvent the wheel,' you are essentially proving my point: we are just choosing a new center to depend on.

Beyond that, we might just be talking past each other at this point. I don't think you are wrong, and I have no intention of twisting your words. Your underlying point is likely this: GitHub's service quality has degraded, and with their aggressive AI strategies driving users away, it is strange to view the act of leaving negatively. I fully respect our difference of opinion there.

I honestly just got a bit annoyed earlier because you framed your reply as if I hadn't even read the article. Anyway, let's leave it at that. There is no reason to misrepresent your views, and no reason for us to argue further.

[overfeed]

> If the Forgejo core team announces tomorrow that their 'philosophy has changed' and overhauls the architecture, tens of thousands of 'independent' home servers will grumble, but they'll inevitably run git pull to update anyway.

This is a hilarious - and empirically wrong - thing to say considering Forgejo's raison d'être[1] and lineage.

If users just grumbled and ran git pull anyway, Forgejo would not exist, and neither would its fork-parent project (Gitea); everyone would be using Gogs under duress. Forgejo's past shows that people care about the philosophy, which is why this particular fork of a fork is thriving.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33749757

[ses1984]

I am sorry. I should not have said that. Your reply was very generous. I was a jerk for no reason. No one should ever act that way here or anywhere.

People may converge on a new node like forgejo, so from that point of view things are not decentralizing, the dependency graph stays roughly the same shape, but it’s a step in the right direction. It’s marginally better than github hosting everything.

That’s what I should have said originally instead of being an asshole.

[jdw64]

metoo,I admit I was a bit harsh earlier as well. You make a fair point. Ultimately, everyone has the freedom to leave if they choose to. Have a nice day.