6 ms·

Packaging now standard, dependency proxy next?

69 points by reimertz 7y ago

arnieswap 7y ago
It's really good to see GitHub embracing the work that GitLab has been doing for a while (more than 5 years) now. While its healthy competition, it also shows how Open Source companies/projects like GitLab are ahead of proprietary companies and in fact lead the industry with their innovation.
- jorams 7y ago
  I'd just like to note here that the only part of this in GitLab that is open source is the container registry. The NPM and Maven registries are proprietary.
- lightgreen 7y ago
  How GitLab is not proprietary? It is a private commercial company. How GitLab is open source? It open sources a non-essential portion of its software, and so does GitHub.
  - scrollaway 7y ago
    Gitlab is like the most open source company out there. It sets examples in transparency that even Mozilla should learn from. Calling what it open sources "non-essential" is so ridiculously misinformed that I'm really wondering what your goal is here.
    - bdcravens 7y ago
      I agree they open more than the non-essential parts. It's worth noting that what we are currently talking about isn't an open source innovation however. It's a proprietary offering by a company that does a lot of open source: in both cases. Github opened Atom, contributes significantly to Rails, etc.
  - techntoke 7y ago
    Have you seen GitLab CE? You can deploy it in Docker or on Kubernetes using their official Helm charts. It has a ton of features compared to GitHub.
    - lightgreen 7y ago
      True. But EE, the product they are making money from, is not free, and not open source. Thus GitLab is not "Open Source company", as stated by arnieswap at the beginning of this thread.
      - techntoke 7y ago
        Yes they are. Most of everything they do as a company is public and done on GitLab, including their docs, meetings and more. They are like 100x more open source than GitHub and I've seen GitHub trying to advertise as the company of open source.
        bdcravens 7y ago
        > They are like 100x more open source than GitHub I don't think this is a fair (or accurate) quantification. While Gitlab's principal product probably has more open sourced code, Github makes tremendous contributions to open source. Atom is open source. They contribute significantly to projects like Rails (for example, the multiple database feature was extracted from their codebase). This doesn't even begin to address the dependency upon Github the entire open source ecosystem has. How many millions of dollars do they spend in infrastructure every month just to keep projects like RubyGems and npm viable? I think Gitlab is a spectacular offering, and having a single source for your entire dev-ops story is extremely compelling. However, spinning a narrative that Gitlab is more open source than Github is extremely disingenuous.
- bdcravens 7y ago
  Gitlab isn't entirely open source. Many of their features require a commercial license. For instance, in order to use the NPM package registry, you must be on a plan (managed or self-hosted) at the $19/user level or above.
  - techntoke 7y ago
    Have you seen all the features they offer for free, as well as their self-hosted version? Wayy more than GitHub.
    - bdcravens 7y ago
      They do offer a lot of features for free, absolutely. Still doesn't change the fact that the features we are discussing aren't on that list.
XzAeRosho 7y ago
You can either love or hate Gitlab/Github, but this competition is always fantastic for their users.
- toyg 7y ago
  It's a shame we lost BitBucket along the way. They were the first to spearhead the "all private repos free for individuals" model that the others eventually adopted.
  - ilaksh 7y ago
    Wait we lost Bitbucket?
  - avinium 7y ago
    Why do you say BitBucket has been lost?
    - toyg 7y ago
      Bitbucket is currently lagging behind Github/Gitlab in pretty much all areas. Usability-wise, even in its most basic features, it is simply terrible at the moment. And there is no social effect whatsoever - in fact, placing your stuff on BB right now is practically a declaration that you hate talking to people. It clearly is not a priority for its new owners (Atlassian).
      - prh8 7y ago
        Having been at a company that was a heavy Atlassian/Jira/BB user, it seems the only reason for companies to ever use BB was because they already used Jira, and/or because of pricing differences vs Github (although that has changed a few times since I've left there).
        techntoke 7y ago
        The only reason people pick them is because someone in the tech department got some sweet kickbacks on an expensive deal.
thallavajhula 7y ago
I'm not sure I get the point of this post. Is is to convey that Gitlab did it before GitHub did it? If it's not, then, I really don't get the point.
- hluska 7y ago
  I’m in the same boat as you. I don’t get the point either. Can someone help?
  - tommoor 7y ago
    Now you know Gitlab has this feature
  - techntoke 7y ago
    GitLab has this feature and it can be self-hosted.
- toyg 7y ago
  Yes - Gitlab is basically saying "we did it first, and more. Now that MS has finally caught up with one bit of it, hopefully they will catch up with the other features we already have". I agree that the verbiage could be better; it looks like they tried hard not to poke fun, gloat, or otherwise prod the blue giant.
ilaksh 7y ago
I had no idea Gitlab already did this well before Github. I think it's absolutely an appropriate response.
- skilled 7y ago
  This is the correct answer.
- StavrosK 7y ago
  I use GitLab daily and for everything and I didn't know this. I know of the container registry and build artifacts, but they don't have an actual registry, do they? I can't point pip to something on GitLab and do "pip install mypackage" and it will work, correct?
