Point taken and fair argument. However, this could be debatable.
Quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentes
Indeed taking presents always means some sort of dependency. However in case of MS and GitHub, to be fair, since MS uses the platform itself for e.g. their recent power toys open source release, they have as well interest in features for their own devs, not necessarily/only to bind or gain other devs.
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Didnât GitLab intend to start selling their usersâ data1
To continue with this discussion.
All gotten from Dr. Roy Schestowitz via Diaspora and from:
techrights
http://techrights.org/wiki/index.php/Delete_Github
#deletegithub
http://techrights.org/wiki/index.php/Delete_Github
it is #proprietarysoftware with #microsoft #surveillance and Microsoft uses it to distort, control and lie about FOSS. #github is an >ATTACK< on FOSS.
EDIT: https://twitter.com/jorditarrida/status/1186272638303428609
https://twitter.com/ferranpruneda/status/1186392182317563904
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At least Nextcloud will stay for eternity 
:
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@alfred
Lol yeah whether this is reasonable or marketing is an own discussion topic 
.
@twinkybot
Hmm I really donât get the relationship between your links and your statements. What has this techrights >10 years old story around Vivendi, that does not contain the word âMicrosoftâ a single time, to do with current Microsoft and GitHub topic?
And why is Microsoft and/or GitHub to blame when spanisch ISPs block their whole domain only because some Catalonia demonstrators use GitHub pages, hence a single subdomain? Blame the spanisch ISPs and/or government, at least to be so unselektiv, or better the method in general: Every half educated user knows how to use a VPN, or simply the bare IP, to workaround this and blocking in general is at best a very sad/desperate/stoking attempt to deal with protests in modern societies, without wanting to take political side here 
.
At this moment I have mixed feelings about starting this thread, but I think this discussion is meaningful.
Maybe this topic is a quest trying to find a balance between how many (automated) features you want and just basic features in a development system.
Git as a protocol or vcs still is as portable as you want it to be, as in: just fork it, or clone it.
However if you want CI/CD, nowadays you get locked in easily. I like that currently the discussion at gitlab seemingly stays transparent. And at this moment CI/CD still is possible in gitlab CE.
Gitea seems to be a rather attractive alternative, https://docs.gitea.io/en-us/comparison/.
But I think in the end, the more integration and automation you want, the more dependence on the platform you get. In marketing terms: CI/CD as a service.
Is this what the developers want? Is this what user want?
All depends.
Perhaps its as simple as this: if you still have your git souce, licence is current and you can transport/export your ci/cd to another platform, you are still in control.
Maybe CI/CD portability should be a requirement.
Maybe we should see CI/CD as a feature we can use, but donât require to be sustainable.
Some call it even âeco-friendly internetâ apparently.
Good joke. Thank you for the fish.
You and the a.m. article are referring to the global company which is dumping heated productive server pods into the ocean at the coast of Scotland by allowance of the British government in London, England, I presume?
- IMHO there may be a misunderstanding and project silicia currently only aims at programming quartz glass with data. However, using the term âhardwareâ for Quartz may be not incorrect in totality but this use would be quite debatable, I presume.
- Dumping nuclear hardware in the arctic circle was called ânuclear wasteâ in the past. Unfortunately, such waste and other funny remains seem to submerge currently due to an unwanted effect called âclimate changeâ, if I recall correctly.
- Dumping legacy hardware in the arctic circle could be called âhardware wasteâ or worse, I presume.
The island of Svalbard holds the Svalbard Global Seed Vault built to âstay for eternityâ, I presume.
However:
In October 2016, the seed vault experienced an unusually large degree of water intrusion due to higher than average temperatures and heavy rainfall.
Looking at Nextcloud I would like to phrase: First the code, then the archive.
And the next Jacky Blondy 009 movie will be titled: Nextcry - icy cloud of the arctic
Yeah, correct. However, most people will be dead before their data starts to show any signs of any decay.
BTW other so-called âgreen energyâ at least on the decay side shows some waste issues, apparently:
So before an bit-rot one could see some green-rot here⊠and wasting the wind gets a new meaning, I presume.
One may ask: Why this discussion and off-topic sidelines?
Firstly one should learn to distinguish between buzz talk, marketing and technical issues and true software engineering, I presume. Secondly no one should underestimate the ambitions and the mind changing attitudes of big entities and global players. Some projects my be called disruptive but maybe more disrupting to accepted common reasoning than being truly innovative, I guess.
Letâs hope that a FOSS project like Nextcloud dos not fall into such trap when Nextcloud GmbH gets a buy-out or some major new stakeholder. Wait and see what will bee. 
Either I am too old or this community is not as nerdy as presumed â or both.
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
Happy hacking.
Yes, this comment wasnât meant to be completely serious. 
If it works out, well, we probably wonât know. Still, data decay is a huge thing completely missed by many people.
@MichaIng Ah sorry I cannot follow. Which link do you mean specifically?
The link http://techrights.org/wiki/index.php/Delete_Github points to a page which lists some projects and the following text:
Under previous owners, Sourceforge was at one point including malware in some of its downloads. This malicious installer was added by Sourceforge, not by the creators of the individual repos.
