[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread] 

List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Gitlab Evaluation & Migration
From:       Ben Cooksley <bcooksley () kde ! org>
Date:       2019-02-23 9:44:11
Message-ID: CA+XidOH4iTchdMCYr5SYJmSvrbYnKuwVo11EzzdPvBc4Tm6NvA () mail ! gmail ! com
[Download RAW message or body]

Hi all,

Over the past few months a small group of KDE projects have been
evaluating Gitlab as a replacement for Phabricator, and we've now
reached the point where we're ready to have a community wide
discussion regarding whether we'd like to migrate to Gitlab. We'd like
to start this by thanking those projects that have assisted in
evaluating Gitlab for KDE, at list of which can be found at
https://invent.kde.org/kde/

This evaluation process was started in response to feedback Sysadmin
received in the BoF session in Akademy last year regarding issues
developers we're having with Phabricator. These included the ability
to see the submitters details (name and email address), ability to do
multi-commit reviews and to merge changes conveniently from the web
amongst other things.

Based on the feedback we've received to date regarding the Gitlab
evaluation, the consensus seems to be that a migration would be
beneficial and helpful to us in the long term.

Among the benefits identified thus far are:
1) Provision of full featured task management and code review
functionality to scratch (personal) repositories, which will ease the
transition to playground and first release.
2) Ability to handle native Git commits as part of the code review
process and merge commits from the web interface rather than having to
take additional steps to integrate a change.
3) Easier and more logical grouping of projects, including being able
to view the tasks and repositories related to a specific project more
intuitively

Further notes on the evaluation can be found at
https://notes.kde.org/p/gitlab-evaluation-notes

In regards to Phabricator it should be noted that upstream does not
currently have plans to work on features which would resolve the
issues we've encountered, and their responsiveness to inquiries from
us has decreased since we migrated to it several years ago. Gitlab on
the other hand has a thriving community which openly accepts patches
and have been very helpful in assisting us with the evaluation process
(including solving problems we've found).

In addition to sysadmins and some of projects maintainers, KDE e.V.
board, and onboarding goal team has been involved in Gitlab evaluation
process as well, and they've made the following comments:

Neofytos Kolokotronis of the Onboarding goal team:
We believe this switch will be a great step forward for the Onboarding
goal as well. The workflow, features and general behavior of Gitlab
should be much more familiar to developers and non-coders interested
to contribute to KDE, thus lowering the entry barrier.  Further,
people coming from FOSS projects already on Github or Gitlab should
find it very straightforward to start contributing to KDE right away.
One area that is not to be ignored is that Gitlab has some great and
up to date documentation.

Eike Hein on behalf of the KDE e.V. board of directors:
After sysadmin gave us a situation report on our code hosting and
review infrastructure last year, we were initially involved with
building a relationship with GitLab upstream and setting up a call
schedule. We then turned the evaluation over to the sysadmin and
onboarding teams and received continual updates on its progress. We're
impressed by and thankful for the work done by everyone involved in
the intervening months, and stand by to help implement a community
decision based on what was collected.

Based on all of the above we'd like to propose migrating towards
Gitlab. Comments?

Thanks,
Ben Cooksley
KDE Sysadmin
[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread]