9 ms·

Gitlab's ActivityPub architecture blueprint

232 points by p4bl0 3y ago

ocdtrekkie 3y ago
What's really strange is ForgeFed, Forgejo, Gitea, etc. have all been working on this for a while with a goal to be interoperable, and GitLab doesn't mention any of that at all. Are they planning to enter this late and build a completely incompatible solution?
- EspadaV9 3y ago
  Don't suppose you have links to the work they have been doing towards this?
  - ocdtrekkie 3y ago
    Of course: https://forgefed.org/ https://forgefed.org/
    - EspadaV9 3y ago
      :facepalm: I thought they were all names of alternative source control projects, didn't realise the first one was the name of the collaboration effort. Thank you :-)
- EspadaV9 3y ago
  It sounds like they have heard of it and plan to support it once they get to that point of their implementation. There is some discussion in there epic tracking the feature - https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/11247 https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/11247
xyzzy_plugh 3y ago
Contemplating this through the lens of simply using email and git (ala Linux) to share, review and consume patches, among other things, I can't help but conclude that ultimately this is all totally fucking ridiculous. Sure, it's cool I can send a merge request to another server whatever, but... why are we like this
- crotchfire 3y ago
  Because people don't know about https://sr.ht https://sr.ht
  - RamblingCTO 3y ago
    I'm intrigued, can you elaborate?
  - joshxyz 3y ago
    does sourcehut support shat gitlab is trying to achieve here?
    - themk 3y ago
      Does sr.ht support cross instance patches? Yes. Even better, you don't even need an account on any sr.ht instance to send a patch, or receive one for that matter. It's just email. And it can do many of the things other forges do. Trigger builds, comment on patches, track issues, etc.
  - SushiHippie 3y ago
    https://git-send-email.io/ https://git-send-email.io/
- DANmode 3y ago
  Enabling devs to be "social" in their way is a good trend.
- anentropic 3y ago
  > simply using email and git (ala Linux) to share, review and consume patches yeah, but when was the last time any of us did that...?
- alufers 3y ago
  For me as a person who learned programming in the times of Github/lab/whatever, the idea of sending patches via email is fucking ridiculous. The typical interface for handling merge/pull requests adds so many useful things over just sending a patch - if the project has CI I can immediately see if it even successfully builds before even going into the details of the PR. Same for reviewing, each comment can be replied to separately or resolved, which serves as a nice TODO list for the original author. I know there are some things people don't like (I think Linus was pretty vocal about it), but it seems to be they could be easily fixed by modifying the available open-source forges. This proposal here for example fixes the concern about centralisation, so I guess it's a good step forward. Or maybe I'm just young and like shiny things and will eventually have a spiritual awakening and learn about the virtues of sending in patches via email.
wielebny 3y ago
This is exciting and could be disruptive to closed software hosting platforms. ActivityPub's open standard is an added bonus. A fediverse for code? Sing me in.
- rvense 3y ago
  Yes, my first thought is - doesn't this allow other sites to interoperate with Gitlab without asking Gitlab? Like Gitea can implement this and now we can do PRs back and forth? That's fantastic, exactly what the internet is for and the sort of thing we need more of. edit - learned about https://forgefed.org/ https://forgefed.org/ from a sibling thread, great stuff.
kodama-lens 3y ago
Okay, let's think this a little further: I now have the possibility to open PRs and comment on them for a repo that is hosted on another instance. I still have to deal with user permission. Just because others can interact with my GitLab instance and repos I don't necessary want them to see everything. So user permissions is still a thing. It would just have the time of creating an external user on my instance (or paying premium for them). Buth this could also be archived via OIDC logins of specific allowed accounts. Am I missing the advantages here?
- emaro 3y ago
  Sharing of private resources is explicitly stated as a non-goal.
  - manfre 3y ago
    Does ActivityPub even support interactions that are actually private? Last time I worked with it, the private messaging was more akin to "please don't read this postcard" in the mailbox.
    - wiktor-k 3y ago
      I guess it depends on your definition of privacy but if you're thinking about end-to-end encryption then there's nothing like that in ActivityPub. Admins of the receiver and the sender can see all messages including direct messages. They are not visible to the broader public though.
- mariusor 3y ago
  ActivityPub supports authorized requests from federated actors, which would allow access to private resources. It would be a trivial exercise (speaking here as someone that implements fediverse software) to add permissions for users on other gitlab instances.
smilingsun 3y ago
Does GitLab have an existing Fediverse presence, for example on a Mastodon instance?
edent 3y ago
This is fantastic. I stick my personal projects on GitLab and Codeberg - but if I want people to contribute, I use GitHub; that's where the people are. GitHub has a number of weird repos from popular projects which are just copies of other repos. You can look, but you can't touch. (WordPress and Linux are the big ones). It would be brilliant to look at a project in my preferred UI and raise issues / PRs without having to sign up to yet another service. Very excited to see how this pans out.
- meekins 3y ago
  It would be awesome to see Git becoming decentralized again but what's the likelihood of GitHub implementing this?
  - tazjin 3y ago
    Everyone knows the answer to that ;)
  - znpy 3y ago
    None, that’s why github is awful
  - ragebol 3y ago
    Only when there is so much critical mass behind all of it's competitors that they can't ignore it any longer. Improbably, for the time being. I was going to say that Microsoft has no social network, so that this might open them up etc, but then again, there's LinkedIn.
  - rglullis 3y ago
    Not the best way to look at it. A lot of developers today work primarily on github because it's not possible to interact/work in other projects from their siloed forges. When gitlab implements AP, things are no longer siloed and therefore there will be a percentage of (current) Github users who will free to choose their forge independently of network effects. It's better to ask "how many projects are stuck to Github exclusively because of collaboration tools, and how many of these would be able to leave Github once more Gitlab/Gitea/Forgejo are able to interoperate? How much of its customer base can Github afford to lose before being forced to give up their monopolistic strategy?"
grey_earthling 3y ago
> People want a single, global GitLab network This sounds like they're trying to make a proprietary GitLab-only alternative to Forgefed. I don't understand who would want this. Edit: Ah, this sounds like the opposite: https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/11247#note_1529285198 https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/11247#note_1529... Good!
radarsat1 3y ago
A tool that automatically scraped github issues etc into a standard format and committed them to the repo could accomplish the same thing, no activitypub needed! Then collaborating peer forges could clone the info straight from git and submit changes etc. I think git already has all the sharing tools necessary, what is needed is standards and converters.
- alex_duf 3y ago
  >what is needed is standards and converters. You mean a standard like activitypub? /s
  - radarsat1 3y ago
    No, I mean a standard for the forge things like issues and comments and pull requests. The things that would be carried over activitypub here.
vaylian 3y ago
One of gitlab's programmers comments on implementing ForgeFed in this context: https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/11247#note_1529285198 https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/11247#note_1529...
- leipert 3y ago
  The comment you linked is not from a GitLab employee but a community contributor.

