📑 RFC: Move quick-lint to GitLab

[vegerot]

The SFConservancy has recently sent out a memo advising developers to “Give Up GitHub” over non-free practices.

quick-lint(’s creator) — not wanting to be left behind on any trends 😎— has decided to consider moving to a Free platform. The current contender as a replacement is GitLab

Pros:

• Free[^1]
• Debatably better code viewing
• Better tooling
• GitLab CI > GitHub Actions (objectively)

Cons:

• Community
• must migrate GitHub Actions test suit to GitLab CI (even though GitLab CI is non-debatably better)
• loss of sponsors

quick-lint is a community project. Another core feature of quick-lint is how it brings in new developers to mentor them into better developers (such as through our hiring program). While GitLab may be freer and better, the fact is most devs are on GitHub. We shouldn’t underestimate the impact of such a migration

[^1]: Technically only the self-hosted version is free because of GitLab’s proprietary hosting

[vegerot]

Other alternatives:

• Gitea 👎: no CI. Could use Gitea with GitLab CI

[vegerot]

We can vote by reacting

👍: GitLab 👎: GitHub 😁: Other 😕: I don’t have an opinion but I think reacting to posts is fun

[strager]

The current contender as a replacement is GitLab.org

No. GitLab.org is proprietary in the same way that GitHub is proprietary. I know you point this out in the footnote, but it's worth emphasizing.

[vegerot]

I updated the message to remove specifically mentioning GitLab.org

[vegerot]

On a related note: the community issues I pointed out are only exacerbated by using a self-hosted instance of GitLab

Many devs already have a GitLab account, and if not it's easy enough to make one (you can even sign in with GitHub in one click)

[strager]

GitHub services we currently use:

• Git storage
• Git UI
• issues
• pull requests
• CI
• analytics
• Linux CI workers
• macOS CI workers
• Windows CI workers
• Docker image hosting
• Dependabot security checks

I think self-hosted GitLab provides all of these services except the CI workers, Dependabot, and maybe Docker image hosting.

[vegerot]

Are you referring to the free or paid self-hosted GitLab?

The AF used GitLab's container registry and managed updates through Renovate.

If you're self-hosting, you can use whatever workers you physically own. How would self-hosted GitLab "provide" you with any workers?

[strager]

Are you referring to the free or paid self-hosted GitLab?

GitLab CE.

How would self-hosted GitLab "provide" you with any workers?

It doesn't, and I didn't claim it would. I claimed the opposite in fact.

If you're self-hosting, you can use whatever workers you physically own.

I know. And I can rent or buy more if needed.

[vegerot]

Gotcha. That wasn't a rhetorical question. I was worried I didn't understand what you meant. But sounds like we're on the same page 👍🏿

[vegerot]

Since quick-lint is a community project, you should create a botnet of CI runners from your viewers

[strager]

quick-lint-js is not a community project.

[vegerot]

quick-lint-js is not a community project.

What even is a community project? I always hear “community project” on repos that encourage contributions from its users

[vegerot]

Nice. I was just about to leave a comment about https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/github/