On Mon, Nov 29, 2021 at 7:06 PM Michael Catanzaro <mcatanzaro@gnome.org> wrote:
>
> Hi, I have a question for the FESCo and Council candidates: do you
> support allowing Fedora src-git repositories to be hosted on
> gitlab.com, which a proprietary software git forge?
>
> Fedora Council has already effectively stated that dist-git
> infrastructure must remain open source, but has no such promises for
> src-git. I understand Council has previously stated that Fedora
> infrastructure should depend on proprietary software only if no open
> source alternative is suitable. Do you believe that there exist no open
> source git forges that would be suitable for Fedora src-git?
>
> The most obvious open source alternative would be the open source
> version of GitLab. There is also Pagure. I think we're giving up on
> open source infrastructure rather quickly here. I'd like to know what
> the candidates think before voting.
>
> Context:
> https://pagure.io/fedora-source-git/sig/issue/1
> https://communityblog.fedoraproject.org/fedora-council-and-the-git-forge/

Well, it's too late to have this as an official question on the
interview, but it doesn't hurt to ask.
I actually briefly mentioned this topic in my last interview for
FESCo, one year ago (last paragraph, the "open question"):
https://communityblog.fedoraproject.org/fesco-election-interview-with-fabio-valentini-decathorpe-4/

And since nothing has happened in this space, and my opinion has not
changed, I didn't want to just provide the same answer in this year's
interview again, but I can reiterate my opinion here, with a freshly
typed version:

I think switching from a well-integrated, fully open-source solution
(pagure + pagure-dist-git) that was developed under the Fedora Project
umbrella to a proprietary solution from a vendor with an "open core"
business model is a bad idea, sends the wrong message to the FOSS
community, and should be avoided, if at all possible. Philosophical
issues aside, I also fear that switching out the "forge" would mean
losing integration with other Fedora services again. Some features
were lost when pkgdb2 was retired, but almost everything is now
available again in the pagure/pagure-dist-git UI or other places, and
switching to GitLab would mean reimplementing all those integrations
from scratch, using the GitLab API - and if I remember correctly, at
least some of the necessary features or APIs are only available in the
proprietary "Ultimate" tier of GitLab - which means either losing
features, or giving up on a FOSS solution, and neither should be
acceptable.

TL;DR: I do not support switching to proprietary software, especially
if there's already a well-integrated FOSS alternative deployed to
production.

I'm pretty sure I'm also "on the record" with that opinion since the
pagure / GitLab issue originally come up over a year ago, in both
mailing list archives and FESCo votes associated with this issue. :)

Fabio
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