Published 2026-07-09
tag(s): #failures #programming
A couple days ago I read a post by Kev Quirk
about moving his code off GitHub and into Codeberg.
It resonated with me because I've been meaning to make that change myself for some time now.
But...
For a while I used Source Hut for new
projects. Nowadays it is only a mirror of my
own private git
server.
I don't see myself giving up having my own server. It didn't take too long to configure, by
mirroring I get a backup and public interface to the repositories, and yet don't give up
control and convenience.
At work, we use a GitHub. So even if I remove my personal code, I would still need to keep my
account around.
And honestly, even if that wasn't the case, I don't know if I would delete the
account. Sooner or later I will want to open an issue on a project hosted there...
Then there are the few packages I have
published in MELPA. I would need to update their recipes to refer to the new
repositories.
Except...these aren't very popular. And in most cases they don't even get regular updates
anymore. For example, I haven't used Bamboo at any job since 2021, so even if Panda was stable
back then, I cannot vouch for things working in newer Bamboo releases.
The best bet for these packages future, is to keep them in a very visible location, and let
someone that actually needs them find them, and ideally take ownership.
Now, my newer packages I just drop in Source Hut, slap a GPL license, and call it a day.
I've considered just removing those older packages from MELPA, but that would be a hassle to
the people still using them. Maybe move them to the newer "official" repos? But that's more
work so...........
Finally, there is a sillier category of small, experimental, or deprecated repositories that
aren't worth to migrate, but I don't want to lose either.
As I was writing this it occurred to me that I could drop them all in a single "old stuff"
repo and call it a day.
So now I have (unexpectedly) a path forward...or I can just let them linger on GH and forget about them?
Probably.
I should still do it, though. For obvious reasons.