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3 days ago
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Published on 2025-05-22.
Perhaps the younger generation don't know anything about the past "evils" of Microsoft and naively believe that Microsoft is now the good friend to open source, but the truth is that all Microsoft acquisitions of open source projects is a business tactic that is put in place to improve Microsoft's loosing position to open source. It is a matter of control. And you should not host your open source project on GitHub.
I have previously written that important open source projects should not use GitHub, and it is even more important today!
GitHub is a proprietary platform. It limits user control compared to self-hosted or open source alternatives and it uses a centralized model, which generally goes against the decentralized mindset of open source collaboration. Features like GitHub Actions, Copilot, and Codespaces also creates vendor lock-in.
GitHub tracks user behavior through telemetry data, including all interactions on the platform and GitHub Copilot uses the publicly available source code to train its AI.
Development on GitHub has moved away from the decentralized nature of Git and has instead put focus on how to drive engagement, basically turning it into yet another social media platform. Rather than promoting quality software, it has become a matter of "stars" and "likes".
GitHub's decision-making processes regarding policy changes and feature implementations has no regard for users and it can change at any time.
GitHub is NOT free. Your personal information, your source code, the data of your usage of their products and service, etc., is the price.
Ties to US Government departments
GitHub has complied with government requests for takedowns and has blocked users in certain countries due to U.S. trade sanctions.
On September 14, 2019, Microsoft's flagship store was shut down by protestors as part of a direct action organized by Close the Camps NYC. The action was in response to Microsoft's $19.4 million contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Microsoft's relationship with the immigration enforcement agency was revealed by executive Tom Keane, through a company blog post that describes ICE's use of the company's high-security cloud storage product Azure Government. He went on to say the company is "proud to support" the work of ICE. Microsoft has stated it "is not working with the U.S. government on any projects related to separating children from their families at the border."
In February 2019, some of Microsoft's employees protested the company's war profiteering from a $480 million contract to develop augmented reality headsets for the United States Army.
Microsoft provides Israel with the technology used to uphold Israeli apartheid and commit genocide in Gaza
As revealed by the Associated Press (AP) and +972 Magazine, Microsoft has a "footprint in all major military infrastructures" in Israel, and Microsoft Azure cloud services specifically power sensitive and highly classified workloads that no other cloud company deals with.
Microsoft not only provides email and file management systems, but also technology for combat and intelligence activities. The digital infrastructure and military technologies provided by Microsoft are just as essential to the maintenance of Israel's apartheid state and the execution of its genocide in Gaza as physical walls and munitions.
The Israeli military has utilized Microsoft's Azure cloud computing platform and AI services during the Gaza war to identify targets. The Israeli Ministry of Defense is Microsoft's second largest military customer. This relationship has led to protests within the company. In response, Microsoft employees founded the "No Azure for Apartheid" campaign to advocate for the company to cut ties with Israel. The group is a part of the larger No Tech for Apartheid movement.
In October 2024, Microsoft fired two employees who organized an unauthorized vigil at its Redmond headquarters to honor Palestinians killed in the Gaza war. The employees, part of the group "No Azure for Apartheid," sought to address the company's involvement in the Israeli government's use of its technology.
How to proceed
Consider open source self-hosting solutions, such as Forgejo or sourcehut.
Projects like the non-profit German based Codeberg, is running on Forgejo. There is also sourcehut, which is running on the open source application of the same name.
