Developer abandons GitHub over stability, AI training concerns; SourceHut ban on LLM projects complicates migration options
A developer's public exit from GitHub and SourceHut's new LLM restrictions reignite debate over platform lock-in and self-hosting versus centralized collaboration.
What to know
- A developer published a high-profile account of abandoning GitHub for self-hosted Forgejo, citing years of platform instability and concerns about code being used to train AI models.
- SourceHut's recent ban on LLM-using projects has prompted developers to reconsider migration options, but alternative platforms face their own restrictions and fragmentation challenges.
- Most developers remain on GitHub despite dissatisfaction because switching is prohibitively expensive due to integrations and automation dependencies; alternatives lack GitHub's collaboration network effects.
- The conversation reveals a fundamental tension: centralized platforms risk vendor lock-in and enshittification, while fragmented self-hosted options sacrifice the ecosystem benefits that make open-source collaboration possible.
The dispute Whether restrictions on LLM use by alternative platforms are justified (protecting against AI training) or misguided (fragmenting the ecosystem and driving users back to GitHub). · positions read across 15 posts and comments
GitHub is problematic but inescapable; network effects and switching costs keep developers hostage.
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“GitHub is going the wrong way, but there really is nothing workable for open-source projects except GitHub. I don't want to register on all these random GitHub killers just to open an issue or PR.”
vladkens · Hacker News
Self-hosting (Forgejo) is worth the tradeoff for control and reliability; fragmentation is a price worth paying.
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“What finally pushed me over the edge was a hour long Actions outage that prevented me from pushing a hot fix…For work that a business depends on, I can't recommend GitHub Actions…So far I'm loving Forgejo and have no regrets!”
JLO64 · Hacker News
Alternative platforms' restrictions (SourceHut's LLM ban, Codeberg's terms) are counterproductive and will drive users back to GitHub.
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“It ridiculous, Codeberg did the same. I get why, really, I do, but it's creating a severe damage that will be abused by a third evil actor…Outcome? Everyone on their own self-hosted git servers, zero collaboration.”
oscarcp · Hacker News
“I agreed with the sentiment of the post, and Github deserves every bit of it. Tried codeberg (which uses forgejo) and I am very happy with it personally.”
dabedee, Developer · Hacker News
iozguradem Developer/bloggerGitHub (Microsoft) Centralized Git hosting platformSourceHut Alternative Git hosting platformCodeberg/Forgejo community Self-hosted Git platform and alternative hosts
The record 2 articles and posts · last 30 days
What people are saying 14 voices from 2 sites · best of 15 · verbatim
- Will Forgejo and other self-hosted platforms implement federation to enable collaboration across instances without centralizing on GitHub?
- How sustainable is the fragmentation across GitHub, SourceHut, Codeberg, and self-hosted solutions for long-term open-source development?
- Aug 29
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Can't they either sign up for accounts on your Forgejo, or send you an IM to request a pull?
- Aug 28
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Codefloe looks like it could be promising. No real restrictions like other options. Time will tell.
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Oh my. I hadn't noticed this, but I've been kind of expecting it. I've been a big SourceHut user for years now. So I'll be having to decide what to do myself. I absolutely get their stance, but I don't see a world in which I will go back to writing meaningful amounts of code by hand again.I may try out tangled.sh. It's really nice to have my code…
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It ridiculous, Codeberg did the same. I get why, really, I do, but it's creating a severe damage that will be abused by a third evil actor that will take over the wasteland of GitHub and GitLab by creating a service that will allow anything (until it is enshittified of course)Outcome? Everyone on their own self-hosted git servers, zero…
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I'm in the middle of a Forgejo migration myself for similar reasons. What finally pushed me over the edge was a hour long Actions outage that prevented me from pushing a hot fix for a bug to my webapp. (I relied on GH Actions to build and push an ARM Docker image.) For work that a business depends on, I can't recommend GitHub Actions. It's not…
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Btw, did anyone notice they removed access to "who starred the project" recently. You can only check your own repos, not external ones. It was very nice to find related people before.
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I was about to mention Codeberg but I saw the last two changes to the terms of use and they're basically digging themselves into the ground with so many restrictions
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With SourceHut banning projects that use LLMs[1], I’m looking to migrate this weekend.While I can host Forgejo just fine[2], doing so means no one will be able to contribute to the projects, since federation isn’t a thing yet. Heck, getting contributions on SourceHut was hard enough, and it doesn’t even require people to register an account.I…
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GitHub is going the wrong way, but there really is nothing workable for open-source projects except GitHub. I don’t want to register on all these random GitHub killers just to open an issue or PR in a random project I’ve interacted with.For personal or team setups, any third-party service will work well.
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What frontier model did GitHub train? All of the frontier labs scraped GitHub like they scraped everything else. While GitHub has certainly tried to profit from AI, directing ire at GitHub for frontier labs training on public code seems misplaced.
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I agree with the sentiment of the post, and Github deserves every bit of it. Tried codeberg (which uses forgejo) and I am very happy with it personally.
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I've had exactly zero issues hosting Forgejo. GitHub is only going to get worse.
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IME switching git providers is very hard, especially getting off of github. Most companies have insane numbers of integrations, automations, etc on top of GH. So yeah, its on us, but its also pretty simple algebra: does GH's downtime affect us more than the cost of switching? Most companies the answer is no.When people ask why people aren't…
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Bye, Bye GitHub L: https:// log.ozgur.works/bye-bye-github .html C: https:// news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4 9483020 posted on 2026.08.28 at 15:12:11 (c=1, p=6)