  - scrollaway 7y ago
    It doesn't for python. It does for npm, java and docker though. I've been using the Docker one and it works fantastically well.
    - StavrosK 7y ago
      I use the Docker Registry as well, it does work great. Is there some special integration for npm/Java, or is it because you can just download the artifacts if you specify the URL?
      - scrollaway 7y ago
        There's an auth layer to implement + publishing APIs, I believe that's all there is though. If only there was some standard for package hosting + publishing across all languages… stares at The Update Framework
amingilani 7y ago
I feel as though this announcement caught GitLab by surprise and it scrambled to put a strong message out there that it already had similar offerings in place. At the same time, however, I don't think their choice of phrasing is the most appropriate. It'd probably have been better handled more subtly. But does it matter at all? If I host critical code somewhere, it has to be available, and GitLab's uptime history[0] is so much poorer compared to GitHub's[1], with service disruptions and degradations being more common, and far more severe. I don't understand why GitLab doesn't focus on improving the quality of their service. It's not like this is new. Edit: I feel like I came across as very sour, and I am. But I do like GitLab. I've actually used its CI and Docker image repository in the past and prefer how everything is in one place. I've even written fairly a fairly comprehensive article outlining a deployment pipeline leveraging their tech, but I just don't like service disruptions, especially when they're normalized. [0]: https://status.gitlab.com/pages/history/5b36dc6502d06804c08349f7 https://status.gitlab.com/pages/history/5b36dc6502d06804c083... [1]: https://www.githubstatus.com/history https://www.githubstatus.com/history
- toyg 7y ago
  > I've even written fairly a fairly comprehensive article outlining a deployment pipeline leveraging their tech Link?
  - amingilani 7y ago
    Sorry, I didn't think it was relevant nor appropriate to promote my own content, but here: https://www.toptal.com/devops/effective-ci-cd-deployment-pipeline#contract-just-respected-software-architects https://www.toptal.com/devops/effective-ci-cd-deployment-pip... I don't use their container system here, though. It's just GitLab CI.
- prh8 7y ago
  Maybe's it's just me, but it seems like Gitlab lists every issue they suffer, while Github is listing when it's (practically) down and non-functional. Would be interested if someone could fill in some details though.
bdcravens 7y ago
Gitlab offers some compelling advantages, but I think they realize “we did it first” isn’t a strong defensible position as Github chooses to offer the same features. (After all, Github offered the main feature first)
booleandilemma 7y ago
Are they upset Microsoft didn’t buy them instead?
- bdcravens 7y ago
  I'd expect Google or someone comparable to buy them (you know they are already having those conversations)
- techntoke 7y ago
  I think they are probably very happy Microsoft didn't buy them. The culture at Microsoft would have been so terrible everyone would quit.
IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
It's somewhat rich for Gitlab to passive-aggressively complain about Github releasing a feature they released first.
whalesalad 7y ago
Gitlab might want to rethink their PR strategy. Every knee jerk reaction they toss out there in response to things like this makes me want to try their tech less and less.
- techntoke 7y ago
  Your loss. At least they have a self-hosted open source version for you to try. That is way more than GitHub offers.
  - whalesalad 7y ago
    They are apples and oranges, really.
- PierceJoy 7y ago
  Whole heartedly agree. Gitlab is a cool product and I'm glad it exists, but the one thing that annoys me about the company is these passive aggressive responses to everything GitHub does. It comes across as nothing more than jealousy.
itwy 7y ago
Lol, if we are thinking that way, they stole their entire business idea from GitHub!!! They are upset GitHub copied a single feature! Unbelievable.
- techntoke 7y ago
  No they didn't. There were plenty of similar SCM's before GitHub. GitLab quickly outpaced them and added a lot of valuable unique features.
  - PierceJoy 7y ago
    Please. In the earlier days, Gitlab was shameless about copying things from GitHub. At one point, they even styled their website to be almost indistinguishable from the GitHub Enterprise site. If I recall correctly, there may have even been some copying of HTML/CSS from the GitHub Enterprise site. The reason those things were never widely known is because GitHub never made whiny passive aggressive blogs posts about it. That's one thing Gitlab should have copied from GitHub.
    - techntoke 7y ago
      I think you're thinking of Gogs or Gitea. GitHub should have been building a self-hosted open source version and CI platform. Now they're well in the dust and still don't have an open source version.
      - PierceJoy 7y ago
        I'm not. I'm thinking about Gitlab. There is a long history of Gitlab shamelessly copying things from GitHub, and GitHub taking the high road. I would be so much more likely to support them if they didn't act like complete tools any time GitHub releases a new feature, especially considering their history. > Now they're well in the dust and still don't have an open source version. GitHub is massively larger than Gitlab. It's not even close. You're focussing on one relatively unimportant thing, and missing the bigger picture. I would wager a year from now, GitHub's lead in the market will have increased, not decreased.

