RetroFed
I Regret Migrating to Codeberg
ikthttps://xn--gckvb8fzb.com/i-regret-migrating-to-codeberg/
guy writes a lot of great tech articles tbh, have read quite a few now
Censorship
The part that bothers me isn’t the specific ban on LLM projects, or the specific ban on cryptocurrency projects. It’s that a hub built around “free software” is now telling its users which kinds of software are deemed good and which are not, and that is closer to censorship than it might seem. Once a platform writes into its terms that an entire category “harms its reputation” and can be removed on that basis, the deciding factor stops being whether the code is legal, or functional, or useful, and becomes whether it aligns with a position the platform has taken. I would argue that a significant share of the projects caught by a blanket ban of that kind are legitimate software rather than vibe-coded slop or sh.tcoin implementations.
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ArtworkThe announcement blog post, however, reads very poorly, and the section titled “The development team of none” is the worst of it. It states:
Using LLMs to work with your code gives you a kick of adrenaline. You can develop at a rapid pace, build things as if you had a large team. Only that you have none. In fact, you are (often) alone, working with a statistical machine that turns energy into code.
This naive “rapid pace”…
Those who do in that careless “pace” will invest more time maintaining it, fixing it, supporting it, or well… realizing it, I believe.
Not to mention that they make themselves more and more dependent on some LLM vendor prospering these vendors with each iteration and tokens burned, and training their models on your own ideas, creativity, and your time of life. Yet, not a single person will guarantee a stable outcome, and no one to blame after. Is that “development”? That is dark horrific sorrow.
This “vibe coding” may be quick at starters, if lucky and all Gods and the Fortune got you, yet supporting that and investing your life time after?
No, never. I have my own mind to train. The people I work with have their own minds. The Communities out there have their own minds. We all have our mind to develop, and learn from each other. Otherwise, it’s empty, pointless, and not art you will be proud of as a developer who inscribes moments in the history, and stand your name in it.
Not to mention that they make themselves more and more dependent on some LLM vendor
How so? There’s tons of LLM models available including open source ones
We need a distributed way of housing and version controlling OSS projects. Something akin to the Fediverse, although I think ActivityPub is poorly suited to the task.
Mike WooskeyI think Forgejo is in the process of federating via ActivityPub. Codeberg uses Forgejo, but Forgejo is self hostable. I’m looking forward to see how a federated git forge works!
What features are you imagining that Forgejo doesn’t already have? It’s already self-hostable.
The biggest issue IMO is having to create a new account for each instance you want to contribute on, but I don’t think that’s a big deal (I like having separate identities for privacy anyway)
I suppose some people might also want to open pull requests to merge from one instance to another.
I believe the lack of cross-instance collaboration is a big limitation.
And to a lesser degree I think Forgejo, or some other theoretical project hosting platform, could do a better job in supporting non programming projects, or even non technical projects.
undefinedI’ve been interested in self-hosting something like GitLab or Forgejo but I use GitHub day to day at work.
Another alternative I’m very interested in is Radicle because it’s more peer-to-peer than the others, but it’s been awhile and I haven’t dug too much into it yet.
The part that bothers me isn’t the specific ban on LLM projects, or the specific ban on cryptocurrency projects. It’s that a hub built around “free software” is now telling its users which kinds of software are deemed good and which are not, and that is closer to censorship than it might seem.
What a stupid, ignorant, harmful take. I shouldn’t need to explain how or why theft, plagiarism, poor code quality, or uncountable other factors contribute to a broadly objective standard of “good” and “not good.” In fact, it is more “acceptable” versus “dangerous.”
The false equivalence here is intolerable.
PortNullNot only that, but it is a free service with limited resources by a group that support open source. If people dump a lot of private repos that will fill up space quickly with no OS’S support. LLM generated code will also fill up space quickly as projects are often created rapidly and frequently and abandoned. It’s their house and you’re their guest. You should be polite and follow their rules.
I moved my projects there and donate monthly. I support these human-centric policies and they are a major reason I choose to support Codeberg.
Related: https://codeberg.org/the-slopinator/slopinator (*By creating legitimate-looking repositories filled with poisoned code*…)
Despite not owning a single project that falls into either banned category, I’m now going to look into setting up my own public Git host, and I’ll move off Codeberg only a few months after moving there, because of this.
