Consider gitlab for the Org

[daviddias]

We often bring up the question of "should we consider/move to Gitlab for our multiple Open Source Orgs?" and although there is always a lot of excitement, it typically fails to take off due to limited time by the Product and Focus Area Working Groups to lead it. Now we have a Project WG that can think about all of this stuff!

Gitlab UX gets better every month and it creates a single unified experience that replaces the myriad of tools we have stitched together to coordinate ourselves.

Full feature list at https://about.gitlab.com/features/

In addition to potentially give us a mega boost when it comes to coordination, it might also solve a big issue for us, CI & CD for our projects.

Gitlab's CI & CD is all the rage these days, everyone that has tried it has come up with very positive feedback and the JS Team is currently working with the Infra Team to experiment it for the project.

Usersnap has a comprehensive review comparing Gitlab to Github -- https://usersnap.com/blog/gitlab-github/

I believe that we will only know if it works well for us if we try it and I have a simple proposal to get us to start that. What if we moved the Multiformats org which is way more stable than other orgs and use that as a way to also give a energy boost of attention that will transform the current specs and implementations into proper standards and revamped communication around them? It would get everyone in the org to have a glimpse of Gitlab's potential without taking away everyone's attention from the main challenges.

I'll bring this up for the next Project WG All Hands :)

[djdv]

Pointing out the obvious benefit that an open source solution, has flexibility.
While it may or may not be practical, we'd have the option to do whatever is actually needed, without the need to convince a separate org to change something, or settle for less.
If a feature/integration is desired, it can always be implemented by someone. And in theory, would last as long as we maintain it.

Caveats being the pros and cons of self hosting and self maintenance.

[hugomrdias]

I have used gitlab a lot in the last 3 companies i have worked, all kinds of use cases. So if anyone needs insights im available, feel free to ping me and ask questions.

Just to keep in mind gitlab is awesome really but still has a really big down side, the open source community goes to github to check a project not to gitlab!!

Hybrid solutions like mirroring repos and stuff can be tried, they improved a lot the mirroring feature, but will probably have their own down sides.