Mozilla will move Firefox development from Mercurial to Microsoft’s GitHub (devclass.com)
from thehatfox@lemmy.world to programming@programming.dev on 07 Nov 2023 07:31
https://lemmy.world/post/7909606

#programming

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[deleted] on 07 Nov 2023 07:36 next collapse

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idunnololz@lemmy.world on 07 Nov 2023 08:21 next collapse

Slightly confusing title here. A less confusing title would be “Mozilla drops support for Mercurial, moves Firefox repository to GitHub”.

[deleted] on 07 Nov 2023 10:12 next collapse

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lysdexic@programming.dev on 07 Nov 2023 11:12 collapse

A less confusing title would be “Mozilla drops support for Mercurial (…)

It’s not even about GitHub at all. Taken straight out of the announcement:

“For a long time Firefox Desktop development has supported both Mercurial and Git users. This dual SCM requirement places a significant burden on teams which are already stretched thin in parts. We have made the decision to move Firefox development to Git.”

ilinamorato@lemmy.world on 07 Nov 2023 11:55 collapse

But a few lines later:

Although we’ll be hosting the repository on GitHub, our contribution workflow will remain unchanged and we will not be accepting Pull Requests at this time

So I don’t know if you meant that the focus of the change wasn’t GH or that they weren’t using GH at all, but it seems like the latter is untrue.

lysdexic@programming.dev on 07 Nov 2023 12:02 next collapse

you meant that the focus of the change wasn’t GH

They are dropping Mercurial and focusing on Git. Incidentally, they happen to host the Git project on GitHub. GitHub is used for hosting, and they don’t even use basic features such as pull requests.

Again, this is really not about GitHub at all.

sim642@lemm.ee on 07 Nov 2023 19:53 collapse

This is the crucial detail that everyone is missing.

It’s the same as with the Linux kernel GitHub mirror.

dekaf@programming.dev on 07 Nov 2023 08:32 next collapse

So, from a decentralised solution to the world’s biggest repository that actively infringes on free software by violating licenses in their co-pilot unfree program.

Decisions like these, coupled with the fact they are transparently corrupt make me see no indication that Mozilla is heading towards a better future, or contributing anything of value more than they have contributed in the past.

nottheengineer@feddit.de on 07 Nov 2023 09:20 next collapse

But what browser do we use then?

dekaf@programming.dev on 07 Nov 2023 09:33 collapse

Firefox (or its forks, depending on how much you value privacy and your needs can be met while breaking some data-collecting websites.)

I am not calling for any action in my comment, but things are not looking good for the future of Firefox.

lysdexic@programming.dev on 07 Nov 2023 11:00 collapse

So, from a decentralised solution to the world’s biggest repository

You need to check your notes. Git is decentralized, even if you host a repository somewhere.

Decisions like these (…)

As a Firefox user, these initiatives matter nothing in my decision to use Firefox. In fact, I’m glad they went this way. They need to focus on working on code instead of wasting their time with irrelevant details.

dekaf@programming.dev on 07 Nov 2023 11:39 collapse

You need to check your notes. Git is decentralized, even if you host a repository somewhere.

I am not sure if you’re wilfully ignoring my point about how centeralised GitHub is, but I’ll assume good faith:

GitHub is enshittifying everything that has to do with Git. It presents a very common pattern where nonfree software providers embrace an open standard, extend it maliciously towards a less open experience by raising capital or being acquired by a large company with massive funding then make its users trapped in many systems that make it a hard time to migrate to other places and eventually introduce anti-features and lock-in mechanisms in late stages of the software cycle.

As a Firefox user, these initiatives matter nothing in my decision to use Firefox.

