> you’re only really committing to git

You don't use github just for git.

You use it for issue tracking, pull requests and code review, CI hooks, wiki, github pages, kanban boards, bot integration, and so on.

That's all stuff that locks you in to Github, and is non-trivial to migrate to another provider.

It’s a given that the more GitHub features you use, the more difficult it is to move away from GitHub. It’s also a given that you can reasonably limit the extent to which you use GitHub and thereby limit the difficulty in transitioning to another solution.

The idea that it’s GitHub locking you in rather than you locking yourself in to GitHub is the argument I take issue with. But no quarrel at all with Gnome choosing GitLab, because GitLab is genuinely great.

The whole reason GNOME wanted to switch is because they wanted to have all the extra features (issues, etc) in a single place, as is provided by Github and Gitlab. Their old cgit interface already did a good job at hosting their git repositories.

> "You don't use github just for git."

Well, some people do. I don't, apparently you don't, probably most people don't. But you could and some people do. I've seen a few projects on github with notes to the effect of "don't bother submitting issues/PRs here, do it through our [mailing list/etc]"

The Linux kernel for example.

The kernel is just mirrored on GH, which is why they want PRs and bug reports sent to their mailing list.

And, with a whiff of irony, git itself.

Why is this ironic? Git predates github.

It's logical of course, but I see the irony. Or maybe it's not irony, nobody really knows what irony is, but it's mildly.. amusing? It makes half my face smile in a manner similar to but not quite like a smirk.

Is the Git project expected to uproot themselves and go chasing Github or Gitlab or Gogs or whatever else is fashionable?

Definitely not 'expected'. I like the mailing list bug tracking more than having that on git{hub,lab,whatever}.

git makes it even possible to host a repo on multiple git* hostings, but apparently nobody came up with a successful distributed pullreq/issue tracker yet.

Of course not.

Or Git itself

> By committing to use GitHub, you're only really committing to git.

Make sure you also tell your users not to use GitHub's comments, issue tracking, pull requests, release system, favorites/watches, or authentication.

So you're suggesting that the new home for the GNOME project's code be GitHub, without the GitHub.

Issue tracking is optional, if you disable it users wont be able to fill issues. You can easily ignore release system (by not using it) and I am not sure what you mean by authentication. As for pull requests, it is reasonable to expect contributors to submit them wherever your readme points to.

I don't mean to say that gnome should use github, I think that it is overall better if there is no single dominating company for open source. Just that organizing so that github is git hosting only is not that hard.

The whole point of the migration was to consolidate things to make onboarding new contributors easier. If they only used the git part of github, it would be little better than their existing cgit setup.

I don’t understand where in that comment you believe I suggested that the Gnome team should have chosen GitHub. Most likely because I made no suggestion.

Please try to be more careful with how you approach reading comments.

Gnome is already being mirrored to Github. You can do your pulls from there.

Meanwhile, they want to use the bug tracker and other features too.