Some may have heard the rumblings around github semi-recently. The software 
conservancy is calling free software projects to seek alternatives. They 
motivate this in much 
more detail over here:
https://sfconservancy.org/GiveUpGitHub/[1]

In short, they claim github is a proprietary tool that's leveraging the hosted 
free software for 
their commercial purposes. In itself that would be acceptable as long as it's 
done according 
to the licenses of these free software projects. There have been several 
situations where 
that's not the case, "copilot" being the latest and most worry-some.

Is this something we as a free software project should think about and possibly 
act on ?

Personally I don't like it at all that I chose to write code under a free 
software license to 
ensure my effort helps and benefits the free software ecosystem. Yet that a 
commercial 
company then decides to use my code to train an AI that's meant to help build 
proprietary 
software. The legal status of that is still very unclear and certainly not what 
I intended my 
code to be used for.

That is obviously only my personal opinion, but I wanted to express it as 
starting point for a 
wider discussion on this topic.

Is the golden cage that is github to developers really becoming detrimental to 
real free 
software principles ?

Should we do something about this ? Once hooked into the github ecosystem it's 
pretty hard 
to leave, as the sfc also acknowledges. They do offer initial suggestions for 
alternatives, but 
they are not at the same level as github currently.

Please share your views on this topic as well.

Regards,

Geert

--------
[1] https://sfconservancy.org/GiveUpGitHub/
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