[HN Gopher] Gitly: A light and fast GitHub/GitLab alternative wr...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Gitly: A light and fast GitHub/GitLab alternative written in V lang
       (pre-alpha)
        
       Author : open-source-ux
       Score  : 104 points
       Date   : 2021-08-04 15:16 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (gitly.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (gitly.org)
        
       | andrew-ld wrote:
       | scam
        
       | lbotos wrote:
       | Unfortunately this will probably run afoul of Git's trademark:
       | 
       | "In addition, you may not use any of the Marks as a syllable in a
       | new word or as part of a portmanteau (e.g., "Gitalicious",
       | "Gitpedia") used as a mark for a third-party product or service
       | without Conservancy's written permission. For the avoidance of
       | doubt, this provision applies even to third-party marks that use
       | the Marks as a syllable or as part of a portmanteau to refer to a
       | product or service's use of Git code."
       | 
       | How enforceable that is... I'm not a lawyer.
       | 
       | https://git-scm.com/about/trademark (section 2.3)
        
         | edgyquant wrote:
         | How do gitlab, github, gitea, etc get away with it then?
        
           | orra wrote:
           | GitLab and GitHub predate the trademark, and were explicitly
           | granted an exception when the trademark was approved.
        
           | john_cogs wrote:
           | GitLab team member here.
           | 
           | Git is a trademark of Software Freedom Conservancy and our
           | use of 'GitLab' is under license.
        
         | soperj wrote:
         | Could they keep the same domain and change the name to
         | gitly.org?
        
         | aorth wrote:
         | Strange. What about GitLab and Gitea? And probably others.
        
           | abdusco wrote:
           | In the case of Gitea, an argument could be made that it's
           | actually `gi*tea`, not `git*ea` :)
        
             | GoblinSlayer wrote:
             | Gitea is a portmanteau, which is explicitly covered.
        
             | vlovich123 wrote:
             | Not how trademark law is argued I think. Mike Roe Software
             | (mikeroesoft) had a similar challenge. Trademark law is
             | kind of inane but what are you going to do.
        
         | rvz wrote:
         | So I should be seeing incoming lawsuits for GitLab (Who also
         | acquired Gitorious and Gitter) GitHub, Gitea, GitKraken,
         | Gitcoin, Gitpod, GitSense and a VSCode tool called GitLens?
         | 
         | Why haven't they happened yet?
         | 
         | Downvoters: So you have ALL sources to your claims that these
         | aforementioned Git-related services have the necessary
         | permissions to use the Git trademark from the Software Freedom
         | Conservancy?
         | 
         | I don't want 'probablys' or 'maybes' but full sources to ALL
         | these services that explicitly show the permission granted for
         | using the Git trademark under license.
         | 
         | GitLab is covered. Evidence for the rest?
        
           | ezfe wrote:
           | They almost certainly have permission to use the phrases that
           | way.
        
             | rvz wrote:
             | One simple question:
             | 
             | Do you have evidence of this 'permission' on all of them
             | excluding GitLab? Any sources?
        
           | shakna wrote:
           | They're used under license. [0][1]
           | 
           | > Git is a trademark of Software Freedom Conservancy and our
           | use of 'GitLab' is under license
           | 
           | [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28062305
           | 
           | [1] https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/corporate-
           | market...
        
           | sdesol wrote:
           | You can add my startup GitSense as well
           | 
           | https://public-001.gitsense.com/insights/github/repos?q=wind.
           | ..
           | 
           | The thing is, from what I've read, if you were using Git<plus
           | something> before Git started cracking down, they will let it
           | slide. I also think they don't care until you hit it big and
           | cause issues for them.
        
         | dr_kiszonka wrote:
         | It would be a stretch but git has another meaning, which some
         | find consistent with their perception of SWEs ;)
         | 
         | https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/git
        
           | ketralnis wrote:
           | So does Apple but you'd have a hard time defending your Apple
           | Phone in court on that basis
        
         | GoblinSlayer wrote:
         | EcmaScript all over again. As I understand, letter reversal
         | doesn't count?
        
