On corporate abuse of free and open-source software, particularly as it relates to GitHub's Copilot, and explaining why & how I began self-hosting my own code.
It sounds like your concerns about who uses your code, and some assurance that no entity you disapprove of sees/uses it is more important to you than making your code freely available. There's nothing wrong with that, just make it closed source.
But you can't really have your cake and eat it too. You don't get to freely and frictionlessly contribute to the greater community of developers while also gatekeeping who sees your code and what they do with it. It kinda has to be one or the other. It sounds like you picked the second, which is fine! It just means that now seeing your code isn't dependent on people being curious about it, or having good use cases, but now it's moreso about being on good terms with you.
Which again, is just fine, it's just pretty antithetical to the good aspects of open source code, and is probably going to mean considerably fewer people will ever see it or contribute to it.
Frankly this is a very black-and-white view of the space of options, and does not match the much grayer reality in my opinion. In writing this article I was trying to articulate some of my thoughts on some various "shades of gray" here. Through closed developer circles and monetized/restricted access to code, the owner of a project can have the final say. They can be as welcoming to good faith individuals, and as restrictive to corporations as they want. I don't see - at all - how the binary of 100% open vs. 100% closed is the actual choice at all. Perhaps the programming population at large *thinking that* is quite beneficial to corporations, but I don't think it's the reality at all.
I think the concerns you raised here around open-source and code ownership are very important.
I have been a huge believer in the ideas of open-source and how it can facilitate share of knowledge, but I have always felt a bit uneasy about how some corporations end up making a lot of money by heavily relying on the work of open-source developers without offering any compensation to those developers.
Self hosting and vetted access to the repositories could definitely be a step towards addressing some of the exploitation we have now, while at the same time maintaining access to the source code in a way that is deemed acceptable by the original developer.
Thanks for this. I've been using Github for many years and also think it's time to relocate my code. I just setup my own Gitea service on a Droplet following your links and had no trouble. I didn't use Caddy, but rather followed the linuxize.com guide on using Nginx and Let's Encrypt; was quick and straightforward.
So Caddy is providing an HTTPS layer and mapping the Gitea service to port 443, yes? Did you need to create or get a server certificate? If so, where/how?
Take everything I say with a grain of salt, since I am not particularly well-versed in this subject. But yes, that's correct - from my understanding, the Gitea service is using port 3000, and Caddy takes requests over HTTPS (port 443) and redirects them to Gitea, acting as a middleman.
Additionally, Caddy automates certificate acquisition and renewal, which is partly why it was a huge improvement over my past experiences with self-hosting.
It sounds like your concerns about who uses your code, and some assurance that no entity you disapprove of sees/uses it is more important to you than making your code freely available. There's nothing wrong with that, just make it closed source.
But you can't really have your cake and eat it too. You don't get to freely and frictionlessly contribute to the greater community of developers while also gatekeeping who sees your code and what they do with it. It kinda has to be one or the other. It sounds like you picked the second, which is fine! It just means that now seeing your code isn't dependent on people being curious about it, or having good use cases, but now it's moreso about being on good terms with you.
Which again, is just fine, it's just pretty antithetical to the good aspects of open source code, and is probably going to mean considerably fewer people will ever see it or contribute to it.
Frankly this is a very black-and-white view of the space of options, and does not match the much grayer reality in my opinion. In writing this article I was trying to articulate some of my thoughts on some various "shades of gray" here. Through closed developer circles and monetized/restricted access to code, the owner of a project can have the final say. They can be as welcoming to good faith individuals, and as restrictive to corporations as they want. I don't see - at all - how the binary of 100% open vs. 100% closed is the actual choice at all. Perhaps the programming population at large *thinking that* is quite beneficial to corporations, but I don't think it's the reality at all.
software is literally just copy-pasting other people's code. how is an ai doing it any different?
I think the concerns you raised here around open-source and code ownership are very important.
I have been a huge believer in the ideas of open-source and how it can facilitate share of knowledge, but I have always felt a bit uneasy about how some corporations end up making a lot of money by heavily relying on the work of open-source developers without offering any compensation to those developers.
Self hosting and vetted access to the repositories could definitely be a step towards addressing some of the exploitation we have now, while at the same time maintaining access to the source code in a way that is deemed acceptable by the original developer.
?? those same companies have given us enumerable libraries for free!!
react, typescript, rust, etc, etc, etc
Oh no... you’re right... what in the world would we do without ReactJS, Typescript, and Rust?!?!?! We’d be doomed...
Memory would be UnSaFe and the world would crash..
Thanks for this. I've been using Github for many years and also think it's time to relocate my code. I just setup my own Gitea service on a Droplet following your links and had no trouble. I didn't use Caddy, but rather followed the linuxize.com guide on using Nginx and Let's Encrypt; was quick and straightforward.
So Caddy is providing an HTTPS layer and mapping the Gitea service to port 443, yes? Did you need to create or get a server certificate? If so, where/how?
Take everything I say with a grain of salt, since I am not particularly well-versed in this subject. But yes, that's correct - from my understanding, the Gitea service is using port 3000, and Caddy takes requests over HTTPS (port 443) and redirects them to Gitea, acting as a middleman.
Additionally, Caddy automates certificate acquisition and renewal, which is partly why it was a huge improvement over my past experiences with self-hosting.