You should care. As a Firefox user, you should be aware of how the funding and hiring of the people working on Firefox go. For example, most notable updates to Firefox, including Firefox Quantum, were developed in Servo, a different browser project that Mozilla completely abandoned and fired all its employees working on it, all the meanwhile in the same year the CEO gave herself a pay raise that would have paid for multiple developers to work on something proven essential to the performance and security of Firefox.

lysdexic@programming.dev on 07 Nov 2023 11:53 collapse

how centeralised GitHub

It’s a pointless and irrelevant remark. Mozilla uses Git to track work on Firefox. GitHub provides Git repositories. I can clone Firefox out of GitHub, create an account on GitLab/Bitbucket, push the code there, and GitHub does not feature as a concern at all.

What point can you possibly think you’re able to make regarding GitHub?

GitHub is enshittifying everything that has to do with Git.

Nonsense. Speaking as someone who actually hosts the same projects on GitHub and other version control providers, GitHub does not even feature as an implementation detail.

I’m starting to think you’re just trolling.

You should care.

I do my best to not waste my time with irrelevant nonsense. It’s silly to believe that the version control system you use has any influence on the quality of the software you deliver.

robinm@programming.dev on 07 Nov 2023 09:28 next collapse

Moving to git is nice but I don’t understand why they don’t self-host a gitlab instance.

Lmaydev@programming.dev on 07 Nov 2023 10:11 next collapse

Money most likely.

ck_@discuss.tchncs.de on 07 Nov 2023 10:36 collapse

I would doubt that. Github for organizations becomes rather expensive rather quickly if you want to retain some level of control, so I doubt Mozilla will opt for the minimum “free for open source” offering.

lysdexic@programming.dev on 07 Nov 2023 11:19 collapse

Github for organizations becomes rather expensive rather quickly (…)

I’m not sure if that’s relevant. GitHub’s free plan also supports GitHub organizations, and GitHub’s Team plan costs only around $4/(developer*month). You can do the math to check how many developers you’d have to register in a GitHub Team plan to match the operational expense of hiring a person to manage a self-hosted instance from 9-to-5.

lysdexic@programming.dev on 07 Nov 2023 10:57 next collapse

but I don’t understand why they don’t self-host

Why would anyone self-host a FLOSS project? Trade secrets is not a concern, nor is it barring access to the source code repository. Why would anyone waste their resources managing a service that adds no value beyond a third-party service like GitHub?

lowleveldata@programming.dev on 07 Nov 2023 11:28 next collapse

Because Microsoft will eat your ass in your sleep

lysdexic@programming.dev on 07 Nov 2023 11:44 next collapse

Because Microsoft will eat your ass in your sleep

So Microsoft has access to Firefox’s source code. So what? Isn’t the point of a FLOSS project that your source code should be made available to everyone?

Waluigis_Talking_Buttplug@lemmy.world on 07 Nov 2023 12:09 next collapse

I think they were making a joke

lysdexic@programming.dev on 07 Nov 2023 12:14 collapse

I think they were making a joke

The missing /s, coupled with some absurd comments on this thread, make it hard to tell apart the jokes from the activists.

Waluigis_Talking_Buttplug@lemmy.world on 07 Nov 2023 12:22 collapse

That’s fair, but with that said, I’m gonna eat your ass

gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works on 07 Nov 2023 12:29 collapse

Don’t threaten me with a good time

TCB13@lemmy.world on 07 Nov 2023 14:06 collapse

Mozilla allegedly stands for a bunch of stuff that is be definition incompatible with hosting code on GitHub as it is. I bet a lot of people were expecting a lot more from them and instead got this move. Well… I guess this is like unique browser ID that each installation has or the fact that it contacts a 3rd party analytics company no matter your settings - people start by complaining and eventually even say it is right. lol so much for privacy and whatnot.

lysdexic@programming.dev on 09 Nov 2023 08:11 collapse

Mozilla allegedly stands for a bunch of stuff that is be definition incompatible with hosting code on GitHub as it is.

Your statement is fundamentally wrong on many levels, including the fact that it goes against the fundamental premise of FLOSS which is that “the users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software.”