Given this precedent, along with Microsoftâs ongoing behaviour against free software and their penchant for adding telemetry features, it is understandable that some people have decided to #deletegithub repos they control, and even avoid software hosted on Github.
This list will mostly include common software that Github hosts. It may or may not be possible or desirable to boycott all projects that continue to develop and host with Github-- this list is for people who want to take Microsoftâs control of repos into consideration when choosing what software to rely on.
Some call it even âeco-friendly internetâ apparently.
Good joke. Thank you for the fish.
Maybe one should avoid the usual Atlantic dominance and could become more global? However, a more realistic and commercial of the shelf solution could be available soon after Sony decides on the market price model of their new Sony Optical Disc Archive, Generation 3, model:
- Heise iX â Sony Optical Disc Archive Generation 3
- Sony â Announces Optical Disc Archive Generation 3 New Long-Life Media
Apparently no nonsense like âeternityâ or science fiction like âquartz glass laser imprintâ but a sustainable technique as Optical Disk and up to â100 yearsâ availability. Innovation is possible and available from non U.S. companies, I presume.
Another solution is LTFS and there are nice and established Linux drivers available, I presume.
- Wikipedia (EN) Linear Tape File System
- Tandberg Data LTO-5/6
Stop joking, start working.
Happy hacking.
Letâs look for a minute at the big picture here. What is Microsoft trying to do?
The problem
Their problem is that, in the last decade, software development has moved to other platforms. Building apps for iOS and Android and Mac as well as, of course, the server (which is usually linux), has become commonplace. Sure, people still build Windows apps, but not so enthusiastically anymore, and they lost the server war - a modern web app runs on Linux. More importantly, that development no longer happens on Windows. Dell even has a âDeveloper Editionâ of their laptops which ships Ubuntu. linux is just a better development platform than Windows.
The solution
So that is their problem. Their solution is obvious: try to become the best development platform again (they used to be, in the 90âs). Then people will use their platform and build more apps for it while doing so.
So, you make your development environment awesome. And my developer-colleagues tell me that MS Visual Studio is indeed very, very good. The fact that it has become available for Linux is, of course, a huge sign of the goal and strategy here: be the best and be everywhere. Same with their other tools.
Github in this picture
Github is a part of this strategy: the most popular developer platform! Improve it, integrate it deeper in your tools (like Visual Studio) and make it easier to use WITH your platform. Thatâs why you can now work in Visual Studio with git(hub) and with one click build your apps on Azure for multiple platforms, including Linux.
A sidenote: Sourceforge
Note that the Sourceforge comparison is silly. Even before it got bought Github had a totally different monetization strategy - they never tried to earn money on being an end-user software distribution platform like Sourceforge. And if users typically donât download software from your platform you canât include shit in there either⊠Github now has plenty of cash and will focus on being the best platform, because that is what Microsoft needs. Not a little bit of desperate, short-term cash - money they have plenty. Anyway, that discussion is a sideshow.
What it means for developers
This means two things.
- Where it makes sense for them, MS will certainly open source stuff. As long as it furthers their goals they will make tools and libraries open. Not their cash cows (eg OFFICE), but I can even imagine they rebase Windows on a Linux kernel or something like that someday.
- They will not try to monetize developers. They never really did and it makes no sense for them: they want you to build apps for their platform and maybe make some money on distribution (through their app storeâŠ) or the platform you run (part of) your app on (Azure) etc.
In short, thatâs good. It is a good platform for developers, it will be awesome and very open, because they want us to use it. Not doing that means you miss out on the good stuff they do - and as Nextcloud, we have to be pragmatic if we want to achieve our goals. That means using the best tools.
What this means for open source
A few thoughts on the big picture for open source here
- First, we should relax a LITTLE at least. We won. Microsoft, in the end, is just another company - theyâve done nasty stuff (but hey, like others havenât, Oracle anyone?) but they will do what is good for them. At the moment, that aligns with our goals. As a matter of fact, the stuff we tried to do in the early 2000âs has worked.
- At the same time, we should NOT relax. The war has changed, the grounds on which we fight have shifted. Desktop is no longer very relevant (note 1) while we won the server. But things have moved to âthe cloudâ and thatâs where Open Source fails to actually help much: companies like Facebook and Google build everything on FOSS and what do we get? Privacy violations everywhere⊠Frank gave a great talk about this recently.
My point here is: hammering on Microsoft is a useless waste of time, no offense. They are no longer the enemy, their strategy for the cloud is the enemy - and they share that strategy with pretty much everyone else in the industry. Using github or not is not relevant for this and just distracts from the real issue imho.
Instead, we should build decentralized alternatives that are better for users. Sure, sure, perhaps it is nice if our infra is also decentralized etcetera (and Gitlab does nicely in that regard) but the developer tools at that level arenât the problem. It is the end user software and solutions. And if you watch or read both Franksâ talks, the problem is in two areas. Government rules and regulations (thatâs why we appreciate the Digital Sovereignty discussion in Europe) and the quality of the developer platform we offer. We have to make sure we ALSO offer a great platform that is easy to develop for and with. That is why we introduced our developer platform!
