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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.

26 of 48 comments (clear)

  1. Weird math by freeze128 · · Score: 1

    GIT=GIT+GIT

    1. 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.
    2. Re:Weird math by tHe+sYtS · · Score: 1

      Glad to hear you're using GitLab :)

    3. 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.

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

      GIT=0

      Easy.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  2. 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
  3. 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.
  4. Re:Management speak, blah blah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Glad to hear you're liking GitLab!

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

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

  6. 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.

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

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

  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. 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
  12. 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.

  13. Re:Management speak, blah blah by Daniel+Hoffmann · · Score: 1

    GitLab has a free (hosted) edition.

  14. 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 . . ."

  15. 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.

  16. 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.
  17. 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.
  18. 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.
  19. 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.

  20. 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?