Goodbye Microslop: Finally Moved to Codeberg
A while ago I realized I was after something important to my soul. I had internal conflicts because even though I was kind of living according to my values in terms of being thoughtful about the software I use, I don’t want to use products of evil corporations such as Microslop – that goes against the things I want to nurture in myself, thus in others, and consequently in this industry, as a professional (when I become one) and in all humanity.
We should remember that our choices have consequences, whether we can see or feel it or not. Directly or indirectly, each of us impacts this world, so the products we use impact the industry and humanity, since technology is indeed one of the most impactful engines that moves humanity forward (or backward, which is the topic for another post).
GitHub dominates the industry. It’s the default choice, the place where developers host their code, collaborate, and build their portfolios. For most of us, our GitHub activity graph has become a visual resume – a measure of our worth as developers. That’s a problem. Such a mere criterion, one that can easily be faked using tools such as this or this, mustn’t play any role in how we judge an engineer – and yet, unfortunately, it does.
It is a misfortune that necessity has induced men to accord greater license to this formidable engine, in order to obtain liberty, than can be borne with less important objects in view; for the press, like fire, is an excellent servant, but a terrible master.
– James Fenimore Cooper
GitHub activity is gamifiable. First, it’s trivially easy to manufacture a green contribution streak without producing meaningful work. Second, and more troubling, I’ve repeatedly encountered people who equated activity on GitHub with technical competence. A full calendar of commits apparently signals capability; an absent one suggests the opposite. This reductive view – where a developer’s value is reduced to a visual metric – overlooks everything that actually matters: code quality, problem-solving ability, and thoughtful collaboration. And yet this awful productivity culture rot impacts us all: from the absurd standard of being constantly reachable and quick to reply, to being “active” – whatever that even means (which, if you think about it twice as deeply as usual, means nothing at all). And I hate this measure of “success” – indeed, I don’t want to be a part of it. I don’t want to lose the light I was trying to reach from the very beginning of my journey, and yet it’s so easy in the era of gamified whatever and constant distractions everywhere; sometimes this is too much for me and I just escape into the woods.
Humans have rights, like any other living being, such as to have freedom, to be treated equally, to be respected, etc. I haven’t seen much sincere expression of any of those from Microslop; in fact, I’ve seen the opposite: trying to gain as much profit as possible in whatever way, using ethics only when they need it to fool others and prove they are right. Since GitHub had been bought by Microslop, the platform has been introducing more and more AI slop and moving to the end of the enshitification spectrum. Aside from CI/CD bugs that I haven’t experienced myself but have heard of, the things such as shitty, slow AF, ugly and buggy UI, as well as useless AI slop that they want to use even if it’s not even useful in that context – these things bother me the most.
Last but not least is the fact that Microslop owns GitHub. As you can probably tell, I don’t like this company – to put it lightly :). Their hypocrisy as FOSS “supporters,” along with the false image they’ve been trying to maintain, while taking snapshots of your system and analyzing every action you take on YOUR computer and OS – one that is supposed to serve you, that you bought with YOUR money – that does the opposite of serving a user: it exploits a user and tries to make money by viewing users as a source of income, using any occasion to earn more.
One of the reasons Windows is still popular is that Microslop is a very established corporation, with history, connections, and money behind it. And of course Windows is still the default OS for gaming, which is a closed infinite loop: the game industry aims for the industry standard, which is the industry standard because it has the most users, because most of the game industry aims to provide for this platform because it’s the industry standard… you get it. I’m not fully familiar with the reasons Windows is the most popular OS; in fact, I don’t doubt that they did a good job back then. However, that is the past, and I’m in the future relative to it now, the so-called “present,” so it does not matter what they did in the past – this is not a pretext for abusing and rotting the human brain with ads, spyware, and disrespect.
You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.
– Franz Kafka
Ditching GitHub was quite hard. Why? Because it is de facto the “industry standard”: sadly, there are people who consider the platform THE only reliable one; they trust it and dismiss, or simply don’t take seriously, other platforms that are indeed better – simpler, more pleasant to use, faster, less buggy, and free of AI slop. You can say: “Well, that’s fine, I don’t care.” Me too – if a person is so limited that GitHub is their whole universe, it’s none of my business. And yet sometimes your life, your social status, and your career, etc., depend on such people, and unfortunately, from what I’ve noticed – most people are like that: they don’t care or don’t want to care, yet when an aspect of their life becomes terrible and they aren’t happy since they’ve started feeling the consequences of their ignorance, it’s only then they start to complain and realize why it was important. I cannot blame anyone for this; we are all human, and each of us has the freedom to choose their own destiny as they wish. The part I’m not ok with is that their ignorance impacts people around them.
