6 ms·

I don't actually understand this. Are they referring to the agreements for contributing to GitLab itself, or for contributing to things hosted on GitLab, which

by mathw 9y ago

I don't actually understand this. Are they referring to the agreements for contributing to GitLab itself, or for contributing to things hosted on GitLab, which surely have nothing to do with the hosting at all?

jlgaddis 9y ago
Yeah, I'm not sure what they mean by "migrate their communities". I'm not exactly real clear on "... and open source projects" either. Debian used to use Alioth [0] pretty extensively. Maybe they're getting rid of that and moving everything that was on there to GitLab. I get that this is a press release but it could be a bit more informative, IMO. [0]: https://wiki.debian.org/Alioth https://wiki.debian.org/Alioth
- magpi3 9y ago
  I follow the debian devel list and yes they are moving away from alioth
- tribaal 9y ago
  That's exactly what the link you pasted says - Debian is closing Alioth and migrate to using gitlab. No automatic migration is planned - you need to migrate the repos you are responsible for yourself.
- jepler 9y ago
  The Debian project has been investigating several alternatives to Alioth's version control functionality. I have not 100% kept up on the discussion, but I think gitlab is either selected for sure or is a leading candidate. https://wiki.debian.org/Alioth/GitNext https://wiki.debian.org/Alioth/GitNext Even if they adopt gitlab for version control and pull requests, it's a very misleading headline that the "debian community" will be migrated to gitlab.
- absoluteHNnoob 9y ago
  From Debian News (https://www.debian.org/News/weekly/ https://www.debian.org/News/weekly/): yes and it is going to be named Salsa (https://wiki.debian.org/Salsa https://wiki.debian.org/Salsa).
detaro 9y ago
Contributing to GitLab itself.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
bayindirh 9y ago
I think they will migrate the systems which they host VCSes. Since they may need to make changes in the code to suit them, abandoning the legal stuff makes using, modifying and contributing back stuff easier.
ufo 9y ago
GNOME and Debian wanted to replace some of their infrastructure with Gitlab but before they did that they asked Gitlab to get rid of their CLA. Before this announcement, people contributing to gitlab itself effectively gave full control of copyrights to gitlab but from now on contributors will keep full control of the copyrights for what they contribute. GNOME and Debian are very serious about free software and are wary of using software with CLAs because at any moment the company can switch future versions of the project to a non-free license, without input from the community and despite the software containing code originaly from the community. I wouldn't expect Gitlab to do something stupid like this today but getting rid of the CLA protects the free software community from Gitlab doing stupid things in the future. For example, if they end up being acquired by Oracle or some other FOSS-sabotaging company.
- tinus_hn 9y ago
  See also: BitKeeper
- plupf 9y ago
  So how does DCO differ here? I'm not getting anything from three words.
  - jabl 9y ago
    The DCO is not a CLA. It's more a document that says that the submitter is indeed the copyright holder of the submitted work (or his/her employer/etc. is) and that the contribution is licensed under the same license as the original software. See https://elinux.org/Developer_Certificate_Of_Origin https://elinux.org/Developer_Certificate_Of_Origin
- ubernostrum 9y ago
  I wouldn't expect Gitlab to do something stupid like this today but getting rid of the CLA protects the free software community from Gitlab doing stupid things in the future. I'm confused now about what was in Gitlab's CLA. The CLAs I've signed never transferred rights to someone else, only asserted that I had the right to grant a license and was granting a license I wouldn't later revoke (since the point of a CLA is to protect a project from "oops I wasn't supposed to contribute that" or "oops, new boss here decided to revoke all our contributions"). I'm also confused why GNOME and Debian would have a problem with a CLA even if it did constitute a transfer of rights, since FSF actually does require you to sign over copyright to them in order to contribute, and GNOME and Debian seem happy to use FSF projects.

by mathw 9y ago

jlgaddis 9y ago

Yeah, I'm not sure what they mean by "migrate their communities". I'm not exactly real clear on "... and open source projects" either. Debian used to use Alioth [0] pretty extensively. Maybe they're getting rid of that and moving everything that was on there to GitLab. I get that this is a press release but it could be a bit more informative, IMO. [0]: https://wiki.debian.org/Alioth https://wiki.debian.org/Alioth

magpi3 9y ago
I follow the debian devel list and yes they are moving away from alioth
tribaal 9y ago
That's exactly what the link you pasted says - Debian is closing Alioth and migrate to using gitlab. No automatic migration is planned - you need to migrate the repos you are responsible for yourself.
jepler 9y ago
The Debian project has been investigating several alternatives to Alioth's version control functionality. I have not 100% kept up on the discussion, but I think gitlab is either selected for sure or is a leading candidate. https://wiki.debian.org/Alioth/GitNext https://wiki.debian.org/Alioth/GitNext Even if they adopt gitlab for version control and pull requests, it's a very misleading headline that the "debian community" will be migrated to gitlab.
absoluteHNnoob 9y ago
From Debian News (https://www.debian.org/News/weekly/ https://www.debian.org/News/weekly/): yes and it is going to be named Salsa (https://wiki.debian.org/Salsa https://wiki.debian.org/Salsa).

detaro 9y ago

Contributing to GitLab itself.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

bayindirh 9y ago

I think they will migrate the systems which they host VCSes. Since they may need to make changes in the code to suit them, abandoning the legal stuff makes using, modifying and contributing back stuff easier.

ufo 9y ago

GNOME and Debian wanted to replace some of their infrastructure with Gitlab but before they did that they asked Gitlab to get rid of their CLA. Before this announcement, people contributing to gitlab itself effectively gave full control of copyrights to gitlab but from now on contributors will keep full control of the copyrights for what they contribute. GNOME and Debian are very serious about free software and are wary of using software with CLAs because at any moment the company can switch future versions of the project to a non-free license, without input from the community and despite the software containing code originaly from the community. I wouldn't expect Gitlab to do something stupid like this today but getting rid of the CLA protects the free software community from Gitlab doing stupid things in the future. For example, if they end up being acquired by Oracle or some other FOSS-sabotaging company.

tinus_hn 9y ago
See also: BitKeeper
plupf 9y ago
So how does DCO differ here? I'm not getting anything from three words.
- jabl 9y ago
  The DCO is not a CLA. It's more a document that says that the submitter is indeed the copyright holder of the submitted work (or his/her employer/etc. is) and that the contribution is licensed under the same license as the original software. See https://elinux.org/Developer_Certificate_Of_Origin https://elinux.org/Developer_Certificate_Of_Origin
ubernostrum 9y ago
I wouldn't expect Gitlab to do something stupid like this today but getting rid of the CLA protects the free software community from Gitlab doing stupid things in the future. I'm confused now about what was in Gitlab's CLA. The CLAs I've signed never transferred rights to someone else, only asserted that I had the right to grant a license and was granting a license I wouldn't later revoke (since the point of a CLA is to protect a project from "oops I wasn't supposed to contribute that" or "oops, new boss here decided to revoke all our contributions"). I'm also confused why GNOME and Debian would have a problem with a CLA even if it did constitute a transfer of rights, since FSF actually does require you to sign over copyright to them in order to contribute, and GNOME and Debian seem happy to use FSF projects.