[Tails-project] Call for feedback: *test* migration to GitLa…

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Author: intrigeri
Date:  
To: Public mailing list about the Tails project, The Tails public development discussion list
Subject: [Tails-project] Call for feedback: *test* migration to GitLab
Hi,

we have completed a *test* migration to GitLab:

    https://gitlab.tails.boum.org


Please play with that GitLab instance and give us feedback.

The workflow to contribute to Tails remains unchanged until we do the *final*
migration to GitLab: everything you do on GitLab will be lost at some point.

What was migrated
=================

We have migrated:

- all information from Redmine, such as issues, milestones, and user accounts

- a few of our public Git repositories

How to test
===========

To test our upcoming GitLab workflow:

1. Activate your GitLab user account

Follow the "Activate your GitLab user account" section in
https://salsa.debian.org/tails-team/tails/-/blob/feature/15878-gitlab/wiki/src/contribute/working_together/GitLab/transition.mdwn#L8

2. Skim over the main GitLab documentation page

https://salsa.debian.org/tails-team/tails/-/blob/feature/15878-gitlab/wiki/src/contribute/working_together/GitLab.mdwn

3. Take a look at other pages that have changes significantly

    - https://salsa.debian.org/tails-team/tails/-/blob/feature/15878-gitlab/wiki/src/contribute/git.mdwn
    - pages under
      https://salsa.debian.org/tails-team/tails/-/tree/feature/15878-gitlab/wiki/src/contribute/merge_policy



This documentation has 2 problems that may make it hard for you to use it:

- It assumes that the migration to GitLab was completed *for real*.

For example, it instructs you to switch your Git remote URLs,
which you should *not* do right now.

- It is only available in Markdown, so for example links are not
rendered.

It could be more pleasant for you, and would allow you to give us
better feedback, if you could build and read that doc locally: it's
in the feature/15878-gitlab branch. It's OK if you don't do that.

How to give feedback and report problems
========================================

There are most certainly some rough edges and bugs.
I will gather your feedback and prioritize the next steps.

So, for now:

- If you experience problems or want to give feedback,
please email <tails-dev@???>.

- For security issues, please instead email <tails-sysadmins@???>.

Before you report problems, please read about the known problems below :)

One question for you
====================

We have added you as a "participant" to every GitLab issue that you were
watching on Redmine.

On Redmine, there was a way to get a list of the issues you were watching.
At the moment, there's no equivalent feature on our GitLab.
Does this break your workflow?

If it does, this could go on the list of things we'll try to fix.

Known problems that are side-effects of this partial migration
==============================================================

The final migration will not have these problems.

Many projects are misconfigured
-------------------------------

For example:

- Their Git repository is missing.
- They are private while they should be public.
- They have the issues, snippets, and wiki features enabled, while they
should not.

This will be fixed as part of the final migration.

Details: in order to fully apply our GitLab config, we need to the corresponding
Git repositories to GitLab. I've only done this for a handful of repositories,
which I believe should be enough to allow you to give useful feedback :)

Some placeholder issues are missing in the tails/tails project
--------------------------------------------------------------

For every issue that was migrated to a project that's not tails/tails,
we normally have a placeholder issue under tails/tails, that redirects
to the new location of the issue.

Some of these placeholder issues ("stub issue") are missing in the
tails/tails project.

This affects:

- some accounting, fundraising, and sysadmin issues → they are respectively in
the tails/accounting, tails/fundraising, and tails/sysadmin projects

- some private issues → they are in the tails/private project

Email notifications are disabled
--------------------------------

In order to avoid spamming innocent bystanders with confusing messages, GitLab
email notifications are disabled.

Issues assigned to groups are not tracked optimally
---------------------------------------------------

The sysadmin team has been experimenting with issues assigned to the "Sysadmins"
Redmine group. These issues are now assigned to the "Sysadmins" GitLab user,
which does not provide the same behavior as before. The sysadmin team will need
to figure out how they want to adjust their workflow to GitLab.

Sign-up is disabled
-------------------

For now, creating new users on GitLab is disabled.

Known problems that we don't plan to fix
========================================

We determined that the cost of fixing these problems outweighs the benefits.

Authorship of some past actions is incorrect
--------------------------------------------

For example, GitLab displays incorrect information about who closed
issues on Redmine. To see the correct information, visit the
static archive of Redmine.

Known limitations that come with GitLab
=======================================

- There's no way to view an non-image attachment without downloading it first.
- The web UI may suggest to "upgrade" to a non-Free Software version of GitLab.

Thanks in advance,
--
intrigeri