Moving to git is nice but I don't understand why they don't self-host a gitlab instance.
this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2023
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Imho the main argument for github is that it lowers the hurdle for new ane ad-hoc contributions like issues. I'm problably too lazy to registsr a new account for your instance just to open a bug report.
I'd love a federated git/issue/wiki thing
Are they moving issues or just code storage to GitHub?
Code storage. They're keeping bugzilla.
💀
It wouldn't make it more difficult than with mercurial, which isn't supported by github either.
GitHub will just serve as code mirror. Patches and bugs will still go through Mozilla's usually channels.
In my opinion that sounds like a plus. People that are too lazy to register an account to put in a code merge request or report a bug aren't going to be writing quality code or quality bug reports.
Speak for yourself, I've been prepared to submit detailed bug reports before the process in place to do so turned me off.
I did speak for myself. I said "In my opinion".
They're going to continue using Bugzilla for bug reports.
but I don’t understand why they don’t self-host
Why would anyone self-host a FLOSS project? Trade secrets is not a concern, nor is it barring access to the source code repository. Why would anyone waste their resources managing a service that adds no value beyond a third-party service like GitHub?
Because Microsoft will eat your ass in your sleep
Because Microsoft will eat your ass in your sleep
So Microsoft has access to Firefox's source code. So what? Isn't the point of a FLOSS project that your source code should be made available to everyone?
Mozilla allegedly stands for a bunch of stuff that is be definition incompatible with hosting code on GitHub as it is. I bet a lot of people were expecting a lot more from them and instead got this move. Well... I guess this is like unique browser ID that each installation has or the fact that it contacts a 3rd party analytics company no matter your settings - people start by complaining and eventually even say it is right. lol so much for privacy and whatnot.
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Go on...
Because while you do have control (and "copies") of the source code repository, that's not really true for the ecosystem around it - tickets, pull requests, ...
If Microsoft decided to fuck you over you'd have a hard time migrating the "community" around that source code somewhere else.
Obviously depends on what features you are using, but for example losing all tickets would be problematic for any projects.
Apparently Mozilla won't be even accepting PRs there so it doesn't matter much.
What if you self host in AWS and Amazon decides to fuck you over? What if you decide to self from home and your ISP decides fuck you over? What if? So many what ifs... How do you even live in this world?
Yeah like, wtf
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Because while you do have control (and “copies”) of the source code repository, that’s not really true for the ecosystem around it - tickets, pull requests, …
The announcement to drop Mercurial quite clearly states that their workflow won't change and that GitHub pull requests are not considered a part of their workflow.
Also, that's entirely irrelevant to start with. Either you care about software freedom and software quality, or you don't. If you care about software freedom you care about having free and unrestricted access to FLOSS projects such as Firefox, which GitHub clearly provides. If you care about software quality you'd care about the Firefox team picking the absolute best tools for the job that they themselves picked.
Money most likely.
I would doubt that. Github for organizations becomes rather expensive rather quickly if you want to retain some level of control, so I doubt Mozilla will opt for the minimum "free for open source" offering.
Github for organizations becomes rather expensive rather quickly (...)
I'm not sure if that's relevant. GitHub's free plan also supports GitHub organizations, and GitHub's Team plan costs only around $4/(developer*month). You can do the math to check how many developers you'd have to register in a GitHub Team plan to match the operational expense of hiring a person to manage a self-hosted instance from 9-to-5.
Slightly confusing title here. A less confusing title would be "Mozilla drops support for Mercurial, moves Firefox repository to GitHub".
A less confusing title would be “Mozilla drops support for Mercurial (...)
It's not even about GitHub at all. Taken straight out of the announcement:
“For a long time Firefox Desktop development has supported both Mercurial and Git users. This dual SCM requirement places a significant burden on teams which are already stretched thin in parts. We have made the decision to move Firefox development to Git.”
But a few lines later:
Although we'll be hosting the repository on GitHub, our contribution workflow will remain unchanged and we will not be accepting Pull Requests at this time
So I don't know if you meant that the focus of the change wasn't GH or that they weren't using GH at all, but it seems like the latter is untrue.
you meant that the focus of the change wasn’t GH
They are dropping Mercurial and focusing on Git. Incidentally, they happen to host the Git project on GitHub. GitHub is used for hosting, and they don't even use basic features such as pull requests.
Again, this is really not about GitHub at all.
This is the crucial detail that everyone is missing.
It's the same as with the Linux kernel GitHub mirror.
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The repository will be hosted on GitHub, though the move is expected to take “at least six months before the migration begins.”
Another major opensource project that chooses a proprietary hosting platform 🤷
Let's be honest here, at least like 98% of the popular OSS is on GitHub at this point. You don't have to like it, but it's how things are
Doesn't mean that they have to continue putting stuff there. But oh well, maybe once ForgeFed becomes a real thing, things might change a little.
People use the most convenient way to collaborate, and that's for me currently Github. Really hope, some day a better alternative with ForgeFed becomes reality.
It does. OSS needs visibility, it needs contributions
GitHub's community and discoverability features really help with that, as much as it sucks that they got acquired by Microsoft
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Using and financially contributing to Codberg seems like a good next step to take. Doubt they will though.
Ah! 😣 Why not nest or self-hosted pijul!?
It's not battle tested on massive projects nor does it have the prior mindshare git has. It doesn't have a lot of tooling either. (Does any CI/CD system support pijul?) It has nice properties, but ultimately git with all it's terrible warts is well understood.
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Neither has reached 1.0. They're perpetually unstable.
Cool now I can actually check it out. Tried to previously but my connection failed about an hour into the clone. --depth=1 --shallow-submodules --recurse-submodules should really be given its own command in git. Not really sure why'd they choose MS as their host though.
Chromium has a mirror on GitHub and it's fine. While it feels a little strange to have just one mirror (on GitHub), after moving to git entirely, nobody is stopping to them from hosting a GitLab mirror.
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