69 points by reimertz 7y ago

It's really good to see GitHub embracing the work that GitLab has been doing for a while (more than 5 years) now. While its healthy competition, it also shows how Open Source companies/projects like GitLab are ahead of proprietary companies and in fact lead the industry with their innovation.

jorams 7y ago
I'd just like to note here that the only part of this in GitLab that is open source is the container registry. The NPM and Maven registries are proprietary.
lightgreen 7y ago
How GitLab is not proprietary? It is a private commercial company. How GitLab is open source? It open sources a non-essential portion of its software, and so does GitHub.
- scrollaway 7y ago
  Gitlab is like the most open source company out there. It sets examples in transparency that even Mozilla should learn from. Calling what it open sources "non-essential" is so ridiculously misinformed that I'm really wondering what your goal is here.
  - bdcravens 7y ago
    I agree they open more than the non-essential parts. It's worth noting that what we are currently talking about isn't an open source innovation however. It's a proprietary offering by a company that does a lot of open source: in both cases. Github opened Atom, contributes significantly to Rails, etc.
- techntoke 7y ago
  Have you seen GitLab CE? You can deploy it in Docker or on Kubernetes using their official Helm charts. It has a ton of features compared to GitHub.
  - lightgreen 7y ago
    True. But EE, the product they are making money from, is not free, and not open source. Thus GitLab is not "Open Source company", as stated by arnieswap at the beginning of this thread.
    - techntoke 7y ago
      Yes they are. Most of everything they do as a company is public and done on GitLab, including their docs, meetings and more. They are like 100x more open source than GitHub and I've seen GitHub trying to advertise as the company of open source.
      - bdcravens 7y ago
        > They are like 100x more open source than GitHub I don't think this is a fair (or accurate) quantification. While Gitlab's principal product probably has more open sourced code, Github makes tremendous contributions to open source. Atom is open source. They contribute significantly to projects like Rails (for example, the multiple database feature was extracted from their codebase). This doesn't even begin to address the dependency upon Github the entire open source ecosystem has. How many millions of dollars do they spend in infrastructure every month just to keep projects like RubyGems and npm viable? I think Gitlab is a spectacular offering, and having a single source for your entire dev-ops story is extremely compelling. However, spinning a narrative that Gitlab is more open source than Github is extremely disingenuous.
bdcravens 7y ago
Gitlab isn't entirely open source. Many of their features require a commercial license. For instance, in order to use the NPM package registry, you must be on a plan (managed or self-hosted) at the $19/user level or above.
- techntoke 7y ago
  Have you seen all the features they offer for free, as well as their self-hosted version? Wayy more than GitHub.
  - bdcravens 7y ago
    They do offer a lot of features for free, absolutely. Still doesn't change the fact that the features we are discussing aren't on that list.