232 points by p4bl0 3y ago

What's really strange is ForgeFed, Forgejo, Gitea, etc. have all been working on this for a while with a goal to be interoperable, and GitLab doesn't mention any of that at all. Are they planning to enter this late and build a completely incompatible solution?

EspadaV9 3y ago
Don't suppose you have links to the work they have been doing towards this?
- ocdtrekkie 3y ago
  Of course: https://forgefed.org/ https://forgefed.org/
  - EspadaV9 3y ago
    :facepalm: I thought they were all names of alternative source control projects, didn't realise the first one was the name of the collaboration effort. Thank you :-)
EspadaV9 3y ago
It sounds like they have heard of it and plan to support it once they get to that point of their implementation. There is some discussion in there epic tracking the feature - https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/11247 https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/11247

xyzzy_plugh 3y ago

Contemplating this through the lens of simply using email and git (ala Linux) to share, review and consume patches, among other things, I can't help but conclude that ultimately this is all totally fucking ridiculous. Sure, it's cool I can send a merge request to another server whatever, but... why are we like this

crotchfire 3y ago
Because people don't know about https://sr.ht https://sr.ht
- RamblingCTO 3y ago
  I'm intrigued, can you elaborate?
- joshxyz 3y ago
  does sourcehut support shat gitlab is trying to achieve here?
  - themk 3y ago
    Does sr.ht support cross instance patches? Yes. Even better, you don't even need an account on any sr.ht instance to send a patch, or receive one for that matter. It's just email. And it can do many of the things other forges do. Trigger builds, comment on patches, track issues, etc.
- SushiHippie 3y ago
  https://git-send-email.io/ https://git-send-email.io/
DANmode 3y ago
Enabling devs to be "social" in their way is a good trend.
anentropic 3y ago
> simply using email and git (ala Linux) to share, review and consume patches yeah, but when was the last time any of us did that...?
alufers 3y ago
For me as a person who learned programming in the times of Github/lab/whatever, the idea of sending patches via email is fucking ridiculous. The typical interface for handling merge/pull requests adds so many useful things over just sending a patch - if the project has CI I can immediately see if it even successfully builds before even going into the details of the PR. Same for reviewing, each comment can be replied to separately or resolved, which serves as a nice TODO list for the original author. I know there are some things people don't like (I think Linus was pretty vocal about it), but it seems to be they could be easily fixed by modifying the available open-source forges. This proposal here for example fixes the concern about centralisation, so I guess it's a good step forward. Or maybe I'm just young and like shiny things and will eventually have a spiritual awakening and learn about the virtues of sending in patches via email.

