5 ms·

I publish my public FOSS work on a self-hosted Gitea. I don't allow account creation, and people can send me pull requests by email. That said, I think one thin

I publish my public FOSS work on a self-hosted Gitea. I don't allow account creation, and people can send me pull requests by email. That said, I think one thing (other than interface and brand loyalty) that keeps FOSS projects on GitHub is network effects. You can reasonably expect to search it and find the projects you're looking for, and your account lets you use the issue tracker and pull requests on other projects. I think forges are unnecessary in general, but to wean people off of GitHub, FOSS forges like Gitea need to federate, so that you can search the whole space of public federated forges, and an account on one lets you open issues and pull requests on another. They seem to be making slow but steady progress on this at Gitea, maybe at other FOSS forges, too.

mappu 4y ago
A possible middle ground here is to allow GitHub OAuth2 logins to your Gitea instance - then at least GitHub users can join in your project without too much friction.
ptman 4y ago
Yes! Federation is so important. Federation for issues or issue triage on something other than Gitea would probably be important. Better start self hosting gitea right now. And you can do it for free. I think the best option is oracle cloud, or does someone know how well it works on fly.io? https://paul.totterman.name/posts/free-clouds/ https://paul.totterman.name/posts/free-clouds/
cybrox 4y ago
> people can send me pull requests by email. Great, you already lost half of them.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- NoGravitas 4y ago
  Generally the ones I don't mind losing. If anyone can't figure out how to send a git pull request or patchset by email, I'm happy for them to email me with questions on how to, which I will answer as best I can.
  - dcz_self 4y ago
    I can figure out how to send you a patch set via email (see my Linux kernel contributions), but if I can avoid doing that, sure as heck I will. Your project must be really important to me, or I have to get paid. As for the reason, it's simple: the process of submitting patches sucks. I wrote about it: https://dcz_self.gitlab.io/posts/git-botch-email https://dcz_self.gitlab.io/posts/git-botch-email
    - account42 4y ago
      Honestly, if you can't be arsed to format an email then why should you expect anyone to spend the effort to review your patches and maintain your additions going forward.
    - u801e 4y ago
      Based on your first example of running git send-email without providing it any patch files or revision list, you appear to be making the assumption that someone doesn't bother reading the documentation before using the tool. This would be like someone trying out make the first time and not realizing why it isn't working becaue they didn't realize they need literal tab characters in the make file for the rules to work. But if they don't read the documentation, there's no way they would know that. The real problem is people trying to figure out how tools work by experimentation as opposed to reading documentation. If someone reads the documentation of git send-email and the project's contrib document contains the preferred settings for that utility, then submitting patches should not be an issue.
      - dcz_self 4y ago
        That's a valid observation of one of the reasons I won't use git-send-email. I have limited mental resources, and given the choice between a tool where I have to spend half an hour before I can begin using it, and a tool which will guide me, I'll always choose the latter. After I'm done, I can even forget I ever used the latter tool! It's a boon for one-offs. Keep reading, there's more criticism on other aspects of the tool.
- remram 4y ago
  Honestly it's not that bad. If you don't insist on getting correctly-formatted email for git-am, most people manage fine. They'll send you the output of git-diff, a git-bundle, or attach the files they changed.
  - NoGravitas 4y ago
    Any of these would be acceptable to me.
- bayindirh 4y ago
  Actually, I don't understand why should I cater to all needs of all developers. I'm opening the code, accepting PRs, and these are my terms. You can agree or disagree. If you really want to contribute, but don't want and e-mail based flow, send me a mail, and we can discuss.
skeeter2020 4y ago
I love email & personally prefer it for communication, but there is an entire cohort of developers headed your way who rarely us it outside of "job-realated requirements".
remram 4y ago
Gitea (and a few others) are working on federation for pull requests, which would allow someone to fork your project to their own server, and send a pull request offering you to merge from their server into yours. It also builds on top of ActivityPub which is supposed to allow federation with the greater ActivityPub ecosystem ("fediverse"). I guess this would allow people to like or comment your issue or pull request from Mastodon and those other platforms. I am not that excited about that last part, but federating pull requests sounds like a killer feature and a necessary step for a chance to topple GitHub. If hosting my own forge means I have to either get patches over email or let people register so they can create their own fork here, it's a non-starter for many. edit: here is Gitea's issue: https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/issues/18240 https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/issues/18240
- beej71 4y ago
  Hot damn, that sounds awesome. Easy PRs would be a huge step to getting me off GitHub.
- shrimpx 4y ago
  Why is gitea hosted on GitHub? That seems ironic.
  - systemz 4y ago
    It's getting close to be hosted by gitea: https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/issues/1029 https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/issues/1029
  - sreevisakh 4y ago
    Gitea and Gogs weren't originally meant to be replacements for Github. They were meant for self-hosted internal repositories. That's why they are still on Github, even though hosts like Codeberg use them for public hosting these days.
- sreevisakh 4y ago
  > I am not that excited about that last part, but federating pull requests sounds like a killer feature Git already has a pull request feature [1] that's as federated as it can get. The 'request-pull' command can be used to request pull on upstream repositories hosted anywhere (or not at all). The only requirement is that the downstream clone must be online. I know that HN isn't particularly found of email-based workflows for git. But requesting a pull is as simple as copying the output and mailing it (or via any text messaging service) to the maintainer. And doing a pull as a maintainer is actually easier than doing local PR merges using Github. [1] https://git-scm.com/docs/git-request-pull https://git-scm.com/docs/git-request-pull
eulers_secret 4y ago
IMO it kinda speaks loudly that Gitea's development happens on github! There's a reason that's the case, and it's likely one of the reasons I should just use github as well; despite being morally opposed to what they're doing WRT copilot.
- reitanuki 4y ago
  That's because when Gitea was early in development, it would have been not usable enough to develop itself (the Gitea people have a post somewhere explaining about it; how too-early dogfooding can actually make things worse as you try to implement 'urgent' features in a rushed manner rather than taking the time to do it right). Sibling has already provided the tracking issue for getting off it; as far as I remember it's close now :-)
  - account42 4y ago
    For early development that makes sense. But if Gitea is not ready to self-host now then it is also not ready to host most other projects so that doesn't really invalidate the criticism. However from the sibling comments it seems that the move to self-hosting is in progress.
    - NoGravitas 4y ago
      It looks like the only feature blocking their move to self-host is importing data (issues and PRs) exported from GitHub. Which is to say, it's perfectly ready for hosting new projects.
- RunningDroid 4y ago
  > IMO it kinda speaks loudly that Gitea's development happens on github! There's a bug for that: https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/issues/1029 https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/issues/1029

