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#import "@preview/flow:0.3.2": *
#show: note.with(
title: "Forgejo Dutch Government call notes",
jitsi: [https://meet.jit.si/ForgejoOSPObzk],
start: "2025-11-11 14:00",
end: "15:00",
protocol: (contributors: (
"multisn8",
"n0toose",
"oliverpool"
))
)
#pagebreak(weak: true)
= Introduction round
/ Gina: Gi
- Ministry of the interior
- Goal: More open-source
- OpenDesk already is in Germany, now also in Netherlands
- Short-term goal: Setting up a code platform
- This call
- Figuring out how governments can _help_ Forgejo! yay :3
- Do also work together with the French government
/ Gusted: Gu
- Basically a Forgejo contributor since its inception. Also: Computers. Since a long time.
- Forgejo has no higher "level" than contributor
/ oliverpool: O
- Forgejo contributor
- Would enjoy having paid OSS missions to sell to his employer
- Has had contact with French ministry of education: Want to use Forgejo, too
- want to move away from GitLab community edition
- some paid features cannot be accepted as contributions to the community edition
- are considering Forgejo
- but the gitlab-pages migration is not easy
- (Context for protocol: Also made contributions to the notes after the meeting took place.)
/ Multi: M
- just takes notes lol
/ n0toose: N
- Forgejo contributor
- (note taker's audio feed was interrupted, *N* cannot remember what was said.)
- (Context for protocol: Also made contributions to the notes after the meeting took place.)
= Pronunciation
/ N: Whatever (joke)
/ Gu: Forgejo with a silent R
- Coming from Esperanto
= What is Forgejo about?
/ O: Important part of Forgejo: Community and federation
- Federation is _not_ developed by the ones present here
/ Gi: Non-centralized power
- Is also on Codeberg
= Agenda
/ Gi: What the Dutch government...
+ *wants from* Forgejo
+ *can do for* Forgejo
= What the Dutch government wants from Forgejo
/ Gi:
- So far, nothing that isn't already present
- Except: CI
== CI
/ Gu: Supports a lot of CI runners
- Forgejo Actions is built-in
- Reimpl of GH Actions from scratch
- Still in dev: Works towards feature-parity
- Limitations already visible though
- Difficult with more complex pipelines
/ Gi: How easy is adding features?
- Both code and requests?
/ Gu: Easy enough
- "I think as long as there's a use case, it will be accepted"
- Architecture makes it easy enough
/ O: Written in Go, quite approachable
- Expect all contributions to be tested
- Maintainers help out with getting a feature there though!! :3
- Contribution acceptance depends on inherent maintenance effort
- Don't want features that must be dropped after 3 months due to lack of maintenance
- Other CIs can work with Forgejo as well.
- SourceHut: Can trigger CI runs quite easily
- https://codeberg.org/emersion/yojo -- bridge between Sourcehut and Forgejo
- Woodpecker
== Volunteers vs. commercial interests
/ Gi: Are you entirely volunteer-based?
/ N: Depends on who "you guys" (Context: this meeting's attendees or Forgejo's contributors) is
- Even if a contributor works on behalf of a company, the assumption is that their contributions are treated like any other's. "We" expect that we can work together, instead of a mere "push and forget" approach.
- Hard part of contributions are tests and maintenance
- Symbiotic relationship is _necessary_
- *Gu*: Expect maintenance and availability for questions if code is added
- Companies are contributing, too!
- They don't always say it out loud though ^^
/ Gi: Is there any payment structure?
/ O: Individual entities have NLnet grants
- Codeberg has some, too
== Forgejo <> Gitea relation
/ Gi: How does Forgejo relate to Gitea?
/ N: (jokingly) We went "solo".
/ Gu:
- In inception: Soft fork
- A year ago: Hard fork (after final rebase)
- Since then, cherry-picking
- No relationship with Gitea anymore except for past commit history
/ O: https://forgejo.org/2024-02-forking-forward/
- No relation except for security releases
- Attempts at cooperation and coordination did not work out qwq
== Experience with large institutions/governments
/ Gi: Have you worked with governments before?
/ Gu: No
- Contributors tell in private or present publicly that they are in a company
- But always individuals
- Except for Linux distros
/ Gi: Do you get support requests from them?
/ Gu: Yes, but usually rather technical questions
- e.g. "Why is this slow?", "How can I profile this?"
