From 268fb7b09eefae22b8627a3a29bdd693d5f65bb6 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: "Bradley M. Kuhn"
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2022 05:13:22 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] GiveUpGitHub campaign: main page.
---
.../static/GiveUpGitHub/index.html | 216 ++++++++++++++++++
1 file changed, 216 insertions(+)
create mode 100644 www/conservancy/static/GiveUpGitHub/index.html
diff --git a/www/conservancy/static/GiveUpGitHub/index.html b/www/conservancy/static/GiveUpGitHub/index.html
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+{% extends "base_compliance.html" %}
+{% block subtitle %}Copyleft Compliance Projects - {% endblock %}
+{% block submenuselection %}GiveUpGitHub{% endblock %}
+{% block content %}
+
+On Wednesday 29 June 2022, we began
+calling on all FOSS developers to give up on
+GitHub.
+
+We realize this is not an easy task; GitHub is ubiquitous. Through their
+effective marketing, GitHub has convinced Free and Open Source Software
+(FOSS) developers that GitHub is the best (and even the only) place for FOSS
+development. However, as a proprietary, trade-secret tool, GitHub itself is
+the very opposite of FOSS. By contrast, Git was
+designed specifically
+to replace a proprietary tool (BitKeeper), and to make FOSS development
+distributed — using FOSS tools and without a centralized site. GitHub
+has warped Git — creating add-on features that turn a distributed,
+egalitarian, and FOSS system into a centralized, proprietary site. And, all
+those add-on features are controlled by a single, for-profit company. By
+staying on GitHub, established FOSS communities bring newcomers to this
+proprietary platform — expanding GitHub's reach. and limiting the
+imaginations of the next generation of FOSS developers.
+
+We know that many rely on GitHub every day. Giving up a ubiquitous,
+gratis service that has useful (albeit proprietary) features is perennially
+difficult. For software developers, giving up GitHub will be even harder
+than giving up Facebook! We don't blame anyone who struggles, but hope you
+will read the reasons and methods below to give up GitHub and join us in
+seeking better alternatives! Also, please check back to this page regularly,
+as we'll continue to update it throughout 2022 and beyond!
+
+Why Give Up GitHub?
+
+There are so many reasons to give up on GitHub, but we list here a few of
+the most important ones:
+
+
+ - Copilot
+ is a for-profit product — developed and marketed by Microsoft
+ and their GitHub subsidiary — that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI)
+ techniques to automatically generate code interactively for developers.
+ The AI model was trained
+ (according to GitHub's own statements) exclusively with
+ projects that were hosted on GitHub, including many licensed
+ under copyleft
+ licenses. Most of those projects are not in the “public
+ domain”, they are licensed
+ under FOSS licenses. These licenses
+ have requirements including proper author attribution and, in
+ the case of copyleft
+ licenses, they sometimes require that works based on and/or that
+ incorporate the software be licensed under the same copyleft license as
+ the prior work. Microsoft and GitHub have been ignoring these license
+ requirements for more than a year. Their only defense of these
+ actions was
+ a tweet by their former CEO, in which he falsely claims that
+ unsettled law on this topic is actually settled. In addition to the legal
+ issues,
+ the ethical
+ implications of GitHub's choice to use copylefted code in the service
+ of creating proprietary software are grave.
+
+ - In 2020, the community discovered that
+GitHub has
+a for-profit software services contract with the USA Immigration and Customs
+Enforcement (ICE). Activists, including some GitHub employees, have been
+calling on GitHub for two years to cancel that contract. GitHub's primary
+reply has been that their parent company, Microsoft, has sold Microsoft Word
+for years to ICE without any public complaints. They claim that this somehow
+justifies even more business with an agency whose policies are
+problematic. Regardless of your views on ICE and its behavior, GitHub's
+ongoing dismissive and disingenuous responses to the activists who raised this important issue show that GitHub puts its profits above concerns from the community.
+
+- While GitHub pretends to be pro-FOSS
+ (like SourceForge before
+ them), their entire hosting site is, itself, proprietary and/or
+ trade-secret software. We appreciate that GitHub allows some of its
+ employees to sometimes contribute FOSS to upstream projects, but our
+ community has been burned so many times before by companies that claim to
+ support FOSS, while actively convincing the community to rely on their
+ proprietary software. We won't let GitHub burn us in this same way!
+
+- GitHub differs from most of its peers in the FOSS project hosting
+industry, as GitHub does not even offer any self-hosting FOSS option.
+Their entire codebase is secret. For example, while we have our
+complaints about GitLab's business model of parallel “Community&rdquo:
+and “Enterprise” editions, at least GitLab's Community Edition
+provides basic functionality for self-hosting and is 100% FOSS. Other
+competitors, like SourceHut, do even better by providing their entire
+codebase as FOSS for self-hosting and “dog fooding” by using
+their own platform to develop its software in public! In addition,
+non-profit FOSS hosting sites such
+as CodeBerg also develop their platform
+ publicly as FOSS.
