this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2026
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Programming
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I wonder how many of these folks just don't know about the alternatives. I've come across otherwise capable developers who think git and GitHub are the same thing. People come to software from all sorts of backgrounds so I can't blame anyone for not knowing.
I also imagine that if people are aware, the activation energy of switching is too high. It's more than just setting a new remote and pushing. You have to learn the new system, maybe migrate tickets, wrestle with CI, etc. For a hobby project it's probably easier to shut it down and just go do something else. I also don't blame them here. There's more to life than open source, and its amazing people are able to contribute when they can.
A lot of people study CS or programming because they have been told it would make them a lot of money. If you just want to make money and don’t care about anything else you’re always just going to put in the minimum effort required, so I’m not surprised people just can’t be bothered to switch.
i wonder where they are getting that info from, im not in tech but i was visiting forums where cs has pretty low job prospects for a least a decade+ almost all the forums about cs, tech says that.
Those people don't run open source projects
Fair point, but OP didn’t specify open source projects, just why “people” don’t move away from GitHub.
oh you're right
I hate that. I'm the worst salesman ever, so I'm super bad at interviewing, but I'm a good programmer. Companies are very critical and wary though, because some people are very good salesmen but very bad programmers. I don't blame them, but t's a rough environment
There's also lots of people who become developers because they want to build the best software they can and don't care to spend time thinking about whether one open source hosting platform is better for their code over another if they accomplish the same thing.
Your response is insanely narrow minded and judgemental, not everyone chooses to fight the same battles you do.
Nowhere in my comment did I imply what you are saying. Please don’t project your internet grievances onto me. The two are not mutually exclusive and I in no way implied that they were.
Fair that they're not mutually exclusive, but you did imply that that's why the majority don't switch.
I refute that categorization actually, I never implied that it was most, only that some number of people do indeed fall into that category and I’ve seen it with my own eyes to be true.
Mostly my post intended to point out that not all devs give a single solitary fuck about FOSS and I would even go so far as to argue that yes, that probably constitutes a majority. Furthermore this attitude is likely a contributing factor (not the only factor by any means) towards the lack of excitement around switching over to open source version control web platforms.
If the developer truly believes in quality and fairness, then they will switch.
Are you a vegan?
Well I know for a fact your mom is a meat eater. And a chugger.
Edit: I see your point now. I knee jerked before thinking it through. I thought you was going for the weak maga style slander but I see you was in fact making a point
To your point. I was not a vegan but I was vegetarian for 6 years.
My apologies to you and your mother.
My re-spec online classes started by installing VS Code and connecting it to user's own GitHub repository that was then used to upload homework in Jupyter notebook format. It was pretty streamlined, that is good when you want to fast-forward into making students write their own first code lessons, leaving off technicalities, but there we didn't heard a word about if any of these three choices are necessary to start coding. I only recently got interested enough to research other options, at the same time I left Windows as a default OS. I'm not sure any of my classmates would tho until something critical happens, and for many this pipeline is probably what they are still using by now.
I get the impression this is common. It seems like education hasn't caught up to the fact that a lot of people are wanting to learn software engineering, but they lack some fundamentals. There really should be an intro course going all the way from what is a file to maybe some basics about the ELF format? Sort of something that can lead into the OS course, but lay the foundation for just basic computer use. Let the nerds get their easy A, but give everyone else a better understanding and some fundamentals to build on.
Ok admission time. I have a project in GH that I could, for example, migrate to GitLab but I’m concerned it would break the pipeline or have a disastrous customer facing impact.
Edit: there are people (ahem) who might know code… but not everything re consequences of shifting a repo.
Is your pipeline tied to GitHub actions or something?
This problem has nothing to do with where you are hosting.
Yes, copilot streamlines things a bit. But the folk using claude et al just need a clone/fork of the repo.
Partially because URLs never die, and if you’ve got your project connected to a bunch of stuff it’s a huge pain to migrate.
I’ve got a ton of old open source projects and if people start bothering me over them I’ll just cancel contributions.
Also I don’t think Codeberg/forgejo runners are compatible with GH Actions, which is another barrier