Several years in the making, GitLab is now very actively implementing ActivityPub! 🙌
The end-goal is to support AP for merge requests (aka pull requests), meaning git.alice.dev can send a merge request to gitlab.com/Bob/project.git
In the most expansive version of this vision, anyone running an AP-enabled git instance (with one or more repos) can send MRs to another instance’s repo, without having to sign up there.
For starters this will be GitLab-specific, but that’s already huge for self-hosters of GitLab who currently don’t benefit from the internal interop of the GitLab.com network.
First bite-sized todo on the implementation path there is ‘subscribe to project releases’. And yes, they are aware of ForgeFed and will likely make use of that spec for the advanced features of this epic.
Smart move by GitLab; through ActivityPub they’re getting a distributed version of GitHub’s social layer.
Hugely impactful as a way around GitHub’s moat as the de-facto social network of open source development. I follow hundreds of developers on GitHub, though mainly just to keep track of who I’ve interacted with, effectively adding them to a dev-specific address book.
I have a much harder time keeping track of non-GitHub devs on alt platforms, but if I could follow them on the fediverse that’s actually preferable over GitHub’s proprietary follow list.
Cross-posted to Mastodon: https://writing.exchange/@erlend/110949168258462158
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I’m not really following. Can you explain why it would be better? I’ve never had an issue using GitHub.
GitHub is a great platform, which has championed open-source for decades, now. I don’t think anybody has anything to blame them for (except people not liking the idea that AI is trained on their code, like sibling mentioned), it’s more about fears it may go bad. Because basically, it’s where most of the code of the world is hosted, it’s a single point of failure. People also have questioned the pertinence of having all open-source code hosted on a proprietary platform. And the acquisition by Microsoft also had a chilling effect on those of us who remember Internet Explorer 6’s Microsoft more than VSCode’s Microsoft.
For those reasons, it is desirable for those who love the idea of decentralization to look up for alternatives. But even there, it’s perfectly fine to stay on GitHub, “decentralizing” doesn’t require everybody to leave. :) Plus, even when using an other forge, it’s still good to keep publishing mirrors on GitHub for visibility and discoverability, currently.
I know a big sticking point for many people is that all code on GitHub feeds into CoPilot.
I don’t understand how this would help anyone who’s still stuck on GitHub for whatever reason to be able to escape GitHub. GitHub likely won’t support this. I guess it depends on why someone is ‘forced’ to use GitHub still. I’ve seen different reasons mentioned.
I’m so making an instance to hide my bad reputation from that 1 abandoned PR
AHAHAH 😂 You worry about one abandoned MR? Imagine who abandoned, say, 200 MR?
Fingers crossed it’s going to be compatible with what ForgeFed is working hard for years 🤞.
Gitea/Forgejo/Codeberg have ongoing work implementing this.
MORE FEDERATION!!! MORRRREEEEEEEE!!!1!1!1!1!1!!1!!!1!!!
It’s a great use case that they’ve defined. Super keen to see how it turns out for them.
Nice
That’s freaking rad!
I hope federation becomes the new standard for interoperability all over the InternetKind of lame that they’re wasting time on gimmicky features like this rather than stuff people have been asking for (like Conan registry support)
I self host Gitlab because I want to be in control of my private repos. If I wanted to release open source projects and collaborate with people, I would use the SaaS version. Public instances that encourage contributions like Gnome have open registration, but activating federation seems like it would just add a new layer of moderation headaches for very little real benefit.
Am I missing something? Besides marketing for Gitlab, what real benefits could this bring to users?
its very much wanted, I dont want to have to create new accounts on every gitlab instance for all different projects like KDE, GNOME and others when I want to report a bug or something
If you can’t be bothered to spend 1 minute to create an account, then you probably can’t be bothered to create an actionable bug report or a merge-able PR.
I’m not against federation in general, but gitlab isn’t twitter or reddit. It’s a utility for doing work, and I don’t see how it will do anything but grow the mountain of bloat on which gitlab is sitting.
its not me not being bothered, its just annoying having to create an account for 1 issue I’ll probably never use again so its a waste of time
Disagree. I self host three gitlab instances, and use gitlab.com as well as another gitlab. I have bothered to create accounts on all of those, created meaningful bug reports and Mrs on all of them, and I’d like to see this.
What is Conan registry
Edit https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/packages/conan_repository/
