As someone who was there in the early days, who joined the chorus of people warning Drew about the effects of such a policy, I just want to say that Forgejo is a treat to self-host and use. Gitea is now open-core, and its future is unclear.
This really comes down to the intended workflow. By design, SourceHut aims to provide the Linux kernel development model to a wider audience (with extra features beyond mail and Git). It is a very different collaboration model than the likes of GitHub and its peers. I summarize the comparison of the two as "to each their own"; I'm okay with both models and see the merits of both, but my preferences and willingness or ability to work with a given model won't always line up with contributors.
I also self-host Forgejo in my homelab and really enjoy it.
The only mention I can find that gitea is open core comes from forgejo. Do you have some kind of proof that there are parts of gitea that are not MIT licensed?
Gitea Ltd's stance seems to be that it does "custom development" support contracts.[0] It may be a matter of perspective whether you consider this "open-core" or "contract work."
See also their clarifications on Gitea the company[1]:
> Gitea Ltd. will be open to building special versions for special clients and will contribute any features back to the main repository when possible
This was in a followup to the original announcement.[2]
Forgejo (i.e. Codeberg, a FOSS non-profit) maintains that the project should be led by the community, not a company[3]:
> Sadly, Gitea Ltd broke that trust by a lack of transparency: its existence was kept a secret during months. After the initial announcement, Gitea Ltd published another blog post but it was still vague and there has been no other communication since. Who are the Gitea Ltd shareholders? Who, among the Gitea maintainers, are employees of Gitea Ltd?
https://forgejo.org