Support ActivityPub for merge requests (&11247) ¡ Epics ¡ GitLab.org ¡ GitLab
gitlab.comcross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/3802741
Several years in the making, GitLab is now very actively implementing ActivityPub! đ
The end-goal is to support AP for merge requests (aka pull requests), meaning git.alice.dev can send a merge request to gitlab.com/Bob/project.git
In the most expansive version of this vision, anyone running an AP-enabled git instance (with one or more repos) can send MRs to another instanceâs repo, without having to sign up there.
For starters this will be GitLab-specific, but thatâs already huge for self-hosters of GitLab who currently donât benefit from the internal interop of the GitLab.com network.
First bite-sized todo on the implementation path there is âsubscribe to project releasesâ. And yes, they are aware of ForgeFed and will likely make use of that spec for the advanced features of this epic.
Smart move by GitLab; through ActivityPub theyâre getting a distributed version of GitHubâs social layer.
Hugely impactful as a way around GitHubâs moat as the de-facto social network of open source development. I follow hundreds of developers on GitHub, though mainly just to keep track of who Iâve interacted with, effectively adding them to a dev-specific address book.
I have a much harder time keeping track of non-GitHub devs on alt platforms, but if I could follow them on the fediverse thatâs actually preferable over GitHubâs proprietary follow list.
Cross-posted to Mastodon: https://writing.exchange/@erlend/110949168258462158
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This is exciting. I think code forges are one of the biggest opportunities for ActivityPub to really go mainstream and change the internet. Not only because itâll make working with open source way easier since you can work with any compatible forge, but developers will be more exposed to ActivityPub just by working with the software and so more likely to participate in AP dev. It will be interesting to see what effect this has on the fediverse. Thereâs been a lot of talk from various organizations/companies but this will be the first large project adopting AP. Iâm interested to see how development goes for them and for other fediverse projects.
I wonder what changes it will force on Mastodon. Masto wonât be the biggest project anymore and wonât be able to throw its weight around as much. Just like the recent influx of users forced the implementation of full text search and has reenergized conversations about quote posts, I think federated gitlab would force masto to rethink some things.
Didnât think of it this way. It would be cool if we werenât stuck with microsoft github for coding social network.
Yeah Iâve been trying to find good alternatives to github for âwhere open source should happenâ because at it stands a ton of it happens on a single node owned by a single entity. My first instinct was gitlab since its big and open source, but you canât really do discovery with it like you can github, and you need to be logged in to do discovery at all. I landed on Codeberg as being the best for an open source future, and them with Forgejo, Gitea, and Gitlab are all implementing ActivityPub now. This is great news. Mastodon users could hypothetically create and comment on issues without creating forge accounts. People with self hosted forges can do some work and open pull requests. Major win, I think
On a side note: Gitea/Forgejo are also working on this and will probably get there first. Interoperability with Gitlab would be nice for sure.
Nice, didnât know that Gitea was working on something similar!
Oh wow, I didnât realize that even the VCS systems were getting in on the action. Guess all the Fediverse platforms picking Codeberg to host their projects has been rubbing off on the Forgejo devs. Maybe I should make a Forgejo account somewhere.
Finally some good news from GitLab! I switched when MS bought GitHub but all the news from GitLab since that point has been some form of âweâve severely nerfed our offerings for open source projectsâ. This, however, will make GitLab better for FOSS as people from across other platforms can contribute. If Gitea and others also support this then GitLab may start to crack. If GitHub also implements this then we wonât need accounts there to contribute.
Really interesting, itâs an application I didnât see coming. Definitely will be looking into this, and hopefully it spurs GitHub to do the same as well
Yeah interesting idea. I can see it being useful for private enterprise implementations of gitlab to contribute to upstream projects⌠I donât think itâs possible to fork a public github.com repo to a self hosted github enterprise instance but itâs been a while since Iâve run that and I donât remember ever actually trying.
It might make tooling easier⌠I can see it being pretty easy to setup bi-directional comms with non-gitlab CI/CD pipelines doing this.
Really it might entirely eliminate the need for service accounts or whatever the gitlab equivalent of Github Apps is too which would be wonderful.
Sure it is. Copy the repo, re-init, publish as a new project. Forked.
Itâs all git, after all. You init a new repo, its a new project under all eyes but perhaps copyright.
I thought itâd be issue/MR discussions because thatâd be a fairly obvious application of AP but itâs actually for MRs themselves? Wow.
Git forges are the only remaining non-federated social platforms that I still heavily use.
With AP, we might finally be able to build a forge network that could become a viable public hosting alternative to GitHub.
Well shit. Way to surprise in a good way, for the first time in a long-time, GitLab. Welcome back.
As someone who hasnât worked on open source projects, can someone please explain what this means? I know what ActivityPub is and I know what Git pull requests are, but I donât understand what they have to do with each other. Is the idea that this lets you view GitLab pull requests from outside of the GitLab website?
Git is decentralized, but services like GitHub/GitLab/Gitea/SourceHut are adding things like issue board, pull requests, planners⌠Those are historically only on the platform and it needs to be decentralized too, because not every project wants to use biggest platform like GitHub or host something themselfs, while contributors and users donât want to have multiple accounts for multiple forges.
This is huge and excellent news. I canât wait to welcome all of the gitlab users to our beautiful fediverse.
Great news!
Isnât gitlab one of those shitty âopenâ core projects?
The core is MIT licensed. Itâs open core but the core is extensively open and certainly not shitty.