10 ms·

Apache Allura — Open source project hosting platform

131 points by ahmedfromtunis 9y ago

timdorr 9y ago
Does this have some relation to Sourceforge? The UI is a direct copy: https://sourceforge.net/p/smplayer/code/HEAD/tree/ https://sourceforge.net/p/smplayer/code/HEAD/tree/ https://forge-allura.apache.org/p/allura/git/ci/master/tree/ https://forge-allura.apache.org/p/allura/git/ci/master/tree/ I'm also curious why this is such a thing in various code/project hosting applications. GOGS was cloning GitHub's UI (down to the level of copying their CSS) for a long time and still retains a lot of similarities. Is it that hard to come up with a novel UX for code browsing and project management?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- abeyer 9y ago
  Yes. This is the sourceforge platform...there are some older talks (pre-apache adoption) from sf people about it.
- niftich 9y ago
  Yes. SourceForge developed Allura [1] starting in around 2009 [2], and was accepted to the Apache Incubator in 2012. Meanwhile, the preceding SourceForge software was a fork of a community project that was in itself a fork of their oldest platform, apparently [3]. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20110315035603/http://sourceforge.net/p/allura/home/ https://web.archive.org/web/20110315035603/http://sourceforg... [2] https://blog.bitergia.com/2012/11/13/some-charts-about-allura/ https://blog.bitergia.com/2012/11/13/some-charts-about-allur... [3] https://blog.bitergia.com/2012/11/16/the-history-of-fusionforge-and-gforge/ https://blog.bitergia.com/2012/11/16/the-history-of-fusionfo...
hyperrail 9y ago
Interestingly, there is also Apache Bloodhound (http://bloodhound.apache.org/ http://bloodhound.apache.org/ ), which is _also_ a forge/project hosting system. However, Bloodhound, which started out as a Trac clone, seems to be less active in development: http://svn.apache.org/viewvc/bloodhound/trunk/ http://svn.apache.org/viewvc/bloodhound/trunk/
- voxio 9y ago
  I'm a bloodhound PMC member by way of working at the company that initially sponsored development. Unfortunately that project is pretty much dead.
- pjtr 9y ago
  It's more like a Trac distribution / fork with only few patches to the core, but with some additional plugins and a custom theme. Trac itself is more active (and stable) though and still has one of the best ticket systems, repository browsers and plugin architectures anywhere. It supports Git, wiki and more out of the box. And there are plugins for nearly everything else including neat auto-completion: http://i.imgur.com/Q9aBtJN.gif http://i.imgur.com/Q9aBtJN.gif
- DorothySim 9y ago
  The "Online Demo" button brings me to the download page. Is this a bug?
neves 9y ago
Why I would use it instead of GitLab?
- chii 9y ago
  why is there ever more then one or anything? it's competition, and that's always a good thing,
  - neves 9y ago
    Sure, but I'm not asking about the right to use it. I'm in a technical community where maybe someone can explain me why I should try it instead of going on with my company successful utilization of GitLab. I believe it must have some advantages and I'd like to know about them.
  - fiatjaf 9y ago
    There's also https://github.com/gogits/gogs https://github.com/gogits/gogs
    - newsat13 9y ago
      And https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/ https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/
- fiatjaf 9y ago
  Well, GitLab is slower than my pet tortoise.
  - sytse 9y ago
    Are you talking about GitLab self installed or the SaaS? GitLab.com is slow and we're working to improve that in https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&state=all&label_name[]=performance https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues?scope=all&utf... and https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/infrastructure/issues/947 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/infrastructure/issues/947 GitLab self installed should be fast with enough memory. I don't know if Allura has a SaaS service.
SEJeff 9y ago
And it is python, not java! Color me surprised coming from an Apache project. Nice!
hashkb 9y ago
Let me apologize in advance for neglecting to sugarcoat this feedback: This would benefit in a major way from a pass by a designer / UX person. The first thing I noticed (and the reason that I won't even try using it) is that it's significantly uglier than my terminal. GitHub has set the bar for Git web UX at "pleasant enough to look at all day" and this falls way short of that. I struggle, probably more than average, with spacing and layout; but I am one dev and they are the Apache Foundation. It's also hella slow: it is to GitLab as GitLab is to GitHub.
- thewhitetulip 9y ago
  I love it. The problem I have with Github is that for them everything starts with a repo, even projects, which usually should consist of multiple repo are reverse, one repo can have multiple projects. I like functionalities, UX sucks but it doesn't matter for me.
