Move to GitLab?

[probonopd]

Now that GitHub is being acquired by Microsoft, we should consider to move our repositories to GitLab.

GitLab provides a tool for #movingtogitlab but it does not take care of Travis CI.

And, as @Aztorius writes it is even possible to mirror the moved project back on GitHub:

You can first import the GitHub project to GitLab. Then on GitLab, on the project page -> Settings -> Repository, "Push to a remote repository" you can add a link to the GitHub repo, something like : https://Aztorius:TOKEN@github.com/Aztorius/magicfountain.git where TOKEN is a Personal Access Token created on GitHub with public_repo access allowed.
More here : https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/workflow/repository_mirroring.html

GitHub writes:

To set up your own mirror, you can configure a post-receive hook on your official project repository to automatically push commits to a mirror repository on GitHub.com (or GitHub Enterprise)

without further details nor an example.

Main showstopper for migrating from GitHub to GitLab appear to be the .travis.yml that have been carefully nurtured over the years?

[probonopd]

As a test project, I a moving https://github.com/probonopd/gs-plugin-appimage to https://gitlab.com/probono/gs-plugin-appimage

[probonopd]

Pros

• Infrastructure not owned by Microsoft
• Infrastructure open source
• Infrastructure could be self-hosted, should it ever become necessary for whatever reason
• CI built right into GitLab; do not need to set up GITHUB_TOKEN
• Can upload artifacts for each build without needing tricks like uploadtool ("With GitLab CI you can upload your job artifacts in GitLab itself without the need of an external service. Because of this, artifacts are also browsable through GitLab’s web interface")
• May be able to build on different architectures and then cross-package the output (e.g., AppImage runtimes) into builds of the respective other architectures

Cons

• Need to invest work in converting .travis.yml files to .gitlab-ci.yml

[antony-jr]

@probonopd I think you are coming to the wrong conclusion , being acquired by Microsoft does not mean that github will not have privacy... I think we need to think on the perspective of github too , Github had some large losses recently (approximately $60 Million) so I think Microsoft helped to keep github going on.

[antony-jr]

Take a look , something is already wrong with gitlab.

EDIT : 5xx implies internal server error... 502 specifically means bad gateway.

Dated: June 12 2018, 04:00:52. ( Changed the wrong date , I simply copied it from a python shell )

[probonopd]

Indeed... that's worrisome. Seems like we are stuck between a rock and a hard place... err, Microsoft and error 502 type issues

[antony-jr]

Lets stick with github , its not like AppImage codebase is private , So it does not matter if anyone views or copies the code. Even the MIT License allows it. 👍

EDIT : Besides , The AppImage repo will lose all the reputation(i.e The stars , forks and shared links) and All users who uses hardcoded AppImage tool's urls will have a build error , Even Microsoft uses AppImages.

[TheAssassin]

Indeed... that's worrisome. Seems like we are stuck between a rock and a hard place... err, Microsoft and error 502 type issues

One single error at one time when it is known that they're working on scaling their infrastructure (I mean, they have a lot more views per second now, I'd guess) doesn't prove anything. Don't get hysteric...

@probonopd I think you are coming to the wrong conclusion , being acquired by Microsoft does not mean that github will not have privacy... I think we need to think on the perspective of github too , Github had some large losses recently (approximately $60 Million) so I think Microsoft helped to keep github going on.

Lets stick with github , its not like AppImage codebase is private , So it does not matter if anyone views or copies the code. Even the MIT License allows it. 

It's not about code privacy but user data privacy. And also about annoying "features" like "deploy to azure"...

[antony-jr]

One single error at one time when it is known that they're working on scaling their infrastructure (I mean, they have a lot more views per second now, I'd guess) doesn't prove anything. Don't get hysteric...

@TheAssassin I do agree with that(They are back again) but , Are you really planning on leaving github , Its really been the defacto for open source(and social coding) for a long time. Not to mention , still now a lot of projects are built on github , if AppImage moves to gitlab then there will be less support for github users and not all will be happy with this...

It's not about code privacy but user data privacy. And also about annoying "features" like "deploy to azure"...

I don't see any changes in the privacy terms and conditions ?

Anyways I don't see any wrong with microsoft aquiring github , Its for the greater good , We all know that money is important too(We all depend on proprietary software development jobs)... Github can't just throw unlimited storage for users and I think its the best move to make a deal with microsoft.
We just need to calm the hell out!

[hideout]

lol 2018-06-12 21:03 GMT+02:00 Antony jr <notifications@github.com>:

…

One single error at one time when it is known that they're working on scaling their infrastructure (I mean, they have a lot more views per second now, I'd guess) doesn't prove anything. Don't get hysteric... @TheAssassin <https://github.com/TheAssassin> I do agree with that(They are back again) but , Are you really planning on leaving github , Its really been the defacto for open source(and social coding) for a long time. Not to mention , still now a lot of projects are built on github , if AppImage moves to gitlab then there will be less support for github users and not all will be happy with this... It's not about code privacy but user data privacy. And also about annoying "features" like "deploy to azure"... I don't see any changes in the privacy terms and conditions ? Anyways I don't see any wrong with microsoft aquiring github , Its for the greater good , We all know that money is important too(We all depend on proprietary software development jobs)... Github can't just throw unlimited storage for users and I think its the best move to make a deal with microsoft. *We just need to calm the hell out*! — You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#803 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAjGjb-6Pu-Q7odJeTt4_emETR0mJFdkks5t8BCIgaJpZM4UhPFH> .

