"People might not like what Gitee is doing, but Gitee will still be required to get their daily job done".
That's a dumb argument.
When it comes to building software (especially #FOSS), you are NEVER required to use somebody else's platform.
The Chinese-based #Gitee is obviously an extreme example of how things can go bad, and how a dumb filter for words censored by the party may result in your work of years gone up in smoke.
But the same principles also apply to #Github. DMCA complaints result in hundreds of projects a month taken down, mostly with no chance of appeal (pay attention here: a DMCA takedown request is sufficient for a repository to be removed, no need for any actual courtroom to come up with a verdict).
After youtube-dl was taken down, and I started sensing danger around my projects as well (since many of them use youtube-dl or Torrent search engines), I took things in my hands, got my VPS, installed Gitlab, and became the real boss of my own projects.
And if hosting Gitlab is too heavy for you, there's plenty of lighter alternatives. If they're heavy for you too, just go the old way. Remember that git is just ssh on steroids, so all you need to host a repo is a machine with ssh access and the git executable. No private company can EVER own that.
As open-source developers, we should avoid at all costs hosting our code on any platform that:
- Isn't open-source itself. It's easy for Github to say that they ♥ open-source. They can basically access and endless database of source code without having to provide their own that people can run locally, therefore having a HUGE edge of advantage over ANY competitor who could ever come: who wouldn't love that? Same goes for Gitee: if you love open-source, then show me your code.
- Has opaque rules around takedowns, and it allows an unelected third party to arbitrarily remove content with no possibility of appeal, any legal process, and often not even explanations of the reasoning behind the decision.
If you care about open-source code, then stay clear of Github, Gitee and all of their shitty clones.
technologyreview.com/2022/05/3…
Many suspect the Chinese state has forced Gitee, the Chinese competitor to GitHub, to censor open-source code in a move developers worry could obstruct innovation.
Zeyi Yang (MIT Technology Review)
