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GitLab Acquires Gitorious

Posted by Soulskill on from the git-together dept.

New submitter sckirklan writes with news that code repository GitLab has purchased rival service Gitorious. Gitorious users are now able to import their projects into GitLab. They must do so by the end of May, because Gitorious will shut down on June 1st. Rolf Bjaanes, Gitorious CEO, gives some background on the reasons for the acquisition: “At Gitorious we saw more and more organizations adopting GitLab. Due to decreased income from on-premises customers, running the free Gitorious.org was no longer sustainable. GitLab was solving the same problem that we were, but was solving it better.” “This acquisition will accelerate the growth of GitLab. With more than 100,000 organizations using it, it is already the most used on-premise solution for Git repository management, and bringing Gitorious into the fold will significantly increase that footprint.” says Sytse Sijbrandij, GitLab CEO.

48 comments

  1. Management speak, blah blah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Technical translation: Gitorious submitted a pull request to Github, and Github accepted. Merged!

    1. Re:Management speak, blah blah by _xeno_ · · Score: 3, Interesting

      GitLab, not GitHub. GitHub is a different solution that provides pretty much the same software.

      Strangely enough the company I work for recently (like six months ago) transitioned our internal git repositories from running on Gitorious to running on GitLab. From my experience GitLab is indeed the better product.

      GitHub still seems to be better than both but I've never used that in a commercial setting.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
    2. Re:Management speak, blah blah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Glad to hear you're liking GitLab!

    3. Re:Management speak, blah blah by tHe+sYtS · · Score: 2

      Oops, didn't mean to post anonymously. I'm Sytse, the CEO of GitLab.

    4. Re:Management speak, blah blah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Github's major issue is that it's hosted. That kills it for me.

    5. Re: Management speak, blah blah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We have just switched to GitLab since mid February. It is rocking except that syntax highlighting is broken in the web editor. Viewing files has highlighting but editing does not.

      Other than that it seems superior than the other stuff we tried (SVN, Eclipse Orion+Git, etc.).

    6. Re: Management speak, blah blah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Stash is local, if bitbucket appeals to you.

    7. Re:Management speak, blah blah by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Github's hosted service is more reliable than almost every in-house source control central repository I've seen in decades of experience. The concern about the off-site risks is understandable, but for robust multi-location access, it's been much better than anything that even I could host in house.

    8. Re:Management speak, blah blah by pasamio · · Score: 2

      GitHub Enterprise edition works on premises.

      --
      I always wondered where this setting was...
    9. Re:Management speak, blah blah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You there!

      Great service. That is all.

    10. Re:Management speak, blah blah by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2

      I've been playing a bit with GOGS. It has most of the things that I like about GitHub, but can be hosted locally.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    11. Re:Management speak, blah blah by Daniel+Hoffmann · · Score: 1

      GitLab has a free (hosted) edition.

    12. Re:Management speak, blah blah by Burstaholic · · Score: 1

      Have you seen the price though? *shudder*

      GitLab is about 1/10th, for my company at least.

    13. Re:Management speak, blah blah by tibit · · Score: 1

      GitLab and GitHub are really vastly different at the most basic level: GitLab is a software product. GitHub is a service. You can't install github on your server. I'm very happy that gitorious is gone, though. It always felt clunky and second-rate, for some reason. Qt on GitLab is great news.

      --
      A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
  2. Weird math by freeze128 · · Score: 1

    GIT=GIT+GIT

    1. Re:Weird math by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      what's also weird is that it's git, and they can't handle the data migration themselves from one repository farm to another. wtf.

    2. Re:Weird math by _xeno_ · · Score: 1

      I would assume the repositories themselves could be moved. The thing is that they provide additional services beyond just hosting a git repository like issue tracking, wikis, and continuous integration support. Presumably that stuff can't be moved.

      When the company I work for moved from Gitorious to GitLab we were able to migrate the git repositories with all their history relatively painlessly. GitLab had an automated process for doing it, but due to reasons apparently the Gitorious side would randomly flake out if you tried to use that. (It had to do with ulimits or something.) However you can still just clone a git repository and push branches from it to a new remote, which is the way I ended up transitioning most of the repositories.

      The issue tracking and other features weren't an issue because we weren't using the built-in Gitorious/GitLab support in any case.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
    3. Re:Weird math by tHe+sYtS · · Score: 1

      Glad to hear you're using GitLab :)

    4. Re:Weird math by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's more to it than merely moving the repos. That part is relatively trivial.

    5. Re:Weird math by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 1

      This may be part of why gitorious is having problems. If they lack the internal know-how to arrange solid HTTP proxy forwarding, and SSH pass-through by running an SSH man-in-the-middle secured channel, well, there could be all sorts of problems they can't deal with.

    6. Re:Weird math by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      GIT=0

      Easy.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  3. I need new glasses -- by Morpeth · · Score: 1

    GiftLad acquires Clitoris. I say well done lad, well done, I'm sure she's tickled!

    --

    'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
  4. living dangerously with that name by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I did a doubletake when I read that as Gitoris.....

  5. The Glitoris by Scottingham · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I'll push and pull that glitoris all night long!

  6. gitlab is awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Use it for personal projects and its great!

  7. Misery loves company by SeaFox · · Score: 1

    “At Gitorious we saw more and more organizations adopting GitLab. Due to decreased income from on-premises customers, running the free Gitorious.org was no longer sustainable. GitLab was solving the same problem that we were, but was solving it better.”