- Result in issues like any other
/ O:
- Forgejo Actions: Pushed by individual contributors
- Federation: Pushed by company
- Apart from that: Smaller stuff
- 1 contributor "suffices" for each
=== Support contracts/obligations
/ Gi:
- Not worried about features
- Worried about having to provide support though
- Unsure if 3rd party support contract would be necessary
/ Gu: Companies figure out in #emoji.sparkles some way #emoji.sparkles
[Another forgejo contributor joins and leaves]
/ O: https://codeberg.org/forgejo/professional-services/issues
- Companies can request and offer services there
- Each company has to decide for themselves if they need them
[Another forgejo contributor joins and leaves]
[Another forgejo contributor joins]
== Concerns about working together with a government
/ Gi: Are there any concerns about a government starting to use the project?
/ N: We need to figure some questions (i.e. scaling) before that, "we can figure things out as we go"
- Very often, a large organization might start using Forgejo and stumble upon issues after the fact.
/ Gu: OSS: Some contributors may not be excited/positive as far as governments are concerned
- Others treat them as "yet another organization".
[Another forgejo contributor leaves]
/ Gi: Fair! Governments have not fulfilled that symbiotic pact in the past
- only "taking", but not "giving back" as much.
== Dedicated scaling talk
/ Gi:
- We're starting a pilot! #emoji.confetti
- Would be cool to talk dedicatedly about scaling
- Could we set that up?
/ N: (half-jokingly) "I nominate gusted"
/ Gu: I do infra for Codeberg, so I'd be the right one for this
/ O: 👏
/ Gi: Phrasing it carefully to avoid draining energy
- Gusted would be a great first start
/ N: Work to use Forgejo as a cluster: https://codeberg.org/forgejo/discussions/issues/259
== Funding
/ Gi: Is NLnet and Codeberg all funding you receive?
/ N: No
- Haven't had financial transparency reports in the past
- Primary source: donations, (single-time, memberships)
- Would have to check in with the other Codeberg entities first
- (Context: There was a mild misunderstanding with the _you_, so the answer was "on behalf of Codeberg" and not on behalf of Forgejo).
- Mentions of how some organizations/companies can "contribute back to Forgejo" by allocating human resources.
/ Gu: Codeberg is freely allocating funds for Forgejo
/ O: Complimentary with different goals
- Forgejo: Develop Forgejo
- Codeberg: Moderation, promote open source, have an OSS code platform, ...
[Another forgejo contributor joins]
= How could a government help Forgejo?
/ Gi: Broadly asking: If a government wants to support you, how could they do it?
- Developers?
- Funds?
- Hardware?
/ O:
- Funds: Complicated with tax paperwork and legal issues though
- People interested in contributing: Easier + more effective
/ Gi:
- Actually glad: Money is hard to move in governments
== Federation
/ Gi:
- How is the federation work going?
/ N: Lots of work
- Plugging a lot of things out and back in, tech debt over several projects
- Cannot make any guarantees
- More pressure is bad
- TL;DR: It's slow, but going. It's complicated.
/ Gi: Impressed with the ambition, understand that it's hard
/ N: The goal is to move from having "yet another single point of failure" (i.e. SourceForge, then GitHub, then Codeberg, etc.)
- "Just gonna take a while"
/ Gi: Basic plan: Want to have our own instance
- Would be cool to federate though!
- Use OpenID connect login
- Technical details though
- Happy to hear you're open for collaboration!
/ N: Everyone (companies, governments, big instances like Codeberg's, etc.) benefits! ^^
= Closing questions
== Code of Conduct
/ M: How would CoC work with government projects like this?
/ Gi: Individual projects figure that out -- we don't have experience with OSS yet
== Keeping in touch
/ Gi: How can we keep in touch?
/ O: If you have a CB account, you can comment on https://codeberg.org/forgejo/discussions/issues/412
- Easier to work with if it's in public
== Protocol confirmation
/ N: Are you okay with this protocol being public?
/ Gi: Yes, I am
== Motivation for Dutch government to contact Forgejo
/ Gi: This a good start, are there any questions?
/ Gu: What was the primary motivation for switching away from proprietary platforms?
/ Gi: ICC having their MS accounts blocked
- Made them very aware of ecosystem fragility
- Looked at their dependencies and alternatives
- Digital sovereignty: Hot topic ^^
== Next steps
/ O: What would be the next step?
/ Gi: (mentions of red tape/bureaucracy that has to be dealt on OSPO's end)
- Seeing how this can work out with e.g. different departments.
- 80% bureaucracy, 20% actual stuff.
- Seeing how we can contribute back to you (and other projects).
- "Lots of work on our part!"