Github has made it impossible to create an account when using a VPN and a privacy browser with fully spoofed hardware identifiers. (Use Firefox or Firefox-based Privacy Browser, VPN, install Canvasblocker to test this.) I create an account with Google or Apple (both requiring hardware identifiers and numbers and birthdates) or I can use an email. When I use an email, it comes back with this horrible test, and even if I do it completely correctly, it tells me after I didn’t do the test right, gaslighting me with a picture of what I chose (which I didn’t choose) and showing me the correct picture (which I did choose and it claims I didn’t select).
It’s fucking bullshit and it’s more corporate control of open source software. For people who have their discussion or issue tracker, I can’t even participate without hardware identifiers likely linked to me some other way and phone numbers. It’s fucking bullshit. If anyone from Microsoft is reading this, FUCK YOU!!!
I am so tired of this bullshit. I just want to post an issue about a piece of software. You don’t need my fingerprint, hardware or personal, or biometric shit. This is a slippery slope. Fuck them.
I really hope more developers just get the fuck off Github. Honestly, if you are developing privacy-oriented software and using github, there’s a mistmatch and it’s bullshit, and I know it’s time consuming and annoying to move, but please do. This is fucking bullshit and it’s not like it’s going to become LESS annoying over time. FUCK THIS.
Playing devil’s advocate, it’s probably more about blocking bots from creating accounts than it is about blocking privacy minded users. You just end up being collateral damage.
Obviously that still sucks, I’m just saying it’s not that simple
Gitlab.com has similar problems, sadly. Meanwhile, I haven’t ever heard of Codeberg doing somethign similar, but who knows I guess.
Tell me how you really feel 😅
They also own Visual Studio Code, control VSCode, and effectively control the VSCodium soft fork.
They decided they wanted to own software development and here we are ;/
Fuck ms
This is why you use Emacs, Kate, Neovim and so on. Never understood how anyone could use a software as confusing as VSCode.
VSCode (well codium actually) actually felt quite nifty until Micro$lop started EEEing it by blocking the app store (there are workarounds for that) and then blocking their C extension from being installed in non-vanilla VSCode (pin it to the previous version).
But all in all, vim with cscope is my bare minimum.
Did something happen with Codium or do you just mean in general due to controlling extension marketplace, access to their closed source ones etc.
Edit: missed your other comment, never mind
What do you mean about VSCodium? Obviously it’s just a differently compiled version of Microsoft’s text editor, but what does Microsoft have to do with it, otherwise?
deleted by creator
Yeah. Your example: How many forks of Chome/Chromium have rejected Google’s Manifest v3 changes? Zero, because they’re all soft forks and don’t have the resources to hard fork.
Didn’t Vivaldi? I don’t really use them cause I mostly avoid non-FOSS software, but I seem to remember them announcing they’d be keeping support.
“Otherwise” is doing Herculean lifting here when the code is nearly 100% Microsoft. The way they control it is by changing VSCode’s code, which is then dutifully incorporated into VSCodium, with the exception of telemetry code.
VSCodium has never promoted itself as anything more than a compilation of VSCode’s base with telemetry disabled and proprietary components, naturally, not included. It has never promised anything else than that. Of course the changes are “dutifully incorporated” into Codium. It’s not a point of that project to be different. Your first remark made it seem like Microsoft has somehow infiltrated the VSCodium project and changed what it does.
You dont need hardware verifications with vscode, nor an account, it works with a vpn, u can disable copilot.
Those aren’t the types of control I alluded to, as you can see upthread.
Any recommendations on a good general use IDE? I’ve enjoyed Geany a bit here and there myself but honestly I’m just using vim for most things these days. CLI is just so quick and efficient for most use cases, but I still hold out hope for something different.
I don’t have any general recommendations. IMO most of them disappoint, because most of them don’t understand the languages they support very well. It was Microsoft that invented Language Server Protocol and almost every editor adopted. I’m not very impressed by it, and it seems to be stagnant.
AFAIK the best example of an IDE having a deep understanding of its language is DrRacket, which is specific to Racket. The best one that I’ve actually used is JetBrains’s IDEs, enough so that I pay money for it.
This YT video is specifically about a Clojure IDE by one of its developers, but it explains some general shortcoming of a lot of code editors, and why IDEs that understand their language(s) well can be so powerful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOi8V4qsdVY
Sponsors, Copilot, Azure, Codespaces, npm, Teams, Outlook, LinkedIn. Heck Microsoft also has massive control in Rust too.
I use codeberg.org for my stuff.
It would be nice if codeberg supported the FUNDING.yml and had their own way to donate to the open source projects I like.
Microsoft made Sponsors so they can siphon a portion of the payment fees. There is no reason to make Codeberg add that sort of bloat when you can add a hyperlink to the README.* or in a section of your application to a third-party service that hopefully can be as focused on doing one thing as Codeberg largely has (non-profit hosted Forgejo).
a coworker invited me to his company GitHub team or something recently, and I tried to join several times. each time, I got stuck with a 10 question test to “verify I was human”. it was not quick. eventually, I had time to actually complete it without timing out.
after completing it correctly twice without success, I gave up
deleted by creator
I’ve been enjoying using FreshRSS, RecipeSage, Kavita (ebook library/reader) and Flatnotes. My server OS is OpenMediaVault which i’ve been very happy with.
Seconding this. I recommend OMV if you’re new or inexperienced with Linux and self hosting. I started my server when it was a gaming PC running Windows and OMV has felt like an easy transition for me.
But Docker is all but required in my opinion. I like working with Docker Compose files and I keep OMV on a separate drive in case I want to move to pure Debian or other distro.
Selfhosted git doesn’t require anything
deleted by creator
“How about a nice game of chess?”
deleted by creator
No worries man, glad you got the joke. I don’t play chess either
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
Same here, I was just quoting the movie War Games
deleted by creator
It’s a great early 80s movie about Matt Broderick('s character) hacking into a “supercomputer” that’s programmed to simulate and potentially execute nuclear war, check it out if that seems up your alley
deleted by creator
I miss the days when I used to love technology and be excited about all the great things it could potentially do for society. Now I’m a luddite trying to stick to older and simpler stuff at most while I cynically point out all the awful ways technology will be used by the selfish and the powerful
Been that way for a long time. They rejected me years ago. Much like Google, MS is in the ad business, and they want your personal details to sell to advertisers. Letting you sign up with fake account is contrary to their interests.
It infuriates me to no end that so many FOSS devs are still using Github. No one fucking cares about privacy or sovereignty until it personally fucks them.
Use codeberg. I stopped using github for my projects a while ago.
Sure but that’s about 8 years too late https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GitHub#Acquisition_by_Microsoft
Tons of alternatives out there
Also just, you know, git
There’s also a lot of worthy alternatives to Git too. There are many VCSs out there.
Git is a DECENTRALIZED version control system. It doesn’t even need a server. So for someone so privacy focused to be using VPN software etc this is kind of a weird rant to go on.
You can literally store or self host a git repo anywhere in any form.
Can you email a patch to a project hosted on the Github?
So what’s stopping you?
What a great ad for codeberg.
Also a great ad for GitLab.
Btw, CanvasBlocker actually doesn’t do much more than default Firefox nowadays but breaks more things.
