Anyway, Jos out, I wrote too much already
note 1 Iâd still like to win the desktop, but I blame the infighting of Linux desktop developers for me having given up hope. See Frankâs talk on the subject - I helped him prepare that talk, but I must admit I would have been less positive and constructive. Heâs too nice.
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Nicely written and good discussion.
However, one may ask: A new trend in software engineering or a new trend in marketing to stay positive and motivate your customers and your developers after project fails?
What about lessons from Quality Management at Nextcloud GmbH and this FOSS project?
Further one may ask: Is this a discussion driven by the project or is this FOSS project driven by marketing speech and so called development trends with their sometimes debatable rationale and lack of provable background?
âWe won. Microsoft, in the end, is just another company âŠâ â and Nextcloud GmbH is what kind of entity? Who won what when? Apparently big MS makes another shift and will present their most beloved Linux and BSD powers very soon if not already distributed as their new trend.
As always the question could be: The last laugh is on whom?
Just curious.
Happy hacking.
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I want to second that Microsoft indeed has changed very much. Some time ago I visited them in Munich (at work Iâm working with Microsoft tools, while at home Iâm only working with Linux). They admitted that their former anti Linux campaigns had been wrong. They acknowledged that the world will always be a multi operating system world - and they embraced this by going into the âcloudâ. While I like their acknowledgement, Iâm not a huge âcloudâ fan. (thatâs why Iâm using Nextcloud).
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âCloudsâ (decentralised/self-hosted or centralised) did and will become more important, since we use an increasing amount of different network-capable devices (multiple locations, mobile, IoT, âŠ) in modern globalised societies, at work and privately, I think this is out of question.
So in the end its about costs/effort vs features vs trust. Regular reports about data misuse and hacked servers of famous companies show that you can never 100% trust ANY company plus the security of their servers/networks. Especially when its about sensitive data that can be misused to generate money, especially large companies are target of IT attacks, and as most themselves use 3rd party services/servers again, it is just a matter of time when on any side a security breach is used. However this can happen to a self-hosted solution as well of course, but at least its 100% under your control how much effort you put into the security of your cloud, which and how many connection types/doors you implement etc. However this requires knowledge/expertise and the effort + cost to build an own server/infrastructure.
If one has VERY sensitive data that needs to be available from a cloud, or one does not trust any service provider and/or government/state + legal system of the server location, then FOSS self-hosted solutions, in case with strong single VPN-only connections, won the fight already.
The real competition is when one generally trusts service providers + state/legal systems and their security at least over the own possibilities with reasonable effort. So besides a competitive set of features, FOSS products need to be especially easy to apply, easy to maintain and after all from pragmatic company point of view more cost-effective. Note here that large providers can build/run/maintain servers much cheaper per unit, including quantity discounts, shared expertise/man power, cheapest locations (also regarding/avoiding tax ) and all such things, compared to a middle size company or private case. There is the related trend of outsourcing, to focus on ones primary product(s) and strengths, which is the battlefield that Nextcloud acts on.
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Have a look around âŠ
FossHub is a part of FOSS (you can read more about F/OSS, FOSS, FLOSS terms here) community focused on providing downloads and hosting for the free projects. We also list a limited number of free software titles that can be categorized as âfreewareâ, âproprietaryâ or âclosed-sourceâ software (please read below the âControversyâ or âManifestâ section). We HATE pop-ups, spyware, and excessive ads. We are against deceptive/misleading advertising and we HATE bundles* (READ THE DISCLAIMER SECTION BELOW). Please note that we do not modify software binaries, and we strive to be recognized as one of the most trustworthy places when it comes down to free software.
Good statement.
Happy hacking.
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We went off topic, sorry for that, however I think above posts made clear that moving away from GitHub for Nextcloud is out of question currently.
FossHub, though a nice thing, is a download hoster only, no code hoster. For those it is basically the same as with all 3rd party hosters: You need to trust them that they do what they tell and in this case do not add any unwanted junk into your download, like SourceForge obviously did. I am actually wondering about that, as I thought or is basically the same as on GitHub, where the developer controls exactly the content of the downloads. But yeah SourceForge, at least from user impression, indeed looks (on the first sight) more like a download hoster than a code hoster. The first thing one sees on a SourceForge project page is the download button with mostly ready to run installers. In GitHub the first thing you see is the source code files and offering ready to run installers/packages from releases is even optional. But even behind this different presentations SourceForge seems to (or did that time) give less control to the developers about the download content.
Here a lot to read about how Microsoft âchangedâ.
Okay, questions is if you trust the source 
Microsoft loves open source the way a tapeworm loves a healthy digestive system. Microsoft are no friend of FOSS. Theyâre still a 99.99% proprietary software corporation and that will never change.
Have you seen this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duaYLW7LQvg
tl;dw - Microsoft has changed only one thing: their PR strategy. They continue to push proprietary lock-in and are actively corrupting govâts, and holding them hostage. Literally.
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