Re: Next steps for gitlab.debian (Re: GitLab B.V. to host free-software GitLab for Debian project)
On Wed, Jun 08, 2016 at 03:15:29PM +0530, Pirate Praveen wrote:
> On Wednesday 08 June 2016 02:51 PM, Jonathan Dowland wrote:
> > On Tue, Jun 07, 2016 at 10:25:07AM +0530, Pirate Praveen wrote:
> >> Thanks for the offer. It would be great if I have more hands to help with
> >> migrating git.debian.org
> >
> > Whoah there. Running an official Debian gitlab instance is one thing, migrating
> > git.debian.org is quite another. Did I miss where there was consensus on this?
> >
>
> May be you did not read the whole thread, I suppose you missed the flow.
I hadn't read all of it. I have now, and there's definitely not consensus on moving
git.debian.org to gitlab :) however, I don't think you need it. Here's how I think
you should proceed.
Firstly your goal is to offer a new service to Debian, not to replace Alioth or
git.debian.org. If your new service turns out to be enormously popular, then its
possible that Alioth will be deprecated simply because nobody would use it anymore.
This would take years and years at a minimum (and Alioth does more than just git
hosting). Don't talk about migrating git.debian.org or replacing Alioth; that will
just upset the people who are (too) emotionally invested in running the existing
services. Offer something new.
Let's have a very short evaluation process to determine whether to proceed with
Gitlab, Gitolite or Gogs.
Don't wait to get a DSA-managed machine. Run the new thing on a debian.net
host. Call it gitlab (assuming it *is* gitlab as per the evaluation) if you
can: Tollef's point about trying to name services based on their service rather
than implementation makes sense, but Gitlab etc. doesn't offer a git service, they
offers a superset of that, and there's not really a good 'service' name for them,
certainly I concur with Ian etc. that dev.debian would be too generic.
In terms of where to host it, before you take up Gitlab, Inc on their hosting offer,
see if you can find somewhere nearer to "official". There are some hosts at
https://wiki.debian.org/MemberBenefits which might be useful. But if nothing pans
out, take up Gitlab on their offer.
Don't size the machine too small to start with. Plan for growth from day 0.
If it takes off and is popular, then migrating to a .org, what happens to Alioth,
where git.d.o point etc. are all things to worry about in the future, but they're
moot if it doesn't take off. So focus on getting a separate service running, and
running well.
--
Jonathan Dowland
Please do not CC me, I am subscribed to the list.
Reply to: