Re: Debian and Non-Free Services

[Michael Lustfield <michael@lustfield.net>]

On Sat, 5 Oct 2019 23:42:50 +0200
Thomas Goirand <zigo@debian.org> wrote:

> So, if someone is not using Github's "advanced" features, like pull
> requests and so on, why that person would care about using Github more
> than using Salsa?
> 
> > You may guess that people using github accept pull requests, but you
> > even can't see whether they actually like them -- there are many reasons
> > why people use github, and PRs may not necessarily the specific reason
> > for the repository.  
> 
> I'm just trying to understand here...
> Apart from the "close to upstream" bit, what would be the reasons?

I prefer GitHub over Debian's GitLab instance because:

- It's significantly more stable
  + I've seen "GitLab is not responding" more times than I can keep track of
  + I've also seen a large number of 500 and 504 errors (at least 1x/wk)
  + This reliably fails: https://salsa.debian.org/api/v4/groups/debian
- GitHub often addresses problems quickly; this is rare with salsa
- GitHub takes efforts to provide root cause analysis & lessons learned
- Decisions are discussed, instead of drunken thoughts over chips and salsa
- I've witnessed more changes accepted by GitHub
  + Salsa concerns have been met with, "fix it in upstream or go away"
  + GitHub concerns have been met with, "this is now an internal incident"
    & often fixed within a month or two
- It's a well-known standard solution where many people already have accounts
- GitHub admins are *much* more responsive (for obvious reasons)

I prefer GitHub over GitLab, in general, because:

- GitHub doesn't require javascript just to browse repos
- GitHub is often *much* faster to respond to feature requests
- GitHub stages upgrades; improving general stability
- GitLab has a *lot* of weird ACL bugs
  + I can create projects in groups that I have no access to maintain
  + I can create branches that won't let me force push (git push -f)
  + I can create projects that let me push to anything except master
  + I can be given maintainer access to a team owning those projects, but still
    run into all the same problems

I can provide a much longer list, but it shouldn't be necessary. There are
plenty of reasons why someone would prefer GitHub over other alternatives.
Attempting to force one option only going to further divide our community.

-- 
Michael Lustfield