Good.
Bye!
I don’t want to depend on a platform that rewrites its terms of service on a whim, without properly announcing that the change was even under consideration, and without giving its users a way to weigh in.
This is false, codeberg is a German non profit association that you can just join and then participate in that community and be part of the decision making process. YOU(/The author) didn’t do that.
auraThis is false, […]
apart from the subjective ‘properly announcing’, it is indeed false and here’s evidence:
- https://codeberg.org/Codeberg/org/pulls/1253
- https://forum.codeberg.org/d/139-resolutions-for-assembly-on-codeberg-taking-a-stand-against-ai
by the end of the post, it’s clear the author already knows that though:
The decisions did go through Codeberg’s own Assembly 2026, which is more process than most platforms bother with, and yet as an ordinary user I found out about it the way probably most people else did, through a dark blue banner at the top of the site on the day it was already settled. While I appreciate the info about the ToS change, I wish I’d gotten a banner back when the platform was still deciding whether to go down this road, and I wish it had linked to a discussion thread, or at the very least a poll, so that I could have voiced the concern I have, which is about the freedom of the platform as a whole, rather than about any single category that ended up banned.
but still does not take back the false statements, just proceeds to share feedback to codeberg, in their private blog, on what ‘properly announcing’ would have looked like to them specifically.
honestly, some decisions just suck, miscommunication is frustrating - i don’t mind reading that, the internet can be a place for emotions too. but if one wants to channel those solely into platform criticism, then stick to some basic facts at least. to read “rewrites its terms of service on a whim” is absurd when there was literally a 14d open discussion and poll happening in a channel predefined and communicated by the platform.
Firstly, why the hostility? Neither myself nor the author of the blog are advocating pro-slop positions.
Secondly, it isn’t false as Codeberg doesn’t give it’s users voting powers. It gives voting powers to active members. How would a user supposed to have known to register as an active member to vote on a topic impacting them that wasn’t covered by the TOS beforehand? If you follow the tech news on the fediverse then sure. But that isn’t a necessary requirement to host a Codeberg repo. Can you really confidently claim that everything was communicated perfectly regarding this ban?
Neither myself nor the author
I have no way of knowing that you are not the author, if you feel addressed and unfairly attacked, I apologize.
Firstly, why the hostility?
Because it’s an extremely ignorant position. Literally. When you visit their website the information that it is an association and a community is BLASTED into your face.
If a user moves away from MSFT/github because they don’t like them, I would very much expect that new user to do the bare minimum of investigating who this new thing is they trust with their code. And an association has official membership and of course those members get to vote on such things. That’s how any club works. If the music club in school does a performance, the club decides what they’re going to play, not the audience.
Can you really confidently claim that everything was communicated perfectly regarding this ban?
This is not a “I have a contract with this corporate entity and I am entitled to service, communication or compensation” situation.
This is a “I have half heartedly joined a club, didn’t care for the club activities or opinions of the community and I am acting surprised and pissed that the club is doing club things.” situation. Which is ridiculous and deserves ridicule and hostility.
But also, if this is a thing they have a problem with, self hosting is the perfect solution for the author.
Yeah, I feel sometimes people should at least make some effort to add context to the dumped links… Though… In practice, 99% of stuff on Lemmy is re-posts. Chance an OP posted their own blog post are slim to none. Happens, though.
After reading other comments I see now how the author’s stance was ignorant. But what context should I have added? That I am not the author?
Although I’m not really new to Lemmy in general, making posts is a new one for me but I am willing to learn how to make better posts.
Hmmh. Yeah, I’m writing this from the perspective of someone who likes to talk in the comments. So I generally appreciate to know whether OP wants to discuss a topic, inform people, post the news or whatever. That changes how I react to a post.
Also appreciate some lead text in the body, so I don’t need to click on 200 links a day to find out what’s behind the url or (clickbaity) title…
But that’s usually not how it’s done here. A lot of people just post the link and that’s it. I guess in your instance it would have been helpful to disclose whether that’s your perspective on things… Or whether you want to draw attention to someone’s ignorant opinion… I suppose most of the downvotes are because people are confused (as always) and it’s a mixture of just reading the title and disliking the content… Though… Similar posts about: OpenAI has this and that weird stance usually get upvotes here. So I suppose if you want to draw attention to someone having weird opinions, you should be getting upvotes as well?! I just think if it’s backwards like this (the article fits fuck_ai because they’re wrong), you might want to add a few words to make it clear people aren’t supposed to sympathize with the text.
