What GitHub alternative do you use?

Samuel Block@lemmy.world to Open Source@lemmy.ml – 142 points –

And why?

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I use Github for 4 reasons:

  • Everybody else is on Github. Github is to repo hosting what Youtube is to video hosting. It's sad but that's how it is in this world of unchecked, extreme big tech monopolization. So I put my stuff up there because it's just simpler to be found.

  • I use Github as a dumb git repo. I don't use any of the extra social media garbage Microsoft tacked onto it. So I get free hosting and Microsoft pretty much gets no data on me - i.e. I'm a net loss to them.

  • You can use dumb repos as PPA and RPM sources, if you need to distribute Debian or Redhat packages. Microsoft never intented for repos to be used this way, but if I can abuse Microsoft services, I will six ways to Sunday.

  • Github lets you drop videos in your README.md. But here's a trick: you can use the links to the video files anywhere. In other words, you can use Github to host videos that you can post on other forums - including here on Lemmy, or on Reddit if you're still patronizing that cesspit for some reason. I find this a nice way to abuse Microsoft's resources also, and I'm all for abusing Microsoft's resources.

TL;DR: I use Github not only because it's the most prevalent git hosting service out there, but because I can abuse it and make Microsoft pay for the abuse without getting anything of value from me in return.

Reading the first sentence of your post: I dispise you.

Read to the end: I love you.

I'm actually continuously running github actions that I don't need running, just because I can, and because it uses up their resources.

That's something I really like about Ublue: they use Github actions, so if you build a custom image, you're using Github's processing power for it. So, go do that. Make hundreds. Bleed Microsoft dry.

wasting energy to somehow stick it to the man?

Exhibit 56845 why humanity is fucking doomed.

I actually forgot the /s. And I guess I wasn't clear enough. This is less than a drop in the pool for them. An image build that takes them around 15 mins including setting up the VM for the build, takes me around the same time on a machine with a 6-core Ryzen 5 at 2.375GHz, with 8GB RAM. So because they're running it on their high end hardware and it still takes that long, they aren't allocating that many resources to the VM, meaning that it costs them basically nothing.

TLDR: If any of this was a cost that had any significance to their bottom line, it would have been restricted and/or monetised.

It's obviously trivial energy waste in the big picture, but it's 100% waste if you don't need it. Like turning on lights in empty rooms.

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