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Hi, everyone. |
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|
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As the lead (and practically the only active developer) of Repository |
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mirror & CI project, I would like to give you a quick update on my plans |
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wrt GitHub. The project is currently using GitHub in two ways: |
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|
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1. to host mirrors of ebuild repositories on GitHub (the Gentoo |
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repository is also mirrored to git.g.o); |
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|
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2. to process pull requests to gentoo/gentoo on GitHub -- to ping |
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developers and run CI on PRs. |
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|
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As most of you have probably heard by now, Microsoft will be acquiring |
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GitHub [1]. This has caused a lot of fuzz, and a lot of projects have |
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started packing their stuff and moving out. However, I don't really see |
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much of a purpose in that right now. |
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|
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[1]:https://blog.github.com/2018-06-04-github-microsoft/ |
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|
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|
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Mirrors |
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------- |
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There are two reasons why repository mirrors are using GitHub. |
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The technical reason is that it has a trivial API for creating |
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and maintaining a lot of repositories automatically. The legal reason |
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is that it keeps all the 'potentially uncertain' stuff out of Gentoo |
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infrastructure. |
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|
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I have been considering moving repository mirrors to Gentoo |
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infrastructure. However, the project aims to mirror all repositories |
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listed in repositories.xml, and we neither can nor really want to |
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actively monitor the content of all of them. What we're trying to avoid |
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is pulling into public Gentoo git repositories data that could end up |
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causing a legal threat to the infrastructure. |
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|
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That said, I wouldn't mind adding additional git.gentoo.org mirrors for |
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the official Gentoo repositories that are hosted on git.gentoo.org |
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already (since obviously there's no more threat in that). Please ping |
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me privately if there's interest in that, and I'll look into extending |
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the scripts to handle this. |
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|
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As for moving mirrors elsewhere, I don't really see much of a purpose |
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in doing that; at least as long as GitHub provides the service for free |
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and doesn't complain about the space or the traffic involved. |
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The primary use of the service is through git, so I don't really think |
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it matters where the servers stand. Moving them elsewhere sounds like |
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an unnecessary complexity for our users who'd have to update repos.conf. |
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|
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|
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Pull requests |
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------------- |
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The pull request support was oriented on GitHub for a very simple |
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reason: because it had a lot of users, therefore it was convenient |
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for a lot of people. Now that GitHub is losing users, this argument may |
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stop being valid at some point. |
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|
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I'm ready and willing to support GitHub pull requests as long as there's |
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interest in contributors using them, and the terms of service don't |
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cause us any major trouble. That said, this particular project doesn't |
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have much of a say how users decide to submit contributions and/or how |
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developers wish to accept them. |
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|
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If alternative platforms (e.g. GitLab) receive official Gentoo ebuild |
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repository mirror and gains a significant interest in pull request |
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assignment and/or CI services, I'm willing to extend the scripts to |
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handle that. However, this highly depends on developer support |
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(i.e. there's no point in another pull request repository if every other |
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pull request would be saying 'this dev is not here, file a bug instead') |
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and time to update the scripts for the appropriate API. |
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|
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To those who believe moving out of GitHub is the only thing to do, |
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I would like to remind you of two things. Firstly, if Microsoft indeed |
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has malicious intent, then they've already won because you've let them |
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fragment the community. Secondly, how do you know that GitLab won't be |
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sold to another 'big player' soon enough? |
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|
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-- |
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Best regards, |
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Michał Górny |