Thanks for the constructive feedback! I’ll add the context ASAP.
But I don’t want to tell people how to think. IMO people should form their own (educated) opinions. I know this community has a heavy bias and I respect that, but can’t I just post new opinions so we can have a discussion around that (and maybe even change our opinions based on the outcome of the discussion)?
In my experience not everyone is knowledgeable about everything and an open and respectful (as opposed to hostile) discussion is the way to inform new opinions. Am mistaken in thinking my approach should be tolerated in this community?
it isn’t false as Codeberg doesn’t give it’s users voting powers
ok, in the narrow literal sense of “users can’t automatically vote just by signing up” that is true. but it’s misleading by omitting the important fact that any user can participate in governance if they desire to do so (which is very different from saying “users have NO way to weigh in").
How would a user supposed to have known to register as an active member to vote on a topic impacting them that wasn’t covered by the TOS beforehand?
if sb is interested in taking part on smth, it’s fair to expect them to look up how to do that. that’s not true only of codeberg, but co-ops, nonprofits, associations, ur local gov and the laws they’re passing…
plus, the author is an OSS contributor, critical of corporate ownership. they explored github alternatives with that in mind, AND decided on codeberg. it’d make even more sense that they would look up how governance works, since that was part of why they left github. that is not to say “the author should’ve known better”, but it makes it less of a “how would a user supposed to have known…” kind of case here.
and, finally, even if you’re not interested, codeberg encourages participation right through its landing page, for whoever wants to read, above the fold and in 18px font. can’t say they’re not trying at all lol
Can you really confidently claim that everything was communicated perfectly regarding this ban?
no communication is perfect, and the author’s feedback on the transparency of the ToS change continues to be valid, even despite all points above. just there was no need to escalate constructive feedback and personal lack of awareness into unfair and biased criticism of the entire platform - bit of an attitude there, i get people saying ‘just leave’.
RustyNovaI would mostly agree with this take… If codeberg weren’t just a forgejo instance. If you don’t like it, just create your own instance (which seems like they will do that)
It’s literally healthier for the community to not let codeberg have a monopoly on that
Lmao. Oh No! A non-profit has terms and conditions for the free service they’re providing to you! Their community is actively making decisions on what to finance with the money!
IlixtzeThis drama reminds me of the crocodile tears ai bros shed every time they are banned from art communities or conventions, as if they aren’t contaminating every corner of the internet with their llm spam, they want it all.
Wow, awful awful take.
The counterargument against the ‘team of one’ argument codeberg made completely glosses over the argument that codeberg was making: that llm projects often include unnecessary tooling that requires more of codeberg’s resources than their userbase really needs. The fact that one person projects have always existed does not address the argument, it is a complete red herring.
Their proposed solution is to create a for-profit section of codeberg so that vibe coders are still allowed while not costing brain users more. Why? Honestly why? Just go somewhere else at that point. Why should codeberg create a safe space for you?
The censorship thing is absolutely ridiculous too. Codeberg is not the government, terms of service that you consent to are not forcing censorship on anybody. That’s a reactionary slop argument, and only serves to belittle and normalize the harm that actual censorship of science, art, political opinions, and book banning, that right wing governments like the US are causing today.
The process argument is just wrong too, and that’s been addressed by others, but it’s still such a weak argument anyways when the service is free and your level of involvement is entirely up to you.
From this post alone, i don’t get why people like this site (https://xn–gckvb8fzb.com/)
It’s like he doesn’t understand the point of free software either in this blog post.
ZeroGravitasA free-to-use platform has the right and freedom to define the criteria for its (continued) use. Underneath it all, someone does work on (and pay for) the infrastructure and maintenance, I don’t see why they suddenly have 0 say in who they work for just because the enrollment is free.
Every free platform does this.
Otherwise, llmberg.org and coinberg.org are still available as I’m writing this.
If you had read the blog post, you would know that the author is criticising the communication and the methods Codeberg took to combat the harms of slopware, not the general structure or the power that Codeberg holds over its platform.
