I would like to find a good forge to host a latex package. Not Github. Fuck Microsoft.
CTAN.org shows the repo for each of the packages known to CTAN, but I am struggling to get a list of repos. It seems we can only see one repo at a time by visiting each package individually. There is no public dataset, correct?
It would be useful to see which forge is the most popular (after nixing github)… or whether there is a gitea forge that is TeX-focused.
There is an API to make it easy enough to harvest the CTAN DB → https://ctan.org/help/json
I harvested the CTAN DB to research this. The results:
1390 github.com 90 gitlab.com 36 sourceforge.net 31 codeberg.org 20 tug.org 18 framagit.org 16 bitbucket.org 10 git.gnu.org.ua 8 gitlab.gutenberg-asso.fr 8 gitee.com 6 dickimaw-books.com 5 puszcza.gnu.org.ua 5 heptapod.host 3 git.robertalessi.net 3 git.framasoft.org 2 lists.tug.org 2 git.sr.ht 2 gitlab.ti.bfh.ch 2 gitlab.inria.fr 2 gitlab.adullact.net 2 gitea.com 1 uds-datalab.github.io 1 tufte-latex.github.io 1 todo.sr.ht 1 texnia.com 1 svn.tuxfamily.org 1 svn.gnu.org.ua 1 svn.code.sf.net 1 svenharder.github.io 1 savannah.nongnu.org 1 savannah.gnu.org 1 repo.or.cz 1 qa.parsilatex.com 1 plmlab.math.cnrs.fr 1 osda.ws 1 latex-project.org 1 humenda.github.io 1 guitex.org 1 git.umaneti.net 1 git.savannah.nongnu.org 1 git.savannah.gnu.org 1 git.ortolo.eu 1 git.linta.de 1 gitlab.science.ru.nl 1 gitlab.reutlingen-university.de 1 gitlab.git.nrw 1 gitlab.fi.muni.cz 1 forge.apps.education.fr 1 bastien-dumont.onmypc.net 1 archiv.dante.deThe 3 most common forges for LaTeX projects are shitty centralised walled-gardens (MS Github, Gitlab, & Sourceforge). Only 174 projects out of 1690 are using open access free-world/decentralised forges (~10%).
It is disturbing indeed. It also means reporting bugs on ~90% of LaTeX pkgs requires dancing with an evil gatekeeper, licking boots, etc.
next question is how can we convince these packages to move to open source forges like forego or gitea?
I think it should be feasible, if you can reach them. I’m done with github, who forced 2FA on my acct via email confirmation before my email address died. I’m not going to dance for Microsoft in order to give my attention and interaction to MS users.
In principle, I think if someone were to set up a TeX-specific forgejo/gitea instance, it would be attractive for LaTeX devs because they probably are not getting much benefit from be centralised on Github anyway. It was likely an arbitrary choice for them. If there were a LaTeX-themed git community, it would be attractive.

