This process is called ‘bootstrapping’, and is actually quite common in software. For example, the C compiler is written in C. The first iteration of the C compiler was written by hand in assembly code with a very limitted feature set, and that compiler was then used to compile the next iteration, allowing the second version (I’m not sure it was actually the second version; there may have been a few iterations in assembly) to be written in C itself.

For Forgejo, you dont actually need Forgejo to build Forgejo; just a computer with the Go compiler and any other dependencies. Then, once you have the first version, you can publish the code you have on Forgejo. Nothing too crazy there 🙂

This also leads to ‘dogfooding’, which is a whole other term…

Since you’re a bit concerned about self hosting and collaboration, I would recommend Codeberg - they are a non-profit based in Germany with widespread support and, as far as I know, is the public Forgejo instance with the largest user base.

If you want, you can also host your own Forgejo instance and mirror your Codeberg repos to it. That way you can have two copies of your data, just in case Codeberg ever goes offline.

You could also potentially use Gitlab, but I would personally prefer something Forgejo based. Forgejo has been much more responsive/snappier in my opinion; Forgejo is primarily written in Go, while Gitlab is mostly Ruby.

https://forgejo.org/compare-to-gitea/

CI actions and actually being free software are my main notes, but there are many reasons.

A better* fork of Gitea!

IMO, the issue here is that Microsoft appears to have violated the MIT license requiring inclusion of the original author’s copyright notice. I think he has every right to be salty about that violation.

In your analogy, the sign on the furniture says:

Free, but if anyone asks, you got this furniture from <name here>.

Microsoft took the furniture from the curb, but isn’t telling people whom they got it from.

I agree in regards to your opinion that he shouldn’t be complaining about the fact that someone forked his project, that just the nature of the MIT license. However, I do think he is justified in being upset that the license was violated. Hopefully this gets remedied; it’s not hard nor expensive for Microsoft to add his name to the copyright notice in the license.