+
+- GitHub has long sought to discredit copyleft generally. Their various
+CEOs have often spoken loudly and negatively about copyleft, including their
+founder (and former CEO)
+devoting his entire
+OSCON keynote on attacking copyleft and the GPL. There are also examples
+of GitHub
+employees filing bug tickets in copylefted projects to cajole them to
+change to non-copyleft licenses.
+- GitHub is wholly owned by Microsoft, a company whose executives have historically repeatedly attacked copyleft licensing.
+
+
+How Do I Give Up GitHub?
+
+The reason that it's difficult to leave GitHub is a side-effect of one of
+the reasons to leave them: proprietary vendor lock-in. We are aware that
+GitHub, as the “Facebook of software development”, has succeeded
+in creating the most enticing walled garden ever made for FOSS developers.
+Just like leaving Facebook is painful because you're unsure how you'll find
+and talk with your friends and family otherwise — leaving GitHub is
+difficult because it's how you find and collaborate with
+co-developers. GitHub may even be how you find and showcase your work to
+prospective employers. We also know that some Computer Science programs
+even require students to use GitHub.
+
+Accordingly, we call first on the most comfortably-situated developers
+among you — leaders of key FOSS projects, hiring and engineering
+managers, and developers who are secure in their employment — to take
+the first step to reject GitHub's proprietary services. We recognize that
+for new developers in the field, you'll receive pressure from potential
+employers (even those that will otherwise employ you to develop FOSS) to
+participate on GitHub. Collective action requires the privileged developers
+among us to lead by example; that's why we're not merely asking you leave
+GitHub, but we're spearheading an effort to help everyone give up GitHub over
+the long term. You can help protect newcomers from the intrinsic power
+imbalance created by GitHub by setting the agenda for your FOSS project and
+hosting your project elsewhere.
+
+As such, we're speaking first to the hiring managers, community leaders,
+and those in other positions of power that encourage the use of GitHub to new
+contributors and existing communities. Once someone in power makes the choice
+to host a project on GitHub, the individual contributors have little choice
+but to use these proprietary and damaging products. If you are making
+decisions or have political power within your community and/or employer, we
+urge you to use your power to center community efforts through FOSS platforms
+rather than GitHub. If you're an individual contributor who feels powerless
+to leave GitHub, read our (growing) list of recommendations below on how to
+take the first steps.
+
+Long term, we'll develop this stable URL (that can always be reached
+by GiveUpGitHub.org) to include links
+to resources to help everyone — from the most privileged developer to
+newcomers and members of underrepresented groups in FOSS — to give up
+on GitHub. If you don't feel that you or your project can yet leave GitHub,
+we ask that you raise awareness
+by adding
+this section to your README.md to share your concerns about GitHub with
+your users. If you're ready to leave GitHub, you
+can use this
+README.md template to replace your current one.
+
+
+
千里之行始於足下
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
+ — 老子 (Lao Tsu) in Chapter 64
+ of 道德经 (Tao Te Ching)
+
+
+
+Resources to Give Up GitHub
+
+Here are some resources to help you quit GitHub. We'll be expanding this
+list regularly as we find more resources. If you'd like to suggest a
+resource not yet listed, you can discuss it on
+the Give-Up-GitHub
+ mailing list.
+
+- Alternative Hosting:
+
+ - CodeBerg
+ - SourceHut
+ - Self-Host (or join a group that self-hosts) with:
+
- Gitea
+ - SourceHut
+ - GitLab
+ Community Edition (note, the GitLab Enterprise Edition, which is
+ provided to the public on gitlab.com, is (like GitHub) trade-secret,
+ proprietary, vendor-lock-in software)
+
+
+ (We'll be adding tutorials soon on how to self-host!)
+
+
+Ways To Help Even Before You Give Up GitHub
+
+Here are some ideas of how you can help raise the importance of this issue
+even while you're still a GitHub user. (We'll publish longer tutorials in
+future about these and other ways to help.)
+
+- Add
+ this section to your README.md to share your concerns about GitHub
+ with your users.
+
+- Respectfully and kindly ask, before you contribute to a project on
+ GitHub, if they could provide alternative means to contribute other than
+ using GitHub.
+
+- Explain to your employer the dangers of relying on GitHub's proprietary
+ vendor lock-in products.
+
+- Join
+ the give-up-github
+ mailing list and start threads about your difficulties leaving GitHub.
+ This will help us explore solutions with you and add material to this
+ page.
+
+
+
+
+{% endblock %}