Looks like gitlab now requires account verification for new accounts in addition to email. Either phone number or credit card.
This applies both to accounts created with a working email or by logging in using your github account. You can't even verify your email until you go through step 1.
I don't know when this started, but at least for the last month or two judging from these posts in the forums.
- https://forum.gitlab.com/t/how-to-create-an-account-without-telephone-number-if-an-non-activated-account-has-already-been-created-with-the-same-e-mail-address-that-demands-a-phone-number/93675/2
- https://forum.gitlab.com/t/phone-verification-sms-not-received-unable-to-login-and-register/92202
- https://forum.gitlab.com/t/how-to-create-an-account-without-telephone-number-if-an-non-activated-account-has-already-been-created-with-the-same-e-mail-address-that-demands-a-phone-number/93675/2
Fun fact: I don't even want to host on gitlab, I just wanted to report bugs in some projects. So I'm locked out.
You won't be able to contribute to a project on any of those instances, unless you register on it. So if you are a prolific contributor, you might end up signing up on dozens of those instances.
Forgefed is a federation protocol for such instances. It's based on ActivityPub - the same that powers Lemmy and Mastodon. You can have just one account on a single instance and still be able to contribute to projects on multiple others. It's still in the works though. It's expected that at least gitlab, gitea and forgejo will support it.
this is really cool, thanks for the info. federated or decentralized git is long overdue