XzAeRosho 7y ago

You can either love or hate Gitlab/Github, but this competition is always fantastic for their users.

toyg 7y ago
It's a shame we lost BitBucket along the way. They were the first to spearhead the "all private repos free for individuals" model that the others eventually adopted.
- ilaksh 7y ago
  Wait we lost Bitbucket?
- avinium 7y ago
  Why do you say BitBucket has been lost?
  - toyg 7y ago
    Bitbucket is currently lagging behind Github/Gitlab in pretty much all areas. Usability-wise, even in its most basic features, it is simply terrible at the moment. And there is no social effect whatsoever - in fact, placing your stuff on BB right now is practically a declaration that you hate talking to people. It clearly is not a priority for its new owners (Atlassian).
    - prh8 7y ago
      Having been at a company that was a heavy Atlassian/Jira/BB user, it seems the only reason for companies to ever use BB was because they already used Jira, and/or because of pricing differences vs Github (although that has changed a few times since I've left there).
      - techntoke 7y ago
        The only reason people pick them is because someone in the tech department got some sweet kickbacks on an expensive deal.

thallavajhula 7y ago

I'm not sure I get the point of this post. Is is to convey that Gitlab did it before GitHub did it? If it's not, then, I really don't get the point.

hluska 7y ago
I’m in the same boat as you. I don’t get the point either. Can someone help?
- tommoor 7y ago
  Now you know Gitlab has this feature
- techntoke 7y ago
  GitLab has this feature and it can be self-hosted.
toyg 7y ago
Yes - Gitlab is basically saying "we did it first, and more. Now that MS has finally caught up with one bit of it, hopefully they will catch up with the other features we already have". I agree that the verbiage could be better; it looks like they tried hard not to poke fun, gloat, or otherwise prod the blue giant.

ilaksh 7y ago

I had no idea Gitlab already did this well before Github. I think it's absolutely an appropriate response.

skilled 7y ago
This is the correct answer.
StavrosK 7y ago
I use GitLab daily and for everything and I didn't know this. I know of the container registry and build artifacts, but they don't have an actual registry, do they? I can't point pip to something on GitLab and do "pip install mypackage" and it will work, correct?
- scrollaway 7y ago
  It doesn't for python. It does for npm, java and docker though. I've been using the Docker one and it works fantastically well.
  - StavrosK 7y ago
    I use the Docker Registry as well, it does work great. Is there some special integration for npm/Java, or is it because you can just download the artifacts if you specify the URL?
    - scrollaway 7y ago
      There's an auth layer to implement + publishing APIs, I believe that's all there is though. If only there was some standard for package hosting + publishing across all languages… stares at The Update Framework

