GitHub and the crime against software

Alternatives and mirroring strategies

• Many suggest mirroring repos to multiple forges (GitHub, GitLab, Codeberg, etc.) via multiple pushurl entries, which some learned about for the first time.
• Others propose decentralized or emerging options: Forgejo-based hosts, Gitea, sr.ht, tangled.org, radicle.dev, Nostr-based git, or even a bare-repo VPS/Mac mini on a VPN tailnet.

Issues, PRs, and project metadata lock-in

• Several argue the real lock-in is not git hosting but the surrounding ecosystem: issues, PRs, wikis, discussions, CI/CD, and historical context.
• Moving code is easy; migrating workflows, integrations, and metadata is described as hard and often proprietary.
• Some advocate splitting tools (e.g., YouTrack/Jira, Gerrit, separate wikis, chat) for flexibility, while others see this as a search and complexity nightmare and prefer everything in one place.

Self‑hosting tradeoffs

• Self-hosting Forgejo/Gitea on cheap servers or NAS devices is reported as straightforward and low-maintenance by some.
• Others describe GitLab self-hosted as heavy (large images, high resource usage) and a security/ops burden.
• A few foresee a “return to self-hosting,” but note most people don’t want to pay for or run their own forge.

Centralization, network effects, and stars

• Strong network effects are cited as the main reason GitHub remains dominant, even with credible alternatives.
• GitHub stars are seen as a powerful “currency” for project legitimacy, with claims they can be bought and thus distort adoption.
• This star economy is framed as a key source of lock-in; importing stars elsewhere doesn’t solve ongoing accumulation.

Reliability, performance, and AI focus

• Commenters highlight frequent GitHub outages and point to changelog data: many “Copilot/agent” entries and none labeled “performance/reliability.”
• The UI is criticized as bloated and JavaScript-heavy, with one breakdown listing hundreds of JS files loaded even for simple pages, including Copilot-related bundles.
• Others report GitHub largely “just works” for them, with rare impactful outages.

Debate over root causes and article tone

• One camp blames Microsoft/GitHub’s prioritization of AI features over stability and a decade of technical debt.
• Another attributes recent pain to a sudden explosion of automated activity from AI coding tools, arguing no team could have scaled fast enough.
• Some find the original article overly negative or ideological; others defend criticism as legitimate given enterprise usage and SLAs.