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Comment by turminal | Hacker News Reader

> Makes a lot of sense for competitors to be in the Fediverse.

Or maybe not. Maybe code hosts and forges should just be code hosts and forges and I don't think embracing github's model is a good idea.

Edit: I wish cooperability between forges was easier, I just don't like the "becoming a social site" part of the idea

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Maybe cooperability is already a solved problem? As I understand, Linux kernel changes are managed entirely by text-only email, and email is of course entirely forge-agnostic.

Yes, it is solved in this particular context: Linux kernel, Qemu and all Free Software projects that have a mail based workflow. But there are other contexts where Free Software developers chose a different workflow such as using a forge. Whatever the reasons, this is where we are now. There are two paths forward: a) convince people using forges to switch to a mail based workflow, b) federate forges. I believe SourceHut and many other do a fine job trying to convince people to switch to a mail based workflow. The https://forgefriends.org and https://gitea.io projects chose to try to federate forges. It's not a competition, there is value in both approaches and they will apparently move forward in parallel for the foreseeable future.

"Becoming a social site" is easily taken the wrong way, it doesn't mean "becoming like facebook."

A big part of FOSS is community contribution. This is social in nature, fundamentally. So forges are already social in the sense that many people can contribute with bug reports, PRs, comments on issues, forking, merges, etc. These forges wouldn't be becoming more social, they're already social, all that's changing is they won't be islands anymore.

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