mappu 4y ago

A possible middle ground here is to allow GitHub OAuth2 logins to your Gitea instance - then at least GitHub users can join in your project without too much friction.

ptman 4y ago

Yes! Federation is so important. Federation for issues or issue triage on something other than Gitea would probably be important. Better start self hosting gitea right now. And you can do it for free. I think the best option is oracle cloud, or does someone know how well it works on fly.io? https://paul.totterman.name/posts/free-clouds/ https://paul.totterman.name/posts/free-clouds/

cybrox 4y ago

> people can send me pull requests by email. Great, you already lost half of them.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
NoGravitas 4y ago
Generally the ones I don't mind losing. If anyone can't figure out how to send a git pull request or patchset by email, I'm happy for them to email me with questions on how to, which I will answer as best I can.
- dcz_self 4y ago
  I can figure out how to send you a patch set via email (see my Linux kernel contributions), but if I can avoid doing that, sure as heck I will. Your project must be really important to me, or I have to get paid. As for the reason, it's simple: the process of submitting patches sucks. I wrote about it: https://dcz_self.gitlab.io/posts/git-botch-email https://dcz_self.gitlab.io/posts/git-botch-email
  - account42 4y ago
    Honestly, if you can't be arsed to format an email then why should you expect anyone to spend the effort to review your patches and maintain your additions going forward.
  - u801e 4y ago
    Based on your first example of running git send-email without providing it any patch files or revision list, you appear to be making the assumption that someone doesn't bother reading the documentation before using the tool. This would be like someone trying out make the first time and not realizing why it isn't working becaue they didn't realize they need literal tab characters in the make file for the rules to work. But if they don't read the documentation, there's no way they would know that. The real problem is people trying to figure out how tools work by experimentation as opposed to reading documentation. If someone reads the documentation of git send-email and the project's contrib document contains the preferred settings for that utility, then submitting patches should not be an issue.
    - dcz_self 4y ago
      That's a valid observation of one of the reasons I won't use git-send-email. I have limited mental resources, and given the choice between a tool where I have to spend half an hour before I can begin using it, and a tool which will guide me, I'll always choose the latter. After I'm done, I can even forget I ever used the latter tool! It's a boon for one-offs. Keep reading, there's more criticism on other aspects of the tool.
remram 4y ago
Honestly it's not that bad. If you don't insist on getting correctly-formatted email for git-am, most people manage fine. They'll send you the output of git-diff, a git-bundle, or attach the files they changed.
- NoGravitas 4y ago
  Any of these would be acceptable to me.
bayindirh 4y ago
Actually, I don't understand why should I cater to all needs of all developers. I'm opening the code, accepting PRs, and these are my terms. You can agree or disagree. If you really want to contribute, but don't want and e-mail based flow, send me a mail, and we can discuss.

