[LAU] Some disturbing news

[Paul Davis]

Two things. First, this is what Ardour does (self-hosted on gitlab,
mirrored (for now) to github).

Second: it is important to get over a basic misconception that some people
have about git repositories. The really important thing to understand is
that no single instance of a git repository for a project is priviledged or
special in any way except for one: an agreement by developers to use it to
easily push/pull commits to each other.  There's nothing to stop a project
from suddenly switching the location of the repository considered to be
"canonical", because all it really means is "we all agree to push/pull
to/from there".

Now to be sure, github (and gitlab) provide hosting services that go well
beyond those provided by a basic git server+repository. Those things are
nice (for some purposes, anyway), but they are less important add-ons for
developers actually involved in a project, for the most part.

If we decided to switch away from the repository on git.ardour.org to one
on another network-connected system, it would be essentially trivial. There
is nothing special at the git level about that repository other than it
being marked as the "origin" for developers' initial clone operations.

There's no reason to be concerned about what happens at the repository
level at github (or anywhere else). What might be lost are cool web-enabled
services. But a repository is a repository is a repository.

One small exception to this (and the reason why you need gitlab or some
equivalent to self-host) is managing access to the repository. Git itself
provides no such mechanisms for controlling this, which is at once both
sensible and a nuisance. For Ardour, this is really the only value-added
that comes from having gitlab wrap our git server instance.




On Thu, Jun 7, 2018 at 5:07 PM, Christopher Obbard <chris at 64studio.com>
wrote:

> So the only remaining engineering question (from LAC c-base) for me,
> remains, what is the best reasonable alternative?
>
> Currently I am thinking a self hosted instance of gitlab. With the source
> code saved in a backup ready for any deletions!
>
> —
> Christopher Obbard
> 64Studio Ltd
>
> On Thu, 7 Jun 2018 at 22:21, <holger at dehnhardt.org> wrote:
>
>> I missed the discussion in the last days and was on the one hand
>> surprised how lively it was conducted, on the other hand I am missing one
>> point completely (or I did not notice it): If we leave aside the discussion
>> about Open Source versus Closed Source, the question of choice remains.
>> Because if good ideas are always bought up by the same companies without
>> problems - regardless of whether they want to make a profit or eliminate a
>> competitor, this restricts our options. That's a point I don't like - no
>> matter if Google, Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP or whoever buys other
>> innovative companies, in the end it results in a fight between two or three
>> companies and not only many innovative ideas are crushed, but often enough
>> also the portability between systems.
>> _______________________________________________
>> Linux-audio-user mailing list
>> Linux-audio-user at lists.linuxaudio.org
>> https://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user
>>
> --
> Christopher Obbard
> Chief Engineer
> 64 Studio Ltd.
>
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>
>
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