LibreTech Collective Abandons Microsoft GitHub and All Other Proprietary Software
Microsoft GitHub is not "free hosting"; Microsoft GitHub is a free firing line. Projects and developers are more than welcome to join; they can hand over all their work, sweat, and goods to Microsoft (via GitHub).
Many people get that. Some people learn this the hard way (from mistakes).
"Hi y’all," someone from LibreTech Collective told us. "I hope everyone is doing well! I’ll keep this brief: LibreTech Collective is no longer reliant on any nonfree software or platforms! (Aside from the school-managed portal we’re required to use for internal club administration.)"
"We’ve migrated our hosting from GitHub, which Georgia Tech provides us through an Enterprise license, to Codeberg, a platform powered entirely by free software. To mirror our Georgia Tech web presence, we’ll also be providing a simple landing page without any JavaScript that shows the same information as our site on Georgia Tech's domain."
"You can now find our club websites here, all hosted with 100% free software:
- https://gtltc.org/
- https://nojs.us/
- https://quibble.chat/ (LibreJS compatibility currently in progress)
- https://librelinker.us/
Quibble and Project Sine Iugum are also hosted on our Codeberg organization at https://codeberg.org/LTC-GT. You can also reach the club at our new general contact email, gtltc@protonmail.com. This replaces the school-provided email account, which was an Outlook address under a Georgia Tech domain. As a result, we are no longer reliant on Microsoft (or its subsidiaries) for our day-to-day operations - I checked :-)"
"Congratulations!" Richard Stallman said of the above (who is impacted as a user of LibreJS, with librejs-cmd now in Codeberg). "Now your operations are consistent with the ideals you stand for."
Each time a project eliminates control by a hostile party it stands to gain; it need not be afraid of the "master" (Microsoft, GitHub), which in turn lessens self-censorship. In the long run there is greater autonomy and more portability (GitHub is vendor lock-in, it is proprietary). █