[shoogle]

@probonopd, I think it's a bit premature to move before we've seen how things will turn out, but there is nothing to stop you from mirroring AppImage on GitLab simply for the sake of having a backup. Keep using GitHub for contributions, and if it starts to go downhill then you will have the mirror already in place ready for you to switch to it.

[TheAssassin]

Why are you so often this hysteric, @antony-jr? Same goes for @probonopd. Guys, calm down.

@antony-jr please do some research on the topic before posting here. Let me clarify a few of your claims.

I don't see any changes in the privacy terms and conditions ?

Did you expect this to happen like within the first week? GitHub has been sold but AFAICS will be transferred by the end of 2018. There's no rush in looking for alternatives before that date.

Lets stick with github , its not like AppImage codebase is private , So it does not matter if anyone views or copies the code. Even the MIT License allows it. +1

I don't see any relation to the discussion with that.

What we need to keep in mind is the general data privacy issue with GitHub. I don't fully trust them. There's tracking everywhere, I'm pretty sure all my actions are logged forever (even non-public things like profile changes), etc.

You can't expect that to get better with Microsoft. The best we can hope for it won't get worse. But... let's keep in mind who won a Big Brother Award in 2018 for their Windows 10 "telemetry" which can't be turned off and is potentially illegal in Europe...

@probonopd I think you are coming to the wrong conclusion , being acquired by Microsoft does not mean that github will not have privacy... I think we need to think on the perspective of github too , Github had some large losses recently (approximately $60 Million) so I think Microsoft helped to keep github going on.

GitHub hasn't been profitable in their first decade. That's nothing new, though. Ever heard of this platform called Twitter...?

Just because they needed some fresh money also didn't mean they had to sell their platform to Microsoft. And the price Microsoft paid for GitHub is humongous. Experts estimated 2/3 of the price Microsoft actually paid.

GitHub must have known how sceptical the free software movement is towards Microsoft with good reasons. It's a betrayal to sell the biggest platform around free software (which is itself not even free software, which makes this even more impressive IMO) to the ultimate enemy of the free software movement...

Pros

• Infrastructure not owned by Microsoft

You can never know whether they host their live service on Azure, can you? This isn't really an issue I'd say, the majority of pages don't maintain their own infrastructure any more (which I'd appreciate, as this would probably improve privacy greatly, as there's no 3rd parties involved except for maybe the datacenter provider)

• Infrastructure open source

Can we know how much of the gitlab.com code is open source? Sure, a lot. But it's highly different from both CE and commercial version IME. At least they're a bit further than GitHub. But even GitHub released their JavaScript as free software.

• Infrastructure could be self-hosted, should it ever become necessary for whatever reason

Is there a magical "From gitlab.com to " button? If not, that's not a plus for GitLab, as we could migrate to any other system with the same effort.

• CI built right into GitLab; do not need to set up GITHUB_TOKEN
• Can upload artifacts for each build without needing tricks like uploadtool ("With GitLab CI you can upload your job artifacts in GitLab itself without the need of an external service. Because of this, artifacts are also browsable through GitLab’s web interface")

Travis CI can do the same. We only use uploadtool to support our highly specific continuous release scheme. AFAICS GitLab would require the same workarounds as Travis so we could use the built-in artifact uploader (that is, tagging the latest commit as continuous in a first build, triggering a build of the new tag which then actually builds the artifacts and uploads them).

• May be able to build on different architectures and then cross-package the output (e.g., AppImage runtimes) into builds of the respective other architectures

I think we could do that only on self-hosted infrastructure. It's at least possible to make gitlab.com use own systems. This feature is lacking in GitHub. But if I went that step, I'd anyway host the CI system myself. That's more efficient, and doesn't require sharing secrets with GitLab.

Cons

• Need to invest work in converting .travis.yml files to .gitlab-ci.yml

It's a lot worse than you think. I assume our scripts would need a couple of hours to work around the new limitations in GitLab CI to actually build. And I doubt there's any form of FUSE-enabled GitLab provided build machines which we could use to actually test our runtime (we do that by calling appimagetool.AppImage at the moment). We'd had to drop some of our most important artifact auto-tests. This'd make our continuous builds way more fragile.

You see, the situation is a lot more complicated than you guys depict it...

[TheAssassin]

@shoogle backups are already created on one of my private Gitea instances.

[antony-jr]

I think AppImage should move to gitlab. (I will be moving too... )

[DanielRios549]

I think AppImage shouldn't move to Gitlab, because this is a open source project, so there is no reason to to move, everybody can see the code, and Microsoft was already able to see the code before...