github and the like (Re: to git or not to git)

[Bernhard E. Reiter]

Am Dienstag 28 August 2018 01:19:54 schrieb Guido Arnold:
> We need a decentralized infrastructure that makes their intentions
> irrelevant.

This is the direction where I believe we must head.

However while doing so, as always in a long struggle, we need to be pragmatic.
So each of us shall take steps as they can.

Github is 
  * central by design, 
  * a service that earns money with proprietary software development 
  * profits from being the biggest (aka network effecs)
  * based on proprietary software.
  * also offering (and pushing) only one software configuration management
    product (git)

So if we all want to have a good choice we need to work against those effects.
Possible ways to act against some aspects
 * Go to the competition, e.g. Bitbucket (professional, proprietary, but
   offers hg), or Gitlab (neo-proprietary, no hg)
 * Pay for your service (so others can make money with service to you)
   E.g. if you are a company, try phacility (a service based on Free Software,
   offering a choice of SCMs, but expensive)
 * Self-host if you can (e.g. we self-host hg and wald.intevation.de based on
   old Fusion forge)
 * Use hg or other trackers if you can.
 * Advertise your software on more general places (e.g. pypi or npm)
 * Learn to use other SCMs, trackers, build systems and so on, which is
   good for your understanding as well (because you lean what is concept and
   what is just github sugar making you mentally fat. >:)) Embrace
   contributing to Free Software with other tools.

But if there is a Free Software product developed github, for pragmatic 
reasons you can collaborate there. 

Doing some of the other stuff maybe a bit uncomfortable at first, but there 
just few pluses for you personal or your company over the mid term. And for 
everybody: having a choice a few years down the line.

Best Regards,
Bernhard

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