November 14, 2025
Gov commits, comments combust
Meeting notes between Forgejo and the Dutch government via Git commits
Dutch gov meets coders in public; fans hype transparency while rivals brawl over tools, terms, and Typst
TLDR: The Netherlands posted its meeting with Forgejo as public code, signaling a push for open, reusable government tech. Commenters celebrated transparency but split into debates over Gitea vs. Forgejo, “open source” vs. “Free software,” and joked about the notes being written in Typst.
Yes, the Dutch government literally logged its meeting with Forgejo—an open-code platform—straight into a public code history, and the internet had thoughts. The vibe: big transparency energy, spiked with classic open-source drama. One commenter cheered the idea of government code done in the open, but warned not every developer wants Big Brother peeking. Another pointed out the Dutch are building an OSPO (an Open Source Program Office) to learn how to work with public code, dropping a helpful link like a mic.
Then the brawl breaks out: Gitea vs. Forgejo, a forked-family feud. A long-time self-hoster insisted the government should pick Gitea, arguing Forgejo’s a political fork with license drama and fewer original contributors. Meanwhile, the starry-eyed crowd swooned over the “policy as code” dream: reusable chunks of laws and processes, shared between governments like LEGO bricks.
The word-police showed up too: one commenter slammed the phrase “open source,” insisting it’s “Free software” and calling out “oppressive software”—because in this scene, words matter as much as code. And the meme moment? Someone gleefully noticed the notes were typed in Typst, a new nerdy text tool—proof that even at a government meeting, font wars never sleep.
Key Points
- •Meeting notes document a discussion between Forgejo and the Dutch government.
- •Governments asked how they could support open source projects effectively.
- •Some open source contributors may be wary of government involvement.
- •There is a stated goal to reduce reliance on single hosting platforms (e.g., SourceForge, GitHub, Codeberg).
- •Government participants indicated limited OSS experience and suggested project-led definitions of support.