Alternative to GitHub

[triplingual]

Without specifically proposing it, I wanted to note an alternative to GitHub since the idea of switching has come up: https://grebedoc.dev/

Grebedoc.dev is

a service that publishes the pages branch in your Git repository as a website on your domain; think GitHub Pages if it was open source and community operated.

[MikeoftheLibrary]

Wouldn't we need to find a server on which to host the "canonical" git repo so to speak? Or am I misunderstanding how Grebedoc works?

[kshepherd]

Yes, in that example they use Codeberg as a backing git repo (which is an open source, community-run alternative to Github itself)
In fact, Codeberg does have a "pages" service but they warn that it's in maintenance mode so might not be reliable enough as an alternative for both: https://docs.codeberg.org/codeberg-pages/

But at the very least, codeberg could be an alternative for the Github source code management + wiki part, and provide the source data for another static page service

[phette23]

I was hesitant to support a move because I don't think that other for-profit git forges (e.g. Gitlab, BitBucket) are inherently more ethical than GitHub, they're just less popular but equally opportunistic. Codeberg, however, is non-profit and appealing.

The migration itself is trivial thanks to git. The repo's wiki is also just another git repo so that is not a challenge either. But I foresee a few downsides of migrating.

People in the Code4Lib community are familiar with GitHub and already have accounts here. We get several issues and PRs created by community members each year. I looked at last year's site to get a sense and there were more PRs from outside the website group than I'd expected. Often they're not major changes—people edit their own bios—but we are signing up for more work if we use a less familiar platform.

We do not use many other GitHub features like Actions, but we lose the possibility of using those in the future. I didn't research Codeberg exhaustively, but it seems to have fewer features.

Finally, we lose the Slack integration. I'm not sure how much convenience we get from that. I check Code4Lib Slack daily, so it's often that I first notice an issue or PR to review there.

So the question is whether some inconvenience is worth it? Also, I'd want to at least test the Codeberg/Grebedoc setup for a while before switching.

[MikeoftheLibrary]

For me the Github integration with Slack is helpful. As with @phette23 its the main way I learn of issues and such. We may not need it, though. Codeberg's documentation says:

**Watching repositories**

When you watch a repository (by clicking on the “Watch” button in a repository), you will receive emails for every change (creation of issues, pull requests, comments, etc.) done in this repository.

To stop watching a repository, simply click on “Unwatch” in a repository.

You are also able to [list all of your watched repositories](https://codeberg.org/notifications/watching). Alternatively you can click the menu button “Profile and Settings...” in the top-right corner of Codeberg and click on "Subscriptions" in the dropdown.

So there is an alternate way to be notified of new issues and pull requests.

The workflow issue is not one I can comment much on, being new to the committee.

[kshepherd]

"Everyone else is already here" is unfortunately the strongest argument for keeping stuff (or oneself) on any given platform.
If staying on Github helps other C4L people find / create issues here more easily then that's probably reason enough. Always good to keep the alternatives in mind though.