Background
Git is a distributed version control system that tracks versions of files. 1
This is probably no news to you if you're a developer. In practice, Git is most often used in combination with a hosting platform, such as GitHub or GitLab. While these platforms often simplify a developer's life and increase visibility they can also be limiting in ways. There are devs out there that strongly associate Git with GitHub to a point that they think GitHub (or insert any other platform here) is the only way to host Git repositories. But this is not the case. The only tool required to host a Git repository is Git itself2 and some infrastructure to run it on. The Linux kernel demonstrates how Git, alongside mailing lists, is a perfectly feasible and professional approach for handling large-scale projects.3
Even though GitHub and other platforms have become mainstream, they are by no means perfect or the only option. In fact, there are reasons to avoid such platforms.
These platforms undermine the decentralised nature of Git. Although Git itself prevents vendor lock-in to some extent, everything platform-related might be difficult or impossible to migrate. Many hosting platforms are proprietary, which is quite ironic given that they often serve communities built around FOSS collaboration and transparency. Recently, GitHub blocked Organic Maps for some strange, possibly political reasons.4 GitHub is a US-based company5, which makes it subject to the Patriot Act and, more recently, unstable and questionable politics.
In summary, there are compelling reasons to avoid using some of the most well-known hosting platforms. Additionally, it not uncommon for devs to rely on multiple hosting platforms.
Announcing Commitoria
With this background I'm happy to announce my latest project Commitoria. Commitoria is a small, self-hostable tool and platform that provides a way to summarise your contribution activity across independent hosting solutions. It's my small contribution in opposition to the mainstream centralisation of Git. (you may have noticed that I also fell victim to the aforementioned centralisation)
At the time of writing Commitoria can aggregate commits from GitHub, GitLab, Gitea (Forgejo, Codeberg, ...) and bare Git repositories. The aggregated data can be visualised as an SVG. At its core Commitoria is a simple Rust library. In addition I created a web service which allows users to easily configure and embed their history on websites. For more details please check out the README or take a look at the code. Below I have embedded my personal commit history.
Speaking of embedding things into your websites reminds me of the good old days of the internet when people would embed loads of funky things into their websites. Back when the average internet user navigated the internet in the intended way, rather than consuming the algorithmic front pages of monopolistic, profit-driven companies. So make sure to check out the project below.
