this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2023
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GitLab plans support for ActivityPub (gitlab.com)
submitted 1 year ago by mr_MADAFAKA@lemmy.ml to c/fediverse@lemmy.ml
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/3802741

Several years in the making, GitLab is now very actively implementing ActivityPub! 🙌

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 instance’s repo, without having to sign up there.

For starters this will be GitLab-specific, but that’s already huge for self-hosters of GitLab who currently don’t benefit from the internal interop of the GitLab.com network.

First bite-sized todo on the implementation path there is ‘subscribe to project releases’. 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 they’re getting a distributed version of GitHub’s social layer.

Hugely impactful as a way around GitHub’s 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 I’ve 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 that’s actually preferable over GitHub’s proprietary follow list.

Cross-posted to Mastodon: https://writing.exchange/@erlend/110949168258462158

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[–] 0x1C3B00DA@lemmy.ml 51 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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 it'll 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. There's been a lot of talk from various organizations/companies but this will be the first large project adopting AP. I'm interested to see how development goes for them and for other fediverse projects.

I wonder what changes it will force on Mastodon. Masto won't be the biggest project anymore and won't 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.

[–] miniu@beehaw.org 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Didn't think of it this way. It would be cool if we weren't stuck with microsoft github for coding social network.

[–] Cube6392@beehaw.org 10 points 1 year ago

Yeah I've been trying to find good alternatives to github for "where open source should happen" 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 can't 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

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 42 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

[–] GammaGames@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago

Nice, didn’t know that Gitea was working on something similar!

[–] OneRedFox@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago

Oh wow, I didn't 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.

[–] CalcProgrammer1@lemmy.ml 18 points 1 year ago

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 "we've severely nerfed our offerings for open source projects". 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 won't need accounts there to contribute.

[–] Notnotmike@beehaw.org 14 points 1 year ago

Really interesting, it's an application I didn't see coming. Definitely will be looking into this, and hopefully it spurs GitHub to do the same as well

[–] thelastknowngod@lemm.ee 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah interesting idea. I can see it being useful for private enterprise implementations of gitlab to contribute to upstream projects.. I don't think it's possible to fork a public github.com repo to a self hosted github enterprise instance but it's been a while since I've run that and I don't 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.

[–] keefshape@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago

Sure it is. Copy the repo, re-init, publish as a new project. Forked.

It's all git, after all. You init a new repo, its a new project under all eyes but perhaps copyright.

[–] Atemu@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 year ago

I thought it'd be issue/MR discussions because that'd be a fairly obvious application of AP but it's 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.

[–] keefshape@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 year ago

Well shit. Way to surprise in a good way, for the first time in a long-time, GitLab. Welcome back.

[–] BurningnnTree@lemmy.one 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

As someone who hasn't 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 don't 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?

[–] smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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 don't want to have multiple accounts for multiple forges.

[–] sabreW4K3@lemmy.tf 4 points 1 year ago

This is huge and excellent news. I can't wait to welcome all of the gitlab users to our beautiful fediverse.

[–] Blaze@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 1 year ago

Great news!

[–] RobotToaster@infosec.pub -5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Isn't gitlab one of those shitty "open" core projects?

[–] andrew@lemmy.stuart.fun 9 points 1 year ago

The core is MIT licensed. It's open core but the core is extensively open and certainly not shitty.