I bet a lot of people were expecting a lot more from them (…)

You only speak for yourself. You do not have a mandate to speak on behalf of anyone, including Firefox users such as myself. Keep your personal opinions as personal. You have the right to have a personal opinion, but you do not have the right to pass them off as anyone else’s.

TCB13@lemmy.world on 09 Nov 2023 12:22 collapse

Your statement is fundamentally wrong on many levels, including the fact that it goes against the fundamental premise of FLOSS which is tha

What is it in my statement that goes against that? Nothing. Just read Mozilla’s Manifesto and then tell me how hosting code on GitHub doesn’t go against Principle 2, 3, 4 and 7. Mozzila’s missing is “to ensure the Internet is a global public resource, open and accessible to all” and by pushing their code on Github they’re making it more popular, essentially perpetuating Microsoft’s dominant market position that is very likely to result in even more abuse, more ecosystems and less open solutions in the future. There’s no way to justify a company with Mozilla’s resources doing this.

lysdexic@programming.dev on 11 Nov 2023 15:18 collapse

Nothing. Just read Mozilla’s Manifesto

Your trolling skills are subpar but given this is a lazy weekend I guess I’ll bite just for the entertaining value.

Let’s go through “Principle 2, 3, 4 and 7”, shall we?

Principle 2 The internet is a global public resource that must remain open and accessible.

Making source code available through GitHub is a realization of Principle 2. You got it exactly backwards.

Principle 3 The internet must enrich the lives of individual human beings.

I don’t even know what could possess you to believe that making a software project available through GitHub would jeopardize this. Anyway.

Principle 7 Free and open source software promotes the development of the internet as a public resource.

That’s what making FLOSS projects available to the public through GitHub does. GitHub, by providing managed hosting to Mozilla to host Firefox’s project tree and making it available to the public, is unquestionably meeting this goal, both in its letter and its spirit.

You need to put some effort into finding things to be outraged about.

Kecessa@sh.itjust.works on 07 Nov 2023 12:02 collapse

Go on…

amju_wolf@pawb.social on 07 Nov 2023 13:19 collapse

Because while you do have control (and “copies”) of the source code repository, that’s not really true for the ecosystem around it - tickets, pull requests, …

If Microsoft decided to fuck you over you’d have a hard time migrating the “community” around that source code somewhere else.

Obviously depends on what features you are using, but for example losing all tickets would be problematic for any projects.

Apparently Mozilla won’t be even accepting PRs there so it doesn’t matter much.

Aux@lemmy.world on 07 Nov 2023 19:42 next collapse

What if you self host in AWS and Amazon decides to fuck you over? What if you decide to self from home and your ISP decides fuck you over? What if? So many what ifs… How do you even live in this world?

nitefox@sh.itjust.works on 08 Nov 2023 12:41 next collapse

Yeah like, wtf

amju_wolf@pawb.social on 14 Nov 2023 13:27 collapse

When you use a cloud solution (and especially one with a vendor lock in like Amazon) then yeah, you are fucked there too and I’d question why you did it in the first place.

If you have your own infrastructure - be it a server at home or whatever - then you can always just move it elsewhere, get some other ISP, whatever. There is no lock-in. Inconvenience, sure, but you can migrate elsewhere. That’s just not true about all the other things mentioned, or the friction would be much higher.

Aux@lemmy.world on 15 Nov 2023 08:01 collapse

Have you actually used anything cloud? Because there’s literally no friction to move things around. Unless you decide to use proprietary features.

amju_wolf@pawb.social on 15 Nov 2023 11:33 collapse

With AWS especially there is a shitton of proprietary stuff. Most of the friction is in knowledge however; the cloud environments differ, are configured differently, have different limitations and caveats, etc. Someone who has only ever worked with AWS will have to learn a lot of things anew if they switch. Hell there’s a reason why “AWS engineer” is a dedicated role in some companies.

Now, if you only manually set up some VMs and configure them like you would a regular server then sure, it’s easy to migrate. But when you are missing 99% of the features of the cloud environment are you actually using it?