  - sytse 9y ago
    GitLab now supports project without a repo and subgroups. So you can have multiple projects without a repo.
    - thewhitetulip 9y ago
      I have increasingly noted that Gitlab surpasses Github in the number of features. Good job!
      - user5994461 9y ago
        Except when it comes to backup.
        KallDrexx 9y ago
        Or speed. That's why we had to migrate off of Gitlab.
sergiotapia 9y ago
Instead of a random stock photo from a factory, why not put up a screenshot of the main UI.
- mazamats 9y ago
  Most likely because they know it looks bad. It's just sourceforge.
- thewhitetulip 9y ago
  https://forge-allura.apache.org/p/allura/tickets/ https://forge-allura.apache.org/p/allura/tickets/ this is a live version, why need screenshot?
  - falsedan 9y ago
    Because as someone new to the project, I have to spend a non-trivial amount of time to learn how to use a demo before I get to see how it works/whether I should consider it. It's marketing, and a proxy for how much they care about the user experience. A first-contact message of "You work it out" makes me worry that they will prioritize other technical work above user-facing interface issues.
    - thewhitetulip 9y ago
      All you have to do is click one link. That is hardly non trivial. Also, there are screenshots, at least I found it in a non trivial way.
      - falsedan 9y ago
        As a new user, which link do I click on? Git, Wiki, …? How do I get to the "compare proposed changes against existing changes" screen? Does it allow me to make comments? How many lines can each comment be associated with? This is roughly what I want to find out. edit: I think it's great that you have the time/familiarity to work out how to use the product quickly. I need help to see the potential advantages quickly, and I'd appreciate it if the project made a big effort to show itself off. This isn't a knock against OSS projects; commercial projects are just as bad (or worse, since decision makers can always pay extra for support and shift blame to the vendor).
cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
Not even a screenshot? I don't have time to play around with this at the moment, but I don't think I would want to mess with something whose author didn't even bother to put a screenshot up for a product that requires you to jump through a lot of installation hoops like setting up docker server, etc.
- sverhagen 9y ago
  Can't you click "Wiki" and see it in action? Beats a screenshot.
  - kodfodrasz 9y ago
    No, it doesn't beat a screenshot. Their purpose is totally different. Screenshots (on a landing page) usually depict a view the creators think is important, and beautiful to show the visitors. A wiki to a screenshot is like a man page to... A screenshot. After having made a look at the tool though I understand why there is no screenshot. It is basically an uglier and slower version of gogs.
    - Vinnl 9y ago
      I think he means that the wiki is part of Allura, so it's more like a demo. You can try it directly, see here: https://forge-allura.apache.org/p/allura/git/ci/master/tree/ https://forge-allura.apache.org/p/allura/git/ci/master/tree/
- lillesvin 9y ago
  If you click on the link saying "Allura's features" on the front page you're taken here: https://forge-allura.apache.org/p/allura/wiki/Features/ https://forge-allura.apache.org/p/allura/wiki/Features/ which has some screenshots.
mytrile 9y ago
SourceForge is calling, they want their horrible design back
TheSmoke 9y ago
this is one of the biggest TurboGears projects out there. loved it that they open sourced it.
sigi45 9y ago
Aaaaand the UI is ugly like hell. A combination of gitorious, sourceforge and the 90ths with a bit of modern dripplet over :D
- blauditore 9y ago
  I wouldn't say "ugly as hell", more like old-fashioned. I've seen much worse...
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
jlebrech 9y ago
not very alluring, the features are OK. but nothing you can't get on free tier elsewhere.
TallGuyShort 9y ago
The comments on this page remind me why I've never posted any of my projects here.
- oblio 9y ago
  Heh, any public internet forum will more likely come up with criticism than with new contributors. In my opinion if you post your project here, it should realistically be for two reasons: * you want to learn - in which case I think this HackerNews is probably better than the vast majority of internet forums * you want to promote your project/product and probably have some financial end goal - again, it's probably a good idea to post here if you're at least a bit confident in your product
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- addicted 9y ago
  I'm extremely surprised to be honest. I wonder if HN has always been like this.