    Sounds like two failing businesses circling the wagons.

    1. Re: Misery loves company by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Gitlab is a really nice service. I hope they won't fail, I am using them for some of my public repositories. The functionality is mostly identical to github, but they offer free private repositories.

      It would be cool, if gitlab could.improve on the issue tracking a bit. It is as.limited as githubs. Nice for small projects, but I fin. It unwieldy with nore than 50 or so open issues.

      Gitorious as indeed a horrible service and they did not improve in any way in all the time I had the misfortune of having to use them. No idea why gitlab bothered to buy them. I guess gitorious still has a couple of customers that actually pay money to host their code.

    2. Re:Misery loves company by Burstaholic · · Score: 1

      You mean, one failing as a competitor does it better and takes off like a rocket. My job uses GitLab on-premise and it's excellent. Also, Gitorious' UI has always been annoying and hard to use.

  8. GitLab Presentation by matria · · Score: 4, Informative

    GitLab presentation at the MODX Weekend last September https://video.modmore.com/modx...

  9. Profit??? by SigmundFloyd · · Score: 0

    As always, never a word on the OBVIOUS QUESTION.

    Tell me if and how these organizations make a profit or don't waste my fucking time!!!

    Stupid reporters!

    --
    Knowledge is power; knowledge shared is power lost.
    1. Re:Profit??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is an entire article out there about this very issue re. gitlab. They do make money on the enterprise edition and support contracts. Google for it.

    2. Re:Profit??? by Burstaholic · · Score: 1

      You . . . didn't even read the blurb, I guess? You should really do that before complaining.

      "Due to decreased income from on-premises customers . . ."

    3. Re:Profit??? by SigmundFloyd · · Score: 1

      I had read the whole article, in fact. How does that sentence you quoted tell me how and if the involved organizations make a profit?

      --
      Knowledge is power; knowledge shared is power lost.
    4. Re:Profit??? by Burstaholic · · Score: 1

      You mean, "profit" as opposed to "income?" On-premise customers pay them for on-premise installations and service, that's pretty straightforward. As far as 'profit,' you'd have to actually see their balance sheet, but their expenses probably aren't that high with a small team and a few servers.

  10. Gitorious? ... ok, keep KDE out of this ... by Qbertino · · Score: 1

    Gitorious? ... Please keep the KDE team from writing a client for this service or something like that.

    --
    We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
  11. And another hoster based on free software gone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Gitorious was hosting on its free software. GitLab is hosting on its proprietary version. That means that the free software GitLab version is intentionally kept crippled and unattractive in order to maintain sales of the proprietary version.

    It's better than GitHub which does not offer any software, but it's still just a spindown from what they actually use themselves.

    1. Re:And another hoster based on free software gone by Wootery · · Score: 1

      Assuming that's true: meh. It's still a whole lot better than nothing. This isn't the ideal FOSS business model, but I don't see it as something to be too bitter about.

    2. Re:And another hoster based on free software gone by tibit · · Score: 1

      Still beats the crap out of gitweb, which is the default "alternative".

      --
      A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
  12. Beware of GitLab by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you value your data you should not be using GitLab. They are known to remove repositories for no reason at all.

    1. Re:Beware of GitLab by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The only thing I found about this was the removal of a gamergate-related repo that had markdown docs with instructions on how to create throw-away gmail+tweeter accounts to tweet stuff related to gamergate.

      Which is cutting rather close to a GitLab ToS violation anyway since a lot of gamegaters where doing a massive harassment campaign. Host that kind of stuff in a wiki somewhere, not on github/lab/etc.

      Was that the removal you were talking about?

  13. What value does also-ran service have? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not getting this ... If service A is solving the problem better than service B, then what value does service B provide that service A would pay for? Especially if people were already migrating to service A without the purchase. Both service A and service B are also-rans trailing "the" name service GitHub.

  14. fate of gitorious.org after it gets decomissioned by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Glad to know you're lurking around here :-)

    Please make sure something responsible is done re. the gitorious.org after it is decomissioned. It will be dangerous as all heck if you guys let go of the domain, and whomever snatches it sets up a git proxy there to serve trojaned content. Maybe you could set up permanent redirection to the projects that migrated to gitlab.com (even the free ones, as those are used by lots of people)? Or at least a permanent landing page.

    It will take a _long_ time for every mention of gitorious.org repository URLs in documentation around the net to go away...

  15. battle of the logos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    GitLab has a lot more bells and whistles than gitorious.org. It is a lot better.

    But the gitorious.org logo was MUCH MUCH cooler. It is weird to have that lame, monochromatic fox/wolf looking at me while I am working. I rather liked gitorious.org's logo reminding us of our unified diff/patch roots...

    I don't know why that bothers me, but it does. Meh.

  16. GitLab migrating to CodeSpacium by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    For CodeSpacium will live again

  17. Gitorious? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It doesn't exist! I spent two hours on my knees with a flashlight and couldn't find it... Wait, what was that word again?

  18. Clitoris? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The guys at Gitlab are finally getting girlfriends?

  19. Er? by bobmajdakjr · · Score: 1

    Why would you agree to buy a company that everyone was leaving to go to the company you already own? Instead of just pointing and laughing at someone else's sinking ship?