March 2015 Summaries

Google announced the closure of its Google Code project hosting service, citing issues of spam and abuse, as well as the overwhelming user preference for GitHub, which now boasts around 9 million users. Despite this, Google's Chris DiBona believes the open-source community is not limited to GitHub, suggesting GitLab as a viable alternative. GitLab, founded in 2011, offers an open-source, community-based platform with a growing team of contributors. The closure of Google Code is seen as part of a broader trend of Google abandoning projects that do not align with its goal of reaching massive user markets for advertising revenue. GitLab envisions a future where version control principles pioneered by developers are applied across various fields like book authoring and law reviewing, inviting artists, authors, and other professionals to utilize their platform for collaboration and versioning.

GitLab has introduced Amazon Web Services Machine Images (AMIs) for GitLab Community Edition (CE), simplifying the process of setting up a GitLab instance on AWS with just a single command. By creating an instance from the provided AMI and executing the command "sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure," users can quickly get their GitLab instance up and running at their designated hostname. The AMI includes the same GitLab CE Omnibus package that is released, ensuring straightforward upgrading and maintenance. This approach mirrors how GitLab.com is operated on AWS, providing a seamless and efficient deployment experience for users.

GitLab B.V.'s infrastructure upgrade involved migrating gitlab.com from dedicated hardware to AWS while overcoming significant challenges, notably transferring a 9TB filesystem with minimal downtime. The migration utilized DRBD for real-time data synchronization, allowing continued service availability. DRBD's virtual hard drive system, previously used to safeguard against hardware failure, was repurposed for the move, enabling continuous data updates without disrupting service. Initial attempts at data transfer were slow, prompting a switch to 'truck-based replication,' a method that involved taking a snapshot and manually transporting the data over the network. This approach, combined with DRBD's metadata export/import features, ultimately allowed the migration to complete successfully in three weeks, with only 20 minutes of total downtime. Upon completion, the transition to AWS resulted in improved responsiveness for gitlab.com, highlighting the effectiveness of the migration strategy despite its complexities and the operational risks involved.

In 2015, the company GitLab joined Y Combinator's winter batch, despite already having 10 employees and numerous paying clients, to gain insights and mentorship on scaling their business effectively. Y Combinator, known for nurturing successful startups like Dropbox, Airbnb, Stripe, and Reddit, offers extensive networking opportunities and expert-led events to help participants navigate the challenges of rapid growth. The GitLab team temporarily relocated to Mountain View to immerse themselves in the Silicon Valley ecosystem, strengthening team dynamics and engaging with larger clients. While most of the team will continue working remotely, GitLab plans to expand its workforce by hiring for inside-sales and director of sales positions in San Francisco. The experience at Y Combinator is expected to enhance GitLab's product and service offerings, reinforcing their dedication to delivering a superior open-source product.

GitLab and Gitorious have announced a merger to enhance GitLab's open-source Git management application and improve user experience for Gitorious customers. Gitorious, a pioneer in open-source Git management since 2008, is integrating with GitLab due to diminishing revenue from on-premises customers and growing adoption of GitLab. GitLab provides a comprehensive platform with features like Git repository management, code reviews, issue tracking, and continuous integration, making it a straightforward upgrade for Gitorious users. The merger is expected to boost GitLab's growth, already the most used on-premises Git management solution by over 100,000 organizations. Gitorious.org users can migrate their projects to GitLab.com, with the website remaining online until May 2015 to facilitate this transition. Both companies believe the merger will benefit their respective communities by combining their strengths to create superior open-source software for code collaboration.