GoKawiilThe kind of developer I hope to be someday
It seems like there are a lot of people either leaving or talking about leaving Github, a very prominent one being Mitchell Hashimoto. Fragmentation seems inevitable, as people/companies start to distribute among the various options (Codeberg, self-host Forgejo, Gitlab, etc…). I think the decision Hashimoto makes with ghostty will potentially set the tone for how the death of Github will happen. I have some scattered thoughts about the situation:
Tracking activity across providers
I hope to someday be a 10x bathroom tile developer with a git contribution heatmap being a solid color. I have already had an issue with tracking my progress working on repositories split between my self-hosted Forgejo instance and Github. I’m a simple man that wants to see my contributions measured on a public heatmap for both satisfaction and motivation. So I solved this problem for myself with a go script and hugo module that you can use to create a git heatmap combining data from multiple hosting platforms. Just takes one go command to generate the activity file, some hugo config changes, and a simple shortcode embedded in your hugo markdown.
[Github repo available here]
This is my unified git heatmap from my Forgejo and Github
I also have some random thoughts I wanted to write out about the whole situation.
Some kind of trust system is needed to stop AI slop
I think the years of allowing contributions from anyone with an account is over for open source. Maintainers are drowning in AI generated PRs/issues from unvetted sources. Even though AI contribution quality is reported to be improving, the core volume issue isn’t. The current system is requiring maintainers to wade through PRs/issues that potentially took 0 human effort/time to produce. Even if some of them are useful/correct, the sheer volume makes the entire system intractable. You guys already probably know this.
Hashimoto has a solution to this called vouch that is currently being developed. It tracks approved/blocked contributors on a repo basis using a Github actions workflow by appending usernames to a VOUCHED.td file. The syntax of the file is:
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