---
title: Please Stop Using Github
date: 2019-12-04
tags:
- github
- ice
- activism
---
I mentioned on [twitter] that I've stopped using Github because of their continued support of ICE.
To be clear, it's not just that ICE uses Github. It's that they think [supporting ICE is okay] because
ICE is responsible for things other than putting children in cages. Their statement misses the point
in so many ways, I have very little hope they'll ever see past their own justifications on this.

So, no more Github. This has some very real impact for me - I've used github for a long time, I've used
its social media features and been a paid subscriber for years. Dropping github is annoying. But we
**must** stop supporting organizations that are in turn supporting fascism. I encourage anyone reading
this to follow my lead and give up on github.

Good alternatives exist: [Gitlab] has a free tier very similar to Github's if you want a drop-in hosted replacement.
[gitea] is what I've opted for, because at this point I just feel *exhausted* by large, hosted solutions; it's a lovely,
community-driven open source project. It has a docker image that is very easy to set up, and it supports U2F/webauthn.
And of course, you can also just keep bare git repositories on a server and push to them with SSH, although that loses
all of the convenience and discoverability of a git solution with a web interface.

[twitter]: https://twitter.com/annabunches/status/1202361836852654082
[supporting ICE is okay]: https://github.blog/2019-10-09-github-and-us-government-developers/
[gitlab]: https://about.gitlab.com/
[gitea]: https://gitea.io/en-us/