I was feeling uncertain about the move. “My GitHub is the proof of my activity, my work, my passion, not a fancy one, but also it is my portfolio,” “Will people discover my projects,” “What if no one goes to Codeberg?”, “Will they take it seriously?”, “What if …?” – these kinds of questions and worries were on my mind and were adding more and more uncertainty, which was increasing my anxiety.
Nevertheless, I was sure about it – the decision seemed clear, certain, and unavoidable. It’s hard to express exactly how it feels, but once I feel it, it’s clear. It reminds me of a sense of injustice that I just cannot accept no matter what. I’d say it’s similar to some kind of intuition plus a period of reflection that gives this outcome of feeling certain I will do something in the future despite being full of emotions such as fear, uncertainty, anxiety etc. And yet this force inside of me, just kind of… moves me forward despite it all, and provides me with hope and faith that make me believe I’ll be alright, and even better than now. That’s not only related to moving away from GitHub: while writing this, I’m realizing this mechanism at the core of deciding and eventually doing something. I’m proud of this pattern of mine, and I hope to continue nurturing it and learning more about it.
Well, this post was intended to focus on my move to Codeberg and why it wasn’t easy psychologically; I wanted to linger on why I felt this way, and on why it’s indispensable to be as free as possible from prejudice. Not that long ago, I was one of those people who considered GitHub “the industry standard,” without really understanding why; I couldn’t elaborate on anything except its popularity, which badly lacks any objectivity at all.
After I finally moved, I instantly felt relieved. I’m no longer chained, no longer bound, no longer a part of something I felt internally at odds with. I used the word “I” a lot today – maybe I always do, but for some reason I noticed it now, and it makes me feel selfish. Anyhow, I think here lies something important: it’s not just about ditching GitHub, but about realizing and accepting that, by doing so, I can lose things like attention to my projects, views, the conventional way of doing things in regard to others, or maybe some opportunities. And that may be true, and even if it is true, then what? – Nothing, actually.
In fact, the fact that I could be chosen or noticed because of my GitHub (which already happened to me once, when I had more projects and was intentionally keeping it all green every day) makes me sad, because it’s not my competence, developed through hard work and passion for my craft, that I want to be recognized for, but just a mere image of someone else. Being selected by the judgement based on that image just makes me feel bad about myself. It’s not a person I want to be and I cannot sleep with it.
The idea of having an external source of motivation as a main driver feels terrible to me. It’s not why I do what I do. It’s not what I wanna rely on, and I never wanted to, and yet quietly for years it was poisoning my sense of self without me noticing. That’s the part that scares me most in hindsight: it never announced itself as corruption. It felt like ambition, like discipline, like doing things properly. Only looking back can I see how much of what I called motivation was really just the need to be seen – to have a graph, a streak, a number that other people could glance at and silently approve of. Once I noticed it, I couldn’t unnotice it: how much energy I’d spent performing competence instead of building it, chasing a reflection of myself instead of the thing itself.
Peace is more than the absence of war. Peace is accord. Harmony.
– Laini Taylor
Of course, I’m a bit exaggerating, since I tend to think about the worst-case scenario, often worse than the worst one. In reality, it’s quite different: amazing projects and amazing engineers get noticed no matter what platform they use to host their code. This is the kind of attention I consider healthy and acceptable. And even if my work isn’t noticed, what’s wrong with that? This is natural for us humans – as social animals, we are driven to be accepted socially and admired – this is a normal and healthy mechanism, but relying on it is dangerous and has nothing good in it in the long term. As humans, we cannot get rid of this social part of us; we are born with it, as if we still lived thousands of years ago, so it’s important to acknowledge this fact and learn how to live with it – not being a slave to this part of human nature, but trying to work with it in a healthy way, with the goal of eventual mastery, for the sake of oneself and others.
Happiness is part of a good life, and it all starts there, in my humble opinion. I know nothing yet; nevertheless, I wanted to share this story, which turned into a philosophical reflection, in the hope that it gives you a different perspective on things.
A happy life is one which is in accord with its own nature.
– Seneca
Thank you for reading.