Aux@lemmy.world on 15 Nov 2023 21:22 collapse

For me the purpose of the cloud is the ability to deploy my projects on rented infrastructure independently of the provider. Tools like Terraform and Kubernetes help with the abstraction of providers.

As for proprietary features I prefer to use open source alternatives like Supabase, which I then can deploy to any cloud and migrate between clouds if needed.

amju_wolf@pawb.social on 21 Nov 2023 12:25 collapse

Well then you aren’t probably taking advantage of most of the stuff AWS offers and is actually really good for. Which isn’t really criticism, but then I wouldn’t really call it cloud? It’s more like just infrastructure as a service.

Aux@lemmy.world on 21 Nov 2023 21:17 collapse

Infrastructure as a service is literally the definition of a cloud. Everything is just bells and whistles.

lysdexic@programming.dev on 09 Nov 2023 08:15 collapse

Because while you do have control (and “copies”) of the source code repository, that’s not really true for the ecosystem around it - tickets, pull requests, …

The announcement to drop Mercurial quite clearly states that their workflow won’t change and that GitHub pull requests are not considered a part of their workflow.

Also, that’s entirely irrelevant to start with. Either you care about software freedom and software quality, or you don’t. If you care about software freedom you care about having free and unrestricted access to FLOSS projects such as Firefox, which GitHub clearly provides. If you care about software quality you’d care about the Firefox team picking the absolute best tools for the job that they themselves picked.

amju_wolf@pawb.social on 07 Nov 2023 13:19 next collapse

Or, you know, Gitea or such.

SomeRandomWords@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 07 Nov 2023 17:02 collapse

I keep hearing people only on Lemmy bring up Gitea but I haven’t really heard of it otherwise. What’s the appeal and what’s keeping it locked away with the Lemmy community?

knopwob@programming.dev on 07 Nov 2023 13:29 collapse

Imho the main argument for github is that it lowers the hurdle for new ane ad-hoc contributions like issues. I’m problably too lazy to registsr a new account for your instance just to open a bug report.

I’d love a federated git/issue/wiki thing

SomeRandomWords@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 07 Nov 2023 14:00 next collapse

Are they moving issues or just code storage to GitHub?

allywilson@sopuli.xyz on 07 Nov 2023 15:36 collapse

Code storage. They’re keeping bugzilla.

ericjmorey@programming.dev on 07 Nov 2023 16:06 collapse

💀

xoggy@programming.dev on 07 Nov 2023 14:43 next collapse

In my opinion that sounds like a plus. People that are too lazy to register an account to put in a code merge request or report a bug aren’t going to be writing quality code or quality bug reports.

jack@monero.town on 07 Nov 2023 14:53 next collapse

Yes but knowing of a bug is better than not knowing of a bug

xoggy@programming.dev on 08 Nov 2023 04:04 collapse

Working in a busy codebase for a long time when I have to spend time a non-trivial amount of time triaging through tickets I can’t reproduce that is taking time away from legitimate bug and request tickets I can be working on. It can seriously lead to burnout.

jack@monero.town on 08 Nov 2023 18:05 collapse

You don’t have to fix every issue, there are also other volunteers who might look at it.

If the reproducible instructions aren’t clear enough or are missing, just ask for more info. If they can’t deliver on that, close it or just move on and other people might take care of it

dragnet@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 07 Nov 2023 19:47 collapse

Speak for yourself, I’ve been prepared to submit detailed bug reports before the process in place to do so turned me off.

xoggy@programming.dev on 08 Nov 2023 04:05 collapse

I did speak for myself. I said “In my opinion”.

onlinepersona@programming.dev on 07 Nov 2023 17:09 next collapse

It wouldn’t make it more difficult than with mercurial, which isn’t supported by github either.

ericjmorey@programming.dev on 08 Nov 2023 11:10 next collapse

They’re going to continue using Bugzilla for bug reports.

lemmyvore@feddit.nl on 15 Nov 2023 19:11 collapse

GitHub will just serve as code mirror. Patches and bugs will still go through Mozilla’s usually channels.

ericjmorey@programming.dev on 07 Nov 2023 16:11 next collapse

Using and financially contributing to Codberg seems like a good next step to take. Doubt they will though.

onlinepersona@programming.dev on 07 Nov 2023 17:11 next collapse

The repository will be hosted on GitHub, though the move is expected to take “at least six months before the migration begins.”