skeeter2020 4y ago

I love email & personally prefer it for communication, but there is an entire cohort of developers headed your way who rarely us it outside of "job-realated requirements".

remram 4y ago

Gitea (and a few others) are working on federation for pull requests, which would allow someone to fork your project to their own server, and send a pull request offering you to merge from their server into yours. It also builds on top of ActivityPub which is supposed to allow federation with the greater ActivityPub ecosystem ("fediverse"). I guess this would allow people to like or comment your issue or pull request from Mastodon and those other platforms. I am not that excited about that last part, but federating pull requests sounds like a killer feature and a necessary step for a chance to topple GitHub. If hosting my own forge means I have to either get patches over email or let people register so they can create their own fork here, it's a non-starter for many. edit: here is Gitea's issue: https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/issues/18240 https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/issues/18240

beej71 4y ago
Hot damn, that sounds awesome. Easy PRs would be a huge step to getting me off GitHub.
shrimpx 4y ago
Why is gitea hosted on GitHub? That seems ironic.
- systemz 4y ago
  It's getting close to be hosted by gitea: https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/issues/1029 https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/issues/1029
- sreevisakh 4y ago
  Gitea and Gogs weren't originally meant to be replacements for Github. They were meant for self-hosted internal repositories. That's why they are still on Github, even though hosts like Codeberg use them for public hosting these days.
sreevisakh 4y ago
> I am not that excited about that last part, but federating pull requests sounds like a killer feature Git already has a pull request feature [1] that's as federated as it can get. The 'request-pull' command can be used to request pull on upstream repositories hosted anywhere (or not at all). The only requirement is that the downstream clone must be online. I know that HN isn't particularly found of email-based workflows for git. But requesting a pull is as simple as copying the output and mailing it (or via any text messaging service) to the maintainer. And doing a pull as a maintainer is actually easier than doing local PR merges using Github. [1] https://git-scm.com/docs/git-request-pull https://git-scm.com/docs/git-request-pull

eulers_secret 4y ago

IMO it kinda speaks loudly that Gitea's development happens on github! There's a reason that's the case, and it's likely one of the reasons I should just use github as well; despite being morally opposed to what they're doing WRT copilot.

reitanuki 4y ago
That's because when Gitea was early in development, it would have been not usable enough to develop itself (the Gitea people have a post somewhere explaining about it; how too-early dogfooding can actually make things worse as you try to implement 'urgent' features in a rushed manner rather than taking the time to do it right). Sibling has already provided the tracking issue for getting off it; as far as I remember it's close now :-)
- account42 4y ago
  For early development that makes sense. But if Gitea is not ready to self-host now then it is also not ready to host most other projects so that doesn't really invalidate the criticism. However from the sibling comments it seems that the move to self-hosting is in progress.
  - NoGravitas 4y ago
    It looks like the only feature blocking their move to self-host is importing data (issues and PRs) exported from GitHub. Which is to say, it's perfectly ready for hosting new projects.
RunningDroid 4y ago
> IMO it kinda speaks loudly that Gitea's development happens on github! There's a bug for that: https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/issues/1029 https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/issues/1029