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  • From: Paul Vinogradov <vin.public AT gmail.com>
  • To: sm-discuss AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [SM-Discuss] Github as primary source repository for SourceMage?
  • Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2014 22:39:45 -0400

+1, but I think it's good to have a getaway plan for admins and developers
written down somewhere.

В Wed, 17 Sep 2014 19:20:52 -0500 David Kowis <dkowis AT shlrm.org> пишет:

> Given a recent revival of interest in SourceMage, I brought up on IRC
> that we could move our primary repositories, wiki, and issue tracking to
> Github.
>
> No decisions have been made at this point. Self-hosting is ancillary,
> cutting down on server costs would be a good thing.
>
> Github allows open source hosting of up to 1GB in repo size. Our
> grimoire size is only 280MB, so we're good there for quite a while. I've
> already created the sourcemage[0] organization there, so we have a
> single hat to group any number of repos under.
>
> It has been brought up that Github isn't OSS, and that we could be
> locked into a vendor. My opinion in the matter is that Github is just
> fluff on top of Git that makes it easy to view things and easier to
> perform some actions.
>
> The underlying repository is git, and nothing but git, via ssh or https,
> the hooks are all achievable via regular scripted hooks if we wanted to
> do that. The Wiki technology is actually open source, based on Jekyll.
> The only non-open source bits are the webUI.
>
> As an example, Open Source alternatives include Gitlab or gitorious.
>
> The way I see it there are advantages to being on Github:
> * Github is arguably the go-to place for Open Source software
> * Pull requests are stupid easy
> * Pull requests for our wiki will be stupid easy (also no spam!)
> * Issue tracking is robust and capable without being overcomplicated
> * It's still git, with all the power git has
> * Basically infinite bandwidth
> * Probably better uptime
> * Something we can just use, without having to maintain
>
> There are also a few disadvantages:
> * It's a vendor, we're subject to their whims
> * Github itself is not open source
> * Not directly under our control
> * Customization is a bit more difficult (although there are web hooks)[1]
>
> IIRC in the past we had something like this happen, we bailed from
> perforce for two reasons:
> 1. It was under someone's desk at their office, and so when it went
> down, it was hard down for quite a while
> 2. Perforce was not Open Source (but it was free for open source to use)
>
> Personally, I don't feel that using Github would lock us into any vendor
> specific things. As things stand right now, we can very easily take our
> repo and walk, going to *anything* else. The only "proprietary" bits
> would be the issue tracking, and there is currently an API to access
> that data, so we could export that and walk away also.
>
> I'm sure you all have opinions on this, and since we haven't had any
> elections in forever (like two years?) and at least one person has
> expressed that "PL can't just do this, we need to have a vote" I'm not
> exactly sure how I can proceed without pissing anyone off heh.
>
> Technically the people who want to do good work could fork the heck out
> of SourceMage and start doing all this right now anyway under another
> name, and we can do something else. I'm not sure exactly how much power
> I have as PL, I don't wish to abuse it, but I'm also not willing to let
> us languish in limbo, unable to form a consensus.
>
> If we make Github our primary repo location, do we damn our future
> selves into vendor lock-in? Are we going against the principles of Open
> Source by using something that isn't Open Source? Are the benefits of
> being on Github worth the consequences? Are the benefits of being on
> Github benefits we even want?
>
> --
> David Kowis
>
> [0]: https://github.com/sourcemage
> [1]: https://developer.github.com/webhooks/
>




--

Paul Vinogradov




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