Another major opensource project that chooses a proprietary hosting platform 🤷

Sigmatics@lemmy.ca on 07 Nov 2023 20:09 next collapse

Let’s be honest here, at least like 98% of the popular OSS is on GitHub at this point. You don’t have to like it, but it’s how things are

onlinepersona@programming.dev on 07 Nov 2023 20:29 next collapse

Doesn’t mean that they have to continue putting stuff there. But oh well, maybe once ForgeFed becomes a real thing, things might change a little.

Sigmatics@lemmy.ca on 07 Nov 2023 22:01 next collapse

It does. OSS needs visibility, it needs contributions

GitHub’s community and discoverability features really help with that, as much as it sucks that they got acquired by Microsoft

philm@programming.dev on 07 Nov 2023 22:03 collapse

People use the most convenient way to collaborate, and that’s for me currently Github. Really hope, some day a better alternative with ForgeFed becomes reality.

PoY@lemmygrad.ml on 08 Nov 2023 08:39 collapse

Open source was M$’ archenemy that they knew they couldn’t compete against. So they slithered in and co-opted it and everyone just ignores the perils and carries on.

technom@programming.dev on 09 Nov 2023 07:15 collapse

Not to mention the fact that they trained copilot using code on it, without informing or taking permission from the authors and they justify it citing fair use policy.

lemmyvore@feddit.nl on 15 Nov 2023 19:13 collapse

GitHub is just serving as public code mirror, it’s not going to be their hosting platform.

fzz@programming.dev on 07 Nov 2023 18:56 next collapse

Ah! 😣 Why not nest or self-hosted pijul!?

IAm_A_Complete_Idiot@sh.itjust.works on 08 Nov 2023 06:06 next collapse

It’s not battle tested on massive projects nor does it have the prior mindshare git has. It doesn’t have a lot of tooling either. (Does any CI/CD system support pijul?) It has nice properties, but ultimately git with all it’s terrible warts is well understood.

fzz@programming.dev on 08 Nov 2023 14:22 next collapse

CI/CD

Pijul as git or hg or any other is a VCS, so what are you talking about? If you mean web-service like GitHub with social things and CI/CD services, so yes, nest have CI/CD with nix. But mostly you shouldn’t host your huge project on the Nest because, as I’m absolutely sure, you as anyone other should create your own host (public or private) to support decentralization to prevent github-like centralization situation. Pijul was created with decentralization in first place in mind.

Not tested with big projects in production

Not publicly. Many private projects, personal and in-company, that uses pijul are existing. Personally I have one HUGE personal. Also I worked for two companies where pijul is used.

fzz@programming.dev on 08 Nov 2023 14:28 collapse

Seems to my mistake. You question is about CI/CD services that supports Pijul. So yes, almost zero. But it’s like ouroboros. Just use pijul more then git and talk about it, and services will support it soon.

technom@programming.dev on 09 Nov 2023 07:13 collapse

Neither has reached 1.0. They’re perpetually unstable.

mr_satan@monyet.cc on 08 Nov 2023 19:41 next collapse

Chromium has a mirror on GitHub and it’s fine. While it feels a little strange to have just one mirror (on GitHub), after moving to git entirely, nobody is stopping to them from hosting a GitLab mirror.

ActionHank@sopuli.xyz on 13 Nov 2023 07:04 collapse

Cool now I can actually check it out. Tried to previously but my connection failed about an hour into the clone. --depth=1 --shallow-submodules --recurse-submodules should really be given its own command in git. Not really sure why’d they choose MS as their host though.