22. Gulaschprogrammiernacht

Our thoughts, creations and relationships online are made possible because of large platforms based in Silicon Valley. Let's talk about GitHub. People use it. I mean, that's where everyone else is. Period. End of story. ... Or is it?! Put your tin foil hats on, as I'll dive deep into the questions that none of us ever ask anymore before deciding to use that thing:

What is good about GitHub, what is missing from GitHub, and why (presumably speaking)?
- Vendor lock-in
- Limitations

How did we end up here? What paved the way for GitHub to exist, and what can we learn from the past?
- SourceForge
- BitKeeper and Git

GitHub: Is it REALLY as popular as you think?
- Let's talk about its marketing!
- Gamification and social media features
Should YOU, the person reading this, perhaps (NOT) consider an alternative? 👉👈
- Small selection of some alternatives.
- Can YOU self-host your own alternatives?!
- What does it mean for an open-source project to be in control, and how is the project and the users affected by its forge's decisions?

We'll dive deeper into the alternatives, with examples of managed and self-hosted alternatives (Fossil, SourceHut, Codeberg, Forgejo, and some brief mentions), as well as explain what they bring to the table. Some points:
- Brief explanations of some of their workflows and the differences
- (and how they try to solve current problems with centralized Git models)
- Progress on ActivityPub-based forge federation. (why you should not wait until it's ready™)
- Self-hosting for organized open-source projects.

The first half of this talk will contain a bunch of historical details, mostly to give context behind the why people tried to built alternatives, why they are still trying, and why you should bother. Some of these took place before I was even born, take everything with a grain of salt. :)

Disclaimer: I am involved with Codeberg and Forgejo as a volunteer; that's where I'm coming from, I may be a little tiny bit biased. Opinions are my strictly own. Technical demonstrations will focus on Forgejo.