wielebny 3y ago

This is exciting and could be disruptive to closed software hosting platforms. ActivityPub's open standard is an added bonus. A fediverse for code? Sing me in.

rvense 3y ago
Yes, my first thought is - doesn't this allow other sites to interoperate with Gitlab without asking Gitlab? Like Gitea can implement this and now we can do PRs back and forth? That's fantastic, exactly what the internet is for and the sort of thing we need more of. edit - learned about https://forgefed.org/ https://forgefed.org/ from a sibling thread, great stuff.

kodama-lens 3y ago

Okay, let's think this a little further: I now have the possibility to open PRs and comment on them for a repo that is hosted on another instance. I still have to deal with user permission. Just because others can interact with my GitLab instance and repos I don't necessary want them to see everything. So user permissions is still a thing. It would just have the time of creating an external user on my instance (or paying premium for them). Buth this could also be archived via OIDC logins of specific allowed accounts. Am I missing the advantages here?

emaro 3y ago
Sharing of private resources is explicitly stated as a non-goal.
- manfre 3y ago
  Does ActivityPub even support interactions that are actually private? Last time I worked with it, the private messaging was more akin to "please don't read this postcard" in the mailbox.
  - wiktor-k 3y ago
    I guess it depends on your definition of privacy but if you're thinking about end-to-end encryption then there's nothing like that in ActivityPub. Admins of the receiver and the sender can see all messages including direct messages. They are not visible to the broader public though.
mariusor 3y ago
ActivityPub supports authorized requests from federated actors, which would allow access to private resources. It would be a trivial exercise (speaking here as someone that implements fediverse software) to add permissions for users on other gitlab instances.

smilingsun 3y ago

Does GitLab have an existing Fediverse presence, for example on a Mastodon instance?

edent 3y ago

This is fantastic. I stick my personal projects on GitLab and Codeberg - but if I want people to contribute, I use GitHub; that's where the people are. GitHub has a number of weird repos from popular projects which are just copies of other repos. You can look, but you can't touch. (WordPress and Linux are the big ones). It would be brilliant to look at a project in my preferred UI and raise issues / PRs without having to sign up to yet another service. Very excited to see how this pans out.

meekins 3y ago
It would be awesome to see Git becoming decentralized again but what's the likelihood of GitHub implementing this?
- tazjin 3y ago
  Everyone knows the answer to that ;)
- znpy 3y ago
  None, that’s why github is awful
- ragebol 3y ago
  Only when there is so much critical mass behind all of it's competitors that they can't ignore it any longer. Improbably, for the time being. I was going to say that Microsoft has no social network, so that this might open them up etc, but then again, there's LinkedIn.
- rglullis 3y ago
  Not the best way to look at it. A lot of developers today work primarily on github because it's not possible to interact/work in other projects from their siloed forges. When gitlab implements AP, things are no longer siloed and therefore there will be a percentage of (current) Github users who will free to choose their forge independently of network effects. It's better to ask "how many projects are stuck to Github exclusively because of collaboration tools, and how many of these would be able to leave Github once more Gitlab/Gitea/Forgejo are able to interoperate? How much of its customer base can Github afford to lose before being forced to give up their monopolistic strategy?"

grey_earthling 3y ago

> People want a single, global GitLab network This sounds like they're trying to make a proprietary GitLab-only alternative to Forgefed. I don't understand who would want this. Edit: Ah, this sounds like the opposite: https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/11247#note_1529285198 https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/11247#note_1529... Good!

radarsat1 3y ago

A tool that automatically scraped github issues etc into a standard format and committed them to the repo could accomplish the same thing, no activitypub needed! Then collaborating peer forges could clone the info straight from git and submit changes etc. I think git already has all the sharing tools necessary, what is needed is standards and converters.

alex_duf 3y ago
>what is needed is standards and converters. You mean a standard like activitypub? /s
- radarsat1 3y ago
  No, I mean a standard for the forge things like issues and comments and pull requests. The things that would be carried over activitypub here.

vaylian 3y ago

One of gitlab's programmers comments on implementing ForgeFed in this context: https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/11247#note_1529285198 https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/11247#note_1529...

leipert 3y ago
The comment you linked is not from a GitLab employee but a community contributor.