         | dragonwriter wrote:
         | Unless someone has agreed to a contract binding them to the Git
         | trademark policy, the policy would seem to serve as nothing but
         | a statement as to the Conservancy's preferences (except where
         | it explicitly permits something, where it may constitute a
         | gratuitous license); what is enforceable is trademark law.
         | 
         | But, for a git-related service offered in commercial trade,
         | there would seem likely to be a trademark violation independent
         | of the policy, so the Conservancy is probably within their
         | rights to enforce the policy in this case.
        
       | shrubble wrote:
       | One thing that is positive is that writing an application in a
       | new language is a 'rubber meets the road' situation where the
       | language is being tested in the real world.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | tiffanyh wrote:
       | > " Works without JS"
       | 
       | > " Open source"
       | 
       | > " Minimum RAM needed is only 128 MB"
       | 
       | Curious to see how this compares to @drewdevault great
       | Sourcehut.org alternative and to get his take on Gitly
       | 
       | For performance comparison, maybe Drew will add Gitly to
       | https://forgeperf.org/
        
       | encryptluks2 wrote:
       | I like the approach that sourcehut took overall. I would like to
       | find a way to implement issue tracking into Git, but the mailing
       | list approach isn't a bad idea.
        
         | q3k wrote:
         | > I would like to find a way to implement issue tracking into
         | Git
         | 
         | Maybe git-bug would work for you?
         | https://github.com/MichaelMure/git-bug
        
           | encryptluks2 wrote:
           | Thank you. I am interested, but am concerned by this
           | statement:
           | 
           | > This is now more than a proof of concept, but still not
           | fully stable. Expect dragons and unfinished business
        
             | q3k wrote:
             | That's something you should ask the git-bug authors, I
             | vaguely remember some being on this very website.
             | 
             | FWIW I don't even use git-bug, I just know it exists :).
        
             | michaelmure wrote:
             | git-bug author here.
             | 
             | It's still not v1 where there would be some sort of
             | backward compatibility guarantee, but it's close if you are
             | using master. Note though that even without that guarantee,
             | there is git-bug-migration to provide you some safety.
             | 
             | There is however some bugs and missing features, as in any
             | software that young with an author busy buying/refurbishing
             | an apartment ;)
        
         | throwaway889900 wrote:
         | Isn't that what Fossil does? https://www.fossil-scm.org/
        
           | analognoise wrote:
           | Fossil does all kinds of awesome stuff out of the box, I
           | remember looking at it and being blown away.
        
           | encryptluks2 wrote:
           | Yes, but I honestly hate the idea of having to learn yet
           | another SCM. I may reconsider at some point though,
           | especially if more implementations emerge.
        
             | GoblinSlayer wrote:
             | First time I hear about it. What alternative
             | implementations git has?
        
         | algorithm314 wrote:
         | Or https://github.com/dspinellis/git-issue
        
       | 7357 wrote:
       | Can what this guy is doing be done without making mistakes? Is
       | this thread not good publicity? Does crazy_horse not sound
       | pathetic and amedvednikov comparatively heroic? Could we not
       | dream a little, please?
        
         | maleldil wrote:
         | amedvednikov only sounds heroic if this is first time you've
         | heard about him or the criticisms towards him over the years.
         | 
         | To those who've heard of him before, he's just a conman.
         | 
         | Make no mistake, this is just one of his many "ambitious"
         | projects that he creates for publicity and then abandons after
         | a while. Again, this isn't the first time he does this. He
         | promises the world and under-delivers.
        
           | terafo wrote:
           | Can you give few examples?
        
       | Wowfunhappy wrote:
       | Wow--they weren't kidding when they said fast! It's interesting
       | how I've been conditioned to expect delays on websites--so when I
       | come across something like this which loads seemingly-instantly,
       | it's super noticeable!
        
       | svnpenn wrote:
       | Please add "contributions in the last year", thats the one thing
       | keeping me from using GitLab:
       | 
       | https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/22578
        
       | Garlef wrote:
       | Any documentation on the CI/CD features?
        
       | algorithm314 wrote:
       | Don't like that it tries to mimic Github UI.
        
         | lights0123 wrote:
         | What would you do instead? They popularized that interface, and
         | I think it's very usable.
        
