GitLab plans support for ActivityPub

Several years in the making, GitLab is now very actively implementing ActivityPub! 🙌

The end-goal is to support AP for merge requests (aka pull requests), meaning git.alice.dev can send a merge request to gitlab.com/Bob/project.git

In the most expansive version of this vision, anyone running an AP-enabled git instance (with one or more repos) can send MRs to another instance’s repo, without having to sign up there.

For starters this will be GitLab-specific, but that’s already huge for self-hosters of GitLab who currently don’t benefit from the internal interop of the GitLab.com network.

First bite-sized todo on the implementation path there is ‘subscribe to project releases’. And yes, they are aware of ForgeFed and will likely make use of that spec for the advanced features of this epic.

Smart move by GitLab; through ActivityPub they’re getting a distributed version of GitHub’s social layer.

Hugely impactful as a way around GitHub’s moat as the de-facto social network of open source development. I follow hundreds of developers on GitHub, though mainly just to keep track of who I’ve interacted with, effectively adding them to a dev-specific address book.

I have a much harder time keeping track of non-GitHub devs on alt platforms, but if I could follow them on the fediverse that’s actually preferable over GitHub’s proprietary