Privacy Cookbook - Chapter 14 - Programming - Coding without the MS BS

Many developers use GitHub to share the source code of their respective programs, apps etc. In fact, millions of people are using it daily. Yet it is owned by Microsoft, purchased a little over 2 years ago. GitHub is closed-sourced. Let that sink in! The source code is not open-source, the site is owned by Microsoft and you host your open-source code on it...

What could possibly go wrong?

For the last 2 years it seemed that not much hads changed on GitHub - on the outside - and many developers have continued to rely on it. However Microsoft showed its true colours when the DMCA takedown notice come for a program called youtube-dl (which was a great tool for downloading videos from YouTube). The takedown notice is a joke, as youtube-dl did nothing really wrong, or nothing you couldn't get done with browser add-ons and other tools. The difference was that it was open-source, hosted on GitHub and that made it a target.

The big question, therefore, is what do you do with your code?

Well, if you are into open-source and you are a programmer and proudly share your code with the world, then why not use a website that has its own open-source code and is not a privacy invasive and anti-freedom corporation.

Codeberg

The first site which comes to mind is called Codeberg, it's open- source, a fork of Gitea with a custom theme and it has all the tools you need to have your open-source code shared with others.

Codeberg.org

Codeberg is founded as a Non-Profit Organization, with the objective to give the Open-Source code that is running our world a safe and friendly home, and to ensure that free code remains free and secure forever.

Codeberg.orgCodeberg.org

Source code

Disroot Git

Disroot Git would be another great option, it's a Vanilla Gitea instance hosted by Disroot.

Gitea: Git with a cup of tea

Gitea (Git with a cup of tea) is a painless self-hosted Git service written in Go

Gitea: Git with a cup of teaGitea - Git with a cup of tea

Source code

TeDomum

TeDomum is a GitLab fork by the TeDomum organisation.

https://tedomum.net/

Source code

SourceHut

A software development platform for hackers

https://sr.ht/

Source code

NotABug

NotABug is a collaboration platform forked from Gogs

NotABug.org: Free code hosting

Gogs is a painless self-hosted Git service.

GogsGogs

Source code

Self-Hosted solutions

Of course, you could self-host and use a community maintained Git service like:

gitea

https://gitea.io/

Installation document

The source code can be found here

Pagure

Pagure is a git fork maintained by the Fedora community, written in Python

https://pagure.io/pagure

Installation document

Source code

Gogs

Gogs is lightweight and written in Go.

Gogs: A painless self-hosted Git service

Gogs is a painless self-hosted Git service.

Installation document

Source code

I hope some developers out there can now consider a switch, there are always options and frankly, it doesn't make much sense to host your code with a closed source company like Microsoft!

Stay safe and keep programming. You guys are all Rockstars!

The Privacy Advocate