       | kvark wrote:
       | Looks like V author/community is on the track to rewrite the
       | world. Expect operating system stuff next? I'm shocked by how
       | quickly it goes along, though. Gitly is quite usable already, and
       | I appreciate the swiftness. I'd think that Rust community is
       | rewriting the world, but it's happening at much slower pace. Is
       | V's basis strong enough to do this? Seeing the issues like [1]
       | (about the basic memory management stuff) open makes me
       | suspicious.
       | 
       | [1] https://github.com/vlang/v/issues/6456
        
         | penagwin wrote:
         | Already beat you to it https://github.com/vlang/vinix
        
         | crazy_horse wrote:
         | Could someone explain to me why, after seeing how many
         | exaggerated claims the author has made, they have invested
         | their time into building up a community around it?
         | 
         | I'd be straight up terrified to trust anything serious with
         | this guy's work.
         | 
         | In this instance, the demo won't even load for me and the
         | documentation page can't be bothered to put the most basic of
         | padding in it. Why even release publicly?
         | 
         | Promises, promises.
        
           | TeddyDD wrote:
           | Medvednikov seems to be good at marketing -\\_(tsu)_/-
           | 
           | Given the over-prommise-under-deliver launch of V, it boggles
           | my mind that it gained so much traction on GH.
        
           | machiaweliczny wrote:
           | Same could be said about Elon Musk but he might become first
           | trillionere. Sometimes you have to try bold stuff. I'm
           | rooting for them.
        
           | amedvednikov wrote:
           | You create a new account to spam the thread with accusations,
           | and links to biased articles (see my comment above).
           | 
           | Any actual valid examples of exaggerated claims?
           | 
           | > and the documentation page can't be bothered to put the
           | most basic of padding in it. Why even release publicly?
           | 
           | Well it hasn't been released. It's pre-alpha software, like
           | the GitHub page says. Why would I not have it up for testing?
        
             | crazy_horse wrote:
             | > You create a new account to spam the thread with
             | accusations, and links to biased articles (see my comment
             | above).
             | 
             | If you'd just look at my comment history, it's obvious this
             | isn't the case.
             | 
             | I don't understand, if it is this unready, why not test it
             | locally?
        
           | nemo1618 wrote:
           | I confess that I've found it both enraging and depressing to
           | see that the "bootstrapped-by-hype" model works even in
           | _programming language development_ , which I had (naively, I
           | guess) assumed would be more immune to that sort of thing. I
           | suppose the field is composed of fallible humans just like
           | any other.
        
             | jstimpfle wrote:
             | Having tried out a bunch of different things without clear
             | reward, it feels more like programming languages is 90%
             | hype / fashion.
        
             | GoblinSlayer wrote:
             | You can't even imagine, just wait until you run across C++.
        
           | andrewnc wrote:
           | My honest opinion (as someone with no dog in this fight) is
           | that the author was naive and really bad at PR, but is
           | improving overtime.
           | 
           | I generally encourage new programming language efforts, so
           | I'm willing to be more generous with forgiveness in the hopes
           | that this succeeds.
        
             | osmarks wrote:
             | They made hugely exaggerated/false claims while raking in
             | lots of Patreon money.
        
             | jstimpfle wrote:
             | It's not even a question of "how bad". There was way too
             | much PR given how immature the project was, at least at the
             | time. I don't think the author had had a lot of experience
             | as a language designer / compiler implementer when the
             | project was started. One advertised feature of the compiler
             | was its supposed simplicity, such as getting along without
             | an AST. I doubt this was a good choice and I think they
             | ended up adding one in.
             | 
             | In my perception it was mostly sold as a piece of
             | engineering by PR like this (quote from OP): Cheapest
             | server $160 $20 $3.50 [2]
        
         | k__ wrote:
         | People are always talking about the 10x engineer. Nobody
         | imagined that someone would invent the 10x programming
         | language.
        
       | sparaker wrote:
       | Sign in takes you to a 404 Github OAuth
        
       | adamrezich wrote:
       | anyone here keep up with V and can give a quick rundown of how
       | development of the language has been going? I used to keep up
       | with it out of curiosity but haven't checked in in awhile.
        