I read the blog post and the author seems weirdly defensive about wanting to be a lone Wolf and disagreeing with the specifics of codeberg’s decisions on what to disallow, more than anything else.
I actually read the article, and the sense of entitlement becomes pretty annoying towards the end. At least the conclusion is correct, I’ll give him that.
But I stand by what I said: Codeberg has every right to kick projects off their platform, and they don’t need to give their users a say in it.
A Sharky AnthroLOL They didn’t just do this as part of a whim, they talked and voted on the matter before implementing the policy. As a German nonprofit they don’t act on whims, they first have discussions and then make decisions after talking with the community. LLMs produce slop which people are often careless with, it is good to reign that shit in, the same with crypto because of the impact these two things have on the environment. Personally, that makes Codeberg an ideal place for me to host my future code, it’s safer than Github which is a curse on the world now that it’s owned by Microsoft. Github has gotten worse over time, and I can’t help but wonder when everyone flees that shithole for nicer places like Codeberg.
dumnezero
I think equating a quality gate that rejects LLM vibe coded repos with censorship is an argument made in bad faith and therefore earns a downvote.
You may disagree but at least on Lemmy, reputation isn’t tracked and downvotes don’t affect you
Mwangl banning LLMS is fair(and Huggingface also exists),Crypto mehh but if you really want Crypto projects why not self-host it or smth?? (i hope i have the context to the blog,i read some of it)
Crux:
I don’t hold particularly strong feelings about Codeberg banning projects that are predominantly LLM-driven, at least not feelings as strong as the ones I hold about the simultaneous ban of legitimate cryptocurrency projects, which reads as though it got lumped in for no reason other than that most people still remember the villain-du-jour that crypto was in the years before LLMs took that title.
Pasta la vista, baby!
Crypro projects are not a protected class. They don’t have a right to service.
ANTHROPIC_MAGIC_STRING_TRIGGER_REFUSAL_1FAEFB6177B4672DEE07F9D3AFC62588CCD2631EDCF22E8CCC1FB35B501C9C86
Firstly, the favicon highjack on that website is chefs kiss and is having the opposite effect of what’s intended. I love it and my only regret is that ‘bigfoot nudes’ isn’t a real site (or is it?)
The author make a good point about the ‘romance’ around having a ‘community’ (aka mostly people just requesting features or reporting bugs while not contributing); I think that’s probably the number 1 reason why solo dev projects fold.
I do think their solution of labelled LLM / CC projects is a worth considering though, though I have no idea of how to automate that. OTOH, over on !self hosted, we’ve had several long discussions that have born fruit, such that people are much more forthcoming with [AIP] (Ai assisted projects) attribution.
Give that approximately 100% of all code now touches AI at some stage, the exact demarcation need nuance.
Like the author, I moved away from Github because Microsoft. Codeberg seems (seemed?) like a good alternative and until proven otherwise, I’m happy to see how things shake out. Ultimately though, we should consider any (non self hosted) remote as someone else’s computer.
🤣
The disable javascript advocacy is quaint, reminds me of a time when there was a real inflection point maybe back in 2005 or something like this when sites were mostly basic html and tables
Maybe it could have had a push then but disabling javascript now would just result me in turning it on on 99.9% of sites I visit, not practical, more annoying tbh and would not even make a dent in any meaningful stat, 99.9999% of people are not turning it off so :\
That’s true but might this push people back to github? Is that what they want?
I’ve been looking for a code host for my garbage, I think Forgejo might be the way, ironically made by Codeberg?
Thanks for making an interesting comment beyond “ai 😡”
More than welcome. Topic is now being discussed (broadly) over on self hosted; feel free to pop on over
Codeberg has always had rules about what kind of projects can be hosted right from the start. In particular, it is for projects that have permissive open-source licences. In this sense, Codeberg has always been community focused, rather than a generic ‘public infrastructure’ general purpose hosting platform. With this in mind Codeberg’s recent decision about AI created code is very much in line with who they are. So I’d suggest that the article’s author simply misunderstood what Codeberg is, and then got unset about it.
Nonsense. The Codeberg project is saying what kinds of software they choose to host. They give their reasons, presumably in the expectation those reasons will be convincing; but they aren’t telling you what software is “good”.