nixpkgs is on Shithub and so are many of its dependencies. git mirrors of those dependencies can exist on other forges e.g KDE and Gnome have their own Gitlab instances. This project is an overlay that overrides pkgs.fetchFromGitHub to try and clone from those forges first if they are known to the overlay. The old fetchFromGitHub is only used when no alternative is known to the overlay.
You could consider this an index of alternative forges hosting the git repo.
How to contribute
- Mirror a git repo used by nixpkgs or find an existing mirror
- Create a PR to add it to the list of alternatives
Tip: to find out which repos still need mirroring, use warnOnShitHub = true; when activating the overlay and run nixos-rebuild on your config.
Why?
Shithub decided to rate-limit unauthenticated git clones about 2 weeks ago because of “AI scapers” (which they of course also run) and that broke my system for a day. I see this as the writing on the wall that Microslop is moving forward in their EEE-ways. They embraced ShitHub, extended it, and have been slowly restricting unauthenticated operations. I can barely search for code without getting a rate limit warning. Sometimes even clicking on files too quickly will trigger a rate limit.
Microslop will only make Shithub worse for unauthenticated people and at some point, they’ll require payment.
I also wrote nix package and module
mirror-gitwhich can help you mirror a git repo either locally or to another source forge (SSH support).There are alternatives of course e.g hosting your own forgejo or gitlab instance and enabling mirroring of remote repositories.