       | lazypenguin wrote:
       | V and it's creator get a lot of flack here on HN and the
       | criticisms are probably warranted. However, I personally enjoy
       | seeing them out here hustling and really trying to make their
       | language succeed despite all the shortcomings. As someone who
       | skews more apathetic, I enjoy seeing people driven by so much
       | passion.
       | 
       | Now, it's time for me to be one of those critics! It's easy to
       | promote the speed and size of your github alternative when it has
       | a fraction of the features. I'll be curious to see where this
       | goes and I think it has some value but only as a way to dogfood V
       | itself.
        
         | junon wrote:
         | Can you perhaps link to some of said criticism? I'd be
         | interested to read it.
        
           | kangalioo wrote:
           | Here is a nice mini series of blog posts about V
           | https://christine.website/blog/series/v
        
             | rozab wrote:
             | The best bit is this excerpt from the standard library
             | (2019):                 fn download_file(url, out string) {
             | // println('\nDOWNLOAD FILE $out url=$url')           // -L
             | follow redirects           // println('curl -L -o "$out"
             | "$url"')           os.system2('curl -s -L -o "$out"
             | "$url"')           // res := os.system('curl -s -L -o
             | "$out" "$url"')           // println(res)       }
             | 
             | Here's what that file looks like today: https://github.com/
             | vlang/v/blob/master/vlib/net/http/downloa...
        
               | amedvednikov wrote:
               | No, this file is no longer used.
               | 
               | We have a fully working net module:
               | 
               | https://github.com/vlang/v/tree/master/vlib/net/http
        
               | pwdisswordfish8 wrote:
               | In that case, you ought to be mocked for making a mess of
               | the repository by keeping unused files in it.
        
               | chousuke wrote:
               | Come on, that's just mean.
               | 
               | I don't really understand the negativity against V; is
               | there something wrong with setting crazy goals if you're
               | actually working towards them?
        
               | SahAssar wrote:
               | I don't get it, is that file's function bodies just
               | comments now? Or does /* */ not mean a comment in V?
        
               | Spivak wrote:
               | I really don't understand why everyone is making fun of
               | what is clearly a stub implementation. Have we not all
               | written code like this so we can go work on some other
               | part of the code that depends on this?
        
             | pwdisswordfish8 wrote:
             | Don't forget this one:
             | https://christine.website/blog/OVE-20190623-0001
             | 
             | I wouldn't even for a second using web-facing services from
             | someone with a security track record this bad.
        
           | pityJuke wrote:
           | This HN User has been quite outspoken on his criticism:
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=vlang1dot0
        
           | tleb_ wrote:
           | Some can be found in every thread about the project: https://
           | hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
        
         | penagwin wrote:
         | > V and it's creator get a lot of flack here on HN and the
         | criticisms are probably warranted.
         | 
         | Hi fellow Penguin :D!
         | 
         | I'm impressed by the creator's dedication here too, but he's
         | clearly biting off more then he can chew - he's been saying
         | that he's making a
         | 
         | * Web framework * GUI framework * SQL ORM * A language that has
         | a _lot_ of promises - seriously checkout their list. * Github
         | alternative * VIM alternative
         | 
         | This stuff is awesome as a project, but each one of these have
         | teams of dedicated engineers sponsored by many companies to
         | hammer out issues and make them as robust as possible. And
         | while he certainly has working demo's of each, they're demos.
         | There's a huge difference between a POC and a robust framework.
         | 
         | A half baked framework is useless sadly, I think he's spreading
         | himself too thin while have a roadmap that looks like a
         | programmer's christmas list.
        
           | machiaweliczny wrote:
           | I think it's good test of lang features
        
           | amedvednikov wrote:
           | I'm not working on these alone :)
        
             | 13415 wrote:
             | While your here, thank you for the awesome work on the V
             | language!
             | 
             | It pretty much has the (for me, subjectively) ideal
             | features of a small, fast, and static programming language.
             | I've been following it for a while and I'm pretty sure I'll
             | find a good use for it soon!
        
