migrate to GitLab

[chadwhitacre]

GitLab is gettin' nicer and nicer. They now use GitLab as their primary feedback loop for GitLab, via award emoji! :-)

Is it time to make the move yet? We're certainly more philosophically aligned with them than we are with GitHub. Maybe we should test it out with a small project?

[mattbk]

I was sort of wondering why Gratipay wasn't built in GitLab.

Would they be interested in using Gratipay?

[Changaco]

It's getting nicer… but it's still missing a basic feature: watching a repository.

[chadwhitacre]

@mattbk Think that'd be one for #436?

@Changaco Hmm ... yeah, maybe a blocker.

[chadwhitacre]

See also: https://github.com/dear-github/dear-github/ and dear-github/dear-github#56.

I predict 2016 will be the Year of GitLab ... which means we may make the jump in 2017. ;-)

[chadwhitacre]

You can modify the notification level on each particular project (or globally for your account) to the Watching state. You will receive an email for everything that happens in your project.

https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/3414#note_2712093

Does that only apply to projects one owns/is a member of?

[DouweM]

GitLab employee here, found this thread via dear-github/dear-github#56 :)

It's getting nicer… but it's still missing a basic feature: watching a repository.

@Changaco You can actually star a repository (like https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce) and see its activity on your "Starred Projects" dashboard: https://gitlab.com/dashboard/projects/starred

Does that only apply to projects one owns/is a member of?

@whit537 Yeah, the "Watching" notification level only applies to projects one is a member of. Getting email for every new issue on a project you're not a member of is not (currently) possible.

Let me know if you have any other questions!

[chadwhitacre]

Thanks @DouweM. Welcome! :-)

Getting email for every new issue on a project you're not a member of is not (currently) possible.

Can you link us to the ticket for this on the GitLab repo?

[DouweM]

@whit537 I'm not aware of one, the closest thing is the feedback thread, but we're moving away from the feedback forum and moving to issues for everything. Feel free to create an issue!

[Changaco]

Watchers don't want to log into GitLab regularly to check for activity, they want notifications to come to them.

[chadwhitacre]

Feel free to create an issue!

Done! :-)

https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/9013

[mattbk]

How big is the GitLab userbase? Are we losing out on not being able to tag people directly?

[DouweM]

@mattbk I don't have a number right now, but if you want I can get back to you on that.

I don't think the smaller user base will be an issue, because the people you would be likely to want to @mention, core team members, users filing issues or users contributing code, have already created an account on GitLab.com to be able to do that in the first place.

Of course you lose some amount of discoverability and the immense network effect that GitHub brings with it, but how much of a problem that will be depends on the project. We certainly haven't seen any decrease in people contributing when we moved the main GitLab repository from https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq to https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce :)

[chadwhitacre]

For this reason, we feel that having GitLab as a home for safe, open, collaborative development requires being an open source platform itself.

https://about.gitlab.com/2016/01/11/being-a-good-open-source-steward/

[chadwhitacre]

If my speculation is right, what will the impact be? GitHub have established themselves as The Place to host our public projects. Surely losing this will be a major blow to free and open source. Well, happily, no. This is how it happens: we construct, and then when we reach a plateau, the wolves come along, destroy what we make, and liberate us to go forth and do better. Psychopaths are the garbage collectors of human society.

Whither the ZeroMQ community? I'm going to begin using GitLab for my own projects, and if that works, I'll aim to move the ZeroMQ projects that I care for, to GitLab, after discussion and consensus.

Thanks for all the fish, GitHub. And to all GitHubbers, thank you a million times. You did the impossible, and you did it right, and I wish you all the best for your next projects. Hugs. :)

http://hintjens.com/blog:111

[chadwhitacre]

GitHub's new pricing (#617) pushes us further in this direction.

[chadwhitacre]

It's getting nicer… but it's still missing a basic feature: watching a repository.

This seems to have been released in 8.8 and deployed.

[chadwhitacre]

From @sampablokuper in #724:

Please could Gratipay migrate its entire code-base and bug tracker to a code hosting and bug-tracking service that does not fail the GNU Ethical Repository Criteria Evaluations?

GitLab is probably a reasonable compromise:

• it passes (albeit imperfectly) the GNU Ethical Repository Criteria;
• it supports Git as a first-class DVCS;
• its interface is quite similar to GitHub's;
• it has a large and active user base.

[chadwhitacre]

The big thing GitLab is missing is critical mass. Reopen when open source has moved there.