amingilani 7y ago

I feel as though this announcement caught GitLab by surprise and it scrambled to put a strong message out there that it already had similar offerings in place. At the same time, however, I don't think their choice of phrasing is the most appropriate. It'd probably have been better handled more subtly. But does it matter at all? If I host critical code somewhere, it has to be available, and GitLab's uptime history[0] is so much poorer compared to GitHub's[1], with service disruptions and degradations being more common, and far more severe. I don't understand why GitLab doesn't focus on improving the quality of their service. It's not like this is new. Edit: I feel like I came across as very sour, and I am. But I do like GitLab. I've actually used its CI and Docker image repository in the past and prefer how everything is in one place. I've even written fairly a fairly comprehensive article outlining a deployment pipeline leveraging their tech, but I just don't like service disruptions, especially when they're normalized. [0]: https://status.gitlab.com/pages/history/5b36dc6502d06804c08349f7 https://status.gitlab.com/pages/history/5b36dc6502d06804c083... [1]: https://www.githubstatus.com/history https://www.githubstatus.com/history

toyg 7y ago
> I've even written fairly a fairly comprehensive article outlining a deployment pipeline leveraging their tech Link?
- amingilani 7y ago
  Sorry, I didn't think it was relevant nor appropriate to promote my own content, but here: https://www.toptal.com/devops/effective-ci-cd-deployment-pipeline#contract-just-respected-software-architects https://www.toptal.com/devops/effective-ci-cd-deployment-pip... I don't use their container system here, though. It's just GitLab CI.
prh8 7y ago
Maybe's it's just me, but it seems like Gitlab lists every issue they suffer, while Github is listing when it's (practically) down and non-functional. Would be interested if someone could fill in some details though.

bdcravens 7y ago

Gitlab offers some compelling advantages, but I think they realize “we did it first” isn’t a strong defensible position as Github chooses to offer the same features. (After all, Github offered the main feature first)

booleandilemma 7y ago

Are they upset Microsoft didn’t buy them instead?

bdcravens 7y ago
I'd expect Google or someone comparable to buy them (you know they are already having those conversations)
techntoke 7y ago
I think they are probably very happy Microsoft didn't buy them. The culture at Microsoft would have been so terrible everyone would quit.

IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago

It's somewhat rich for Gitlab to passive-aggressively complain about Github releasing a feature they released first.

whalesalad 7y ago

Gitlab might want to rethink their PR strategy. Every knee jerk reaction they toss out there in response to things like this makes me want to try their tech less and less.

techntoke 7y ago
Your loss. At least they have a self-hosted open source version for you to try. That is way more than GitHub offers.
- whalesalad 7y ago
  They are apples and oranges, really.
PierceJoy 7y ago
Whole heartedly agree. Gitlab is a cool product and I'm glad it exists, but the one thing that annoys me about the company is these passive aggressive responses to everything GitHub does. It comes across as nothing more than jealousy.

itwy 7y ago

Lol, if we are thinking that way, they stole their entire business idea from GitHub!!! They are upset GitHub copied a single feature! Unbelievable.

techntoke 7y ago
No they didn't. There were plenty of similar SCM's before GitHub. GitLab quickly outpaced them and added a lot of valuable unique features.
- PierceJoy 7y ago
  Please. In the earlier days, Gitlab was shameless about copying things from GitHub. At one point, they even styled their website to be almost indistinguishable from the GitHub Enterprise site. If I recall correctly, there may have even been some copying of HTML/CSS from the GitHub Enterprise site. The reason those things were never widely known is because GitHub never made whiny passive aggressive blogs posts about it. That's one thing Gitlab should have copied from GitHub.
  - techntoke 7y ago
    I think you're thinking of Gogs or Gitea. GitHub should have been building a self-hosted open source version and CI platform. Now they're well in the dust and still don't have an open source version.
    - PierceJoy 7y ago
      I'm not. I'm thinking about Gitlab. There is a long history of Gitlab shamelessly copying things from GitHub, and GitHub taking the high road. I would be so much more likely to support them if they didn't act like complete tools any time GitHub releases a new feature, especially considering their history. > Now they're well in the dust and still don't have an open source version. GitHub is massively larger than Gitlab. It's not even close. You're focussing on one relatively unimportant thing, and missing the bigger picture. I would wager a year from now, GitHub's lead in the market will have increased, not decreased.