               | amedvednikov wrote:
               | Thanks! Glad you like it :)
        
           | hobo_mark wrote:
           | Also
           | 
           | * package manager
           | 
           | * operating system
        
           | sdesol wrote:
           | As the author states, he is not working alone as the
           | following shows:
           | 
           | https://public-001.gitsense.com/insights/github/repos?p=impa.
           | ..
           | 
           | When you have a large number of people in Zone 2 and nobody
           | in Zone 1, this is a very good sign that effort is being
           | fairly distributed. And if you look at the activity for the
           | last year:
           | 
           | https://public-001.gitsense.com/insights/github/repos?q=comm.
           | ..
           | 
           | it is extremely active with 98% days active. And if I had to
           | guess, I would say there are at least 5-7 people working on
           | this full time based on the following:
           | 
           | https://public-001.gitsense.com/insights/github/repos?p=cont.
           | ..
           | 
           | Full Disclosure: I'm the creator of the tool with the
           | insights above.
        
             | amedvednikov wrote:
             | Not full time, but 5-15 hours/week.
        
               | sdesol wrote:
               | Hey thanks for the insight. It looks like they are pretty
               | productive hours then.
        
           | vlang0dot2 wrote:
           | the main issue is that most V projects never go past
           | prototype phase :)
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | rvz wrote:
         | > It's easy to promote the speed and size of your github
         | alternative when it has a fraction of the features.
         | 
         | I could have said that about Gogs years ago since a high school
         | student made that in their spare time.
         | 
         | Once projects become open-source, the community usually takes
         | over that work. Just like many others, the same could happen to
         | this project, just like how interested contributors did so with
         | the V language as soon as that was open-sourced.
        
         | GoblinSlayer wrote:
         | >It's easy to promote the speed and size of your github
         | alternative when it has a fraction of the features.
         | 
         | At leat this fraction of features works, what can't be said
         | about gitlab and is only partially true for github. It shows
         | repos, files, commits and what not, what features are missing?
        
         | agumonkey wrote:
         | i was annoyed by the hyperbolic ambitious claims but if the guy
         | and his friends pour out solid code then there's nothing else
         | to say :)
         | 
         | also they seem to aim at frugal fat free programming, i cannot
         | not like that
        
           | turminal wrote:
           | > if the guy and his friends pour out solid code then there's
           | nothing else to say :)
           | 
           | Unfortunately, they don't.
        
             | agumonkey wrote:
             | is gitly yet another imaginary revolution ? (honest
             | question)
        
           | crazy_horse wrote:
           | Those that lie often either don't respect other people or
           | they don't have the ability to know when they are lying.
           | Which is scarier?
           | 
           | Go, Nim, and Zig have similar focuses and their devs have put
           | in years of public, good work.
           | 
           | Some of the take downs at the time he was making his initial
           | claims are absolutely brutal and make it clear that he not
           | only couldn't back up his crazy claims, he wasn't getting the
           | small stuff right.
           | 
           | https://christine.website/blog/v-vaporware-2019-06-23
           | 
           | He still hasn't learned.
        
             | amedvednikov wrote:
             | Hardly an unbiased article:
             | 
             | > V can be bootstrapped in under a second by compiling its
             | code translated to C with a simple cc v.c No libraries or
             | dependencies needed.
             | 
             | Git is a dependency, which means perl is a dependency,
             | which means a shell is a dependency, which means glibc is a
             | dependency, which means that a lot of other things
             | (including posix threads) are also dependencies.
             | Pedantically, you could even go as far as saying that you
             | could count the Linux kernel, the processor being used and
             | the like as dependencies, but that's a bit out of scope for
             | this.
             | 
             | ==============
             | 
             | Ridiculous and unnecessary nitpicking.
             | 
             | Also benchmarking the language with a debug build, using a
             | slower backend, and while running vfmt.
             | 
             | Here's a better benchmark: V compiling itself in 0.3
             | seconds:
             | 
             | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvP6wmcl_Sc
        
               | nabakin wrote:
               | So if it was a release build from the time, there
               | wouldn't have been massive memory leaks, she would have
               | been able to compile 1.2 million LoC per core per second,
               | V would have only used 400kb of space to compile itself,
               | and the curl binary wouldn't have been used for the
               | download_file function? I agree that there's a cutoff
               | where Linux dependencies don't really count as
               | dependencies in this case.
        
