Libre Projects hosted on GH instead of a self-hosted code forge

[strypey]

The Libre Projects directory is a great project, and I'm glad to have discovered it. I have to say I'm confused to see a directory of services run on self-hosted server software, which itself uses a proprietary platform that people can't run self-hosted versions of without paying the company that develops it. Is there a reason you're not hosted on GitLab.com, or a community-hosted or self-hosted instance of something like GL or Gogs?

[jancborchardt]

Valid question, here are some reasons:

• Back when we started, GitLab wasn’t around at all.
• As it’s all about simplicity and good design too, GitHub is the most welcoming place to start.
• GitLab is still focused mostly on enterprises and self-hosting for groups/organizations, not so much on GitLab.com it seems (you can’t follow other people for example).
• GitLab Pages had an outage without notification the other day which caused another project (https://opensourcediversity.org) to have several days downtime.
• GitHub Pages now supports https which is a pretty big deal because Google and probably other search engines will penalize non-https, and also cause people are asking for it all the time.
• About Gogs, Gitea or others: The reason we are using GitHub pages is to keep the meta-management stuff out of the way, not needing to maintain a server.

Hope that explains it properly? cc @libreprojects/contributors

[jancborchardt]

For the record: There is now created a Libre Projects organization on GitLab (the hosted instance, mind you) and the repository is mirrored there: https://gitlab.com/libreprojects/libreprojects

[strypey]

Thanks for the detailed answer you gave initially, and apologies for not acknowledging that at the time. This issue is all the more pertinent now that we know about the MS acquisition of GH, I'm disappointed to see it closed while you're still doing your main dev work on GH, but, your project, your prerogative. Mirroring on GitLab is a step in the right direction, for sure. I'm compiling a list of self-hosted GL instances (additions and corrections welcome), some of which might be keen to host a mirror too if you're interested:
https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/List_of_Community-Hosted_GitLab_Instances

[jancborchardt]

@strypey at this point I would say the only thing keeping us on GitHub is the easy way to set up HTTPS for GitHub pages. Once GitLab pages has that I'm happy to move (and probably mirror here for legacy links).

What do you think @libreprojects/contributors?

[ironbishop]

Migrating to an open platform is definitely a good idea.
But please don't use Microsoft acquisition as a reason to migrate. That's ridiculous.

I sporadically login to github, and never to gitlab. I won't be present there. This is not an issue, because you'll find plenty of other developers over there.

[emjayess]

I also think Gitlab might well be the logical, eventual destination for this project, perhaps keeping this Github project here as the mirror/pointer. But I'd echo @ironbishop that the MS acquisition does not warrant any special extra urgency or impetus...

The real relevancy of that acquisition announcement, in my view, is that it is accelerating the rate at which Gitlab is maturing it's service-level. I have been using Gitlab primarily, for ~2 years already, and to be clear I think it is and has been a better product offering than Github for some time (or I wouldn't have switched 2 years ago). However, it's pages hosting offering has experienced a lot of downtime, comparative to alternatives. Gitlab, the core project-hosting service itself, still slows down and hiccups fairly regularly, especially as they work to accommodate something like a few hundred thousand migrating projects over these recent weeks.

Some of the other points @jancborchardt made are also worth echoing/emphasizing:

• https support
• low-to-no server/infra maintenance

And while gh-pages may not be an open box, there are very many options for deploying and hosting a static website (even a jekyll-powered static site, which I was thinking this project was originally).

[emjayess]

I do also find it slightly amusing that no one has made any mention of Sourceforge (Apache Allura) as a viable open source alternative. But, maybe Allura lacks a static site hosting mechanism, and that is the reason... I'm not certain. Or maybe it's a PITA to install/configure/host. I suppose Github's rise to glory was, at least in part, in spite of Sourceforge.

[strypey]

Sorry I didn't follow this up earlier.

@jancborchardt:

at this point I would say the only thing keeping us on GitHub is the easy way to set up HTTPS for GitHub pages.

I may be missing something, but this using HTTPS appears to have been possible on GitLab.com since 2016, as long as you are using a custom domain.

@emjayess

MS acquisition does not warrant any special extra urgency or impetus...

As long as you're not fussed about people from all countries being able to contribute to your projects, I guess not. As I'm sure you've all heard, post-MS-acquisition GH is now geo-blocking users from countries the US government is grumpy with. No other code forge is doing this AFAIK, it's likely to be MS pandering to protect their lucrative Department of Defence contracts.

I do also find it slightly amusing that no one has made any mention of Sourceforge (Apache Allura) as a viable open source alternative

For the record, the reason is probably that SourceForge blew their reputation when they started bundling proprietary junkware into installers downloaded from their site. The new owners stopped that in 2016, but its never really recovered from the stain on its reputation, and the only projects hosted there now are the ones that haven't got around to moving somewhere else.