Does this have some relation to Sourceforge? The UI is a direct copy: https://sourceforge.net/p/smplayer/code/HEAD/tree/ https://sourceforge.net/p/smplayer/code/HEAD/tree/ https://forge-allura.apache.org/p/allura/git/ci/master/tree/ https://forge-allura.apache.org/p/allura/git/ci/master/tree/ I'm also curious why this is such a thing in various code/project hosting applications. GOGS was cloning GitHub's UI (down to the level of copying their CSS) for a long time and still retains a lot of similarities. Is it that hard to come up with a novel UX for code browsing and project management?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
abeyer 9y ago
Yes. This is the sourceforge platform...there are some older talks (pre-apache adoption) from sf people about it.
niftich 9y ago
Yes. SourceForge developed Allura [1] starting in around 2009 [2], and was accepted to the Apache Incubator in 2012. Meanwhile, the preceding SourceForge software was a fork of a community project that was in itself a fork of their oldest platform, apparently [3]. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20110315035603/http://sourceforge.net/p/allura/home/ https://web.archive.org/web/20110315035603/http://sourceforg... [2] https://blog.bitergia.com/2012/11/13/some-charts-about-allura/ https://blog.bitergia.com/2012/11/13/some-charts-about-allur... [3] https://blog.bitergia.com/2012/11/16/the-history-of-fusionforge-and-gforge/ https://blog.bitergia.com/2012/11/16/the-history-of-fusionfo...

hyperrail 9y ago

Interestingly, there is also Apache Bloodhound (http://bloodhound.apache.org/ http://bloodhound.apache.org/ ), which is _also_ a forge/project hosting system. However, Bloodhound, which started out as a Trac clone, seems to be less active in development: http://svn.apache.org/viewvc/bloodhound/trunk/ http://svn.apache.org/viewvc/bloodhound/trunk/

voxio 9y ago
I'm a bloodhound PMC member by way of working at the company that initially sponsored development. Unfortunately that project is pretty much dead.
pjtr 9y ago
It's more like a Trac distribution / fork with only few patches to the core, but with some additional plugins and a custom theme. Trac itself is more active (and stable) though and still has one of the best ticket systems, repository browsers and plugin architectures anywhere. It supports Git, wiki and more out of the box. And there are plugins for nearly everything else including neat auto-completion: http://i.imgur.com/Q9aBtJN.gif http://i.imgur.com/Q9aBtJN.gif
DorothySim 9y ago
The "Online Demo" button brings me to the download page. Is this a bug?

neves 9y ago

Why I would use it instead of GitLab?

chii 9y ago
why is there ever more then one or anything? it's competition, and that's always a good thing,
- neves 9y ago
  Sure, but I'm not asking about the right to use it. I'm in a technical community where maybe someone can explain me why I should try it instead of going on with my company successful utilization of GitLab. I believe it must have some advantages and I'd like to know about them.
- fiatjaf 9y ago
  There's also https://github.com/gogits/gogs https://github.com/gogits/gogs
  - newsat13 9y ago
    And https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/ https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/
fiatjaf 9y ago
Well, GitLab is slower than my pet tortoise.
- sytse 9y ago
  Are you talking about GitLab self installed or the SaaS? GitLab.com is slow and we're working to improve that in https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&state=all&label_name[]=performance https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues?scope=all&utf... and https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/infrastructure/issues/947 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/infrastructure/issues/947 GitLab self installed should be fast with enough memory. I don't know if Allura has a SaaS service.

SEJeff 9y ago

And it is python, not java! Color me surprised coming from an Apache project. Nice!

hashkb 9y ago

Let me apologize in advance for neglecting to sugarcoat this feedback: This would benefit in a major way from a pass by a designer / UX person. The first thing I noticed (and the reason that I won't even try using it) is that it's significantly uglier than my terminal. GitHub has set the bar for Git web UX at "pleasant enough to look at all day" and this falls way short of that. I struggle, probably more than average, with spacing and layout; but I am one dev and they are the Apache Foundation. It's also hella slow: it is to GitLab as GitLab is to GitHub.

