Some example comments in this thread:
>"People should move their youbube-dl repositories to servers hosted in Switzerland, "
>"Time for a decentralized version control system?"
>"The nice thing about fossil"
... those well-meaning suggestions are missing the true difficulty: The community wants a (1) Schelling Point[0] for workflow/issues/discussions/PRs that's also (2) censorship resistant. So far, (1) and (2) contradict each other's goals.
Nobody has come up with a technology solution that satisfies both goals. Yes, Fossil has has discussions built into the repo, but fossil is not a Schelling Point. Yes, one can run Gitlab on a self-hosted Raspberry Pi from a home internet connection but that's also not a stable Schelling Point because ISP like Comcast can shut that IP down for DMCA violation.[1] And SMTP mailing lists also ultimately depend on a server that holds the discussion archive and a well-known address for new users to send a "add my email" request. Thus, the existence of a well-known server becomes a specific target for RIAA/DMCA takedown.
As for other "uncensorable" technology ideas such as IPFS, Freenet, blockchain, etc. I haven't seen any proof-of-concept from other projects that demonstrates similar easy-to-use collaboration of Github. Remember, it's not about the raw git repo... it's about the Focal Point for the collaboration workflow.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focal_point_(game_theory)
[1] https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/comcast-dmca-compli...
>"People should move their youbube-dl repositories to servers hosted in Switzerland, "
>"Time for a decentralized version control system?"
>"The nice thing about fossil"
... those well-meaning suggestions are missing the true difficulty: The community wants a (1) Schelling Point[0] for workflow/issues/discussions/PRs that's also (2) censorship resistant. So far, (1) and (2) contradict each other's goals.
Nobody has come up with a technology solution that satisfies both goals. Yes, Fossil has has discussions built into the repo, but fossil is not a Schelling Point. Yes, one can run Gitlab on a self-hosted Raspberry Pi from a home internet connection but that's also not a stable Schelling Point because ISP like Comcast can shut that IP down for DMCA violation.[1] And SMTP mailing lists also ultimately depend on a server that holds the discussion archive and a well-known address for new users to send a "add my email" request. Thus, the existence of a well-known server becomes a specific target for RIAA/DMCA takedown.
As for other "uncensorable" technology ideas such as IPFS, Freenet, blockchain, etc. I haven't seen any proof-of-concept from other projects that demonstrates similar easy-to-use collaboration of Github. Remember, it's not about the raw git repo... it's about the Focal Point for the collaboration workflow.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focal_point_(game_theory)
[1] https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/comcast-dmca-compli...