             | agumonkey wrote:
             | I read that article, maybe .. maybe they wised up during
             | the last 2 years.
        
               | crazy_horse wrote:
               | It's a very large amount for the most talented person to
               | learn, much less build multiple production-grade systems
               | with.
               | 
               | We all should get some grace ofc, but does he also not
               | need to show that he's learned not to make exaggerated
               | claims? Otherwise there is no accountability and someone
               | else gets fucked because they run across a bug because
               | the dev didn't know use valgrind while claiming no memory
               | leaks. I can't like that.
               | 
               | How many people would love to get their service on HN for
               | a few hours?
        
             | nabakin wrote:
             | The rest of her blog posts on V
             | 
             | https://christine.website/blog/series/v
        
             | xena wrote:
             | I'm the author of that post if anyone has any questions.
        
             | yongjik wrote:
             | Some points in that page don't seem like valid criticism.
             | Like, complaining that the compiler is not "zero
             | dependency" on Linux, because it depends on glibc?
             | 
             | Also, allocating a fixed 1000 byte region at the start of a
             | program is not a "memory leak". In fact even glibc has tons
             | of such "initial fixed cost" allocations - IIRC valgrind
             | has built-in "suppression file" to ignore these
             | allocations. (It _would_ be a memory leak if the compiler
             | allocated new 1000 byte chunks every time println is
             | called, but the article doesn 't demonstrate it so I guess
             | I'll never know.)
        
               | the_duke wrote:
               | IIRC one of the original claims was to skip libc and do
               | syscalls manually, like Go used to do on Linux.
               | 
               | So listing it makes sense in that context.
        
               | GoblinSlayer wrote:
               | That sounds more like a bugfix. Doing syscalls manually
               | is a rather perverse exercise, which go thoroughly
               | proved.
        
               | amedvednikov wrote:
               | No, this was never claimed.
        
               | [deleted]
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | CrazyPyroLinux wrote:
       | I'm a big fan of GitBucket - It's like GitHub-in-a-WARfile
       | https://gitbucket.github.io/
        
       | amedvednikov wrote:
       | Hi,
       | 
       | Author of V and Gitly here.
       | 
       | Gitly is currently in alpha, and works more like an
       | example/documentation of the V web framework and V ORM.
       | 
       | You can't even sign in at the moment.
       | 
       | It will be launched this month. We're actually going to switch to
       | Gitly CI, since Github Actions has been really slow for us.
        
         | Zababa wrote:
         | Good luck on your projects! You should probably add Gitea to
         | your comparaisons, at it seems to be the closest to your
         | project (written in Go, lightweight).
        
         | NeckBeardPrince wrote:
         | You might have trademark issues with Gitlab's Gitaly
         | https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitaly
        
         | zerr wrote:
         | Saw your hiring post - may I ask, what funding did you get?
        
       | Cavallium wrote:
       | Looking at gitly repository it almost has no features, only a
       | fraction of the basic git features are present, and they are
       | barely working. Why is it being advertised here on HN as a fast
       | alternative of github/gitlab?
       | 
       | P.S.: Probably the website crashed, it's giving me 502 bad
       | gateway from cloudflare
        
         | amedvednikov wrote:
         | 502 was fixed.
         | 
         | I'm actually surprised it handled a front page HN traffic spike
         | on a $3 VPS.
         | 
         | That was a good test of V/vweb.
        
           | Cavallium wrote:
           | Now it's online
        
       | pokstad wrote:
       | Only 128MB of RAM? What happens when you try to GC a huge repo?
       | This must mean only the non-git requirements. Under the covers
       | either libgit2 or the git executable are being used, and those
       | will use many resources depending on the operation.
        
         | amedvednikov wrote:
         | Well this is for average repos, you can't expect to run a huge
         | multi gigabyte repo on the most basic instance. I'll make it
         | clear.
        
       | udia wrote:
       | Good to see another open source git development platform. I am
       | currently using sourcehut and am very happy with it.
       | 
       | https://sourcehut.org/
        
         | yewenjie wrote:
         | They claim to be the fastest among all such platforms too.
         | 
         | https://forgeperf.org/
        
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