thewhitetulip 9y ago
I love it. The problem I have with Github is that for them everything starts with a repo, even projects, which usually should consist of multiple repo are reverse, one repo can have multiple projects. I like functionalities, UX sucks but it doesn't matter for me.
- sytse 9y ago
  GitLab now supports project without a repo and subgroups. So you can have multiple projects without a repo.
  - thewhitetulip 9y ago
    I have increasingly noted that Gitlab surpasses Github in the number of features. Good job!
    - user5994461 9y ago
      Except when it comes to backup.
      - KallDrexx 9y ago
        Or speed. That's why we had to migrate off of Gitlab.

sergiotapia 9y ago

Instead of a random stock photo from a factory, why not put up a screenshot of the main UI.

mazamats 9y ago
Most likely because they know it looks bad. It's just sourceforge.
thewhitetulip 9y ago
https://forge-allura.apache.org/p/allura/tickets/ https://forge-allura.apache.org/p/allura/tickets/ this is a live version, why need screenshot?
- falsedan 9y ago
  Because as someone new to the project, I have to spend a non-trivial amount of time to learn how to use a demo before I get to see how it works/whether I should consider it. It's marketing, and a proxy for how much they care about the user experience. A first-contact message of "You work it out" makes me worry that they will prioritize other technical work above user-facing interface issues.
  - thewhitetulip 9y ago
    All you have to do is click one link. That is hardly non trivial. Also, there are screenshots, at least I found it in a non trivial way.
    - falsedan 9y ago
      As a new user, which link do I click on? Git, Wiki, …? How do I get to the "compare proposed changes against existing changes" screen? Does it allow me to make comments? How many lines can each comment be associated with? This is roughly what I want to find out. edit: I think it's great that you have the time/familiarity to work out how to use the product quickly. I need help to see the potential advantages quickly, and I'd appreciate it if the project made a big effort to show itself off. This isn't a knock against OSS projects; commercial projects are just as bad (or worse, since decision makers can always pay extra for support and shift blame to the vendor).

cocktailpeanuts 9y ago

Not even a screenshot? I don't have time to play around with this at the moment, but I don't think I would want to mess with something whose author didn't even bother to put a screenshot up for a product that requires you to jump through a lot of installation hoops like setting up docker server, etc.

sverhagen 9y ago
Can't you click "Wiki" and see it in action? Beats a screenshot.
- kodfodrasz 9y ago
  No, it doesn't beat a screenshot. Their purpose is totally different. Screenshots (on a landing page) usually depict a view the creators think is important, and beautiful to show the visitors. A wiki to a screenshot is like a man page to... A screenshot. After having made a look at the tool though I understand why there is no screenshot. It is basically an uglier and slower version of gogs.
  - Vinnl 9y ago
    I think he means that the wiki is part of Allura, so it's more like a demo. You can try it directly, see here: https://forge-allura.apache.org/p/allura/git/ci/master/tree/ https://forge-allura.apache.org/p/allura/git/ci/master/tree/
lillesvin 9y ago
If you click on the link saying "Allura's features" on the front page you're taken here: https://forge-allura.apache.org/p/allura/wiki/Features/ https://forge-allura.apache.org/p/allura/wiki/Features/ which has some screenshots.

mytrile 9y ago

SourceForge is calling, they want their horrible design back

TheSmoke 9y ago

this is one of the biggest TurboGears projects out there. loved it that they open sourced it.

sigi45 9y ago

Aaaaand the UI is ugly like hell. A combination of gitorious, sourceforge and the 90ths with a bit of modern dripplet over :D

blauditore 9y ago
I wouldn't say "ugly as hell", more like old-fashioned. I've seen much worse...

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

jlebrech 9y ago

not very alluring, the features are OK. but nothing you can't get on free tier elsewhere.

TallGuyShort 9y ago

The comments on this page remind me why I've never posted any of my projects here.

oblio 9y ago
Heh, any public internet forum will more likely come up with criticism than with new contributors. In my opinion if you post your project here, it should realistically be for two reasons: * you want to learn - in which case I think this HackerNews is probably better than the vast majority of internet forums * you want to promote your project/product and probably have some financial end goal - again, it's probably a good idea to post here if you're at least a bit confident in your product
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
addicted 9y ago
I'm extremely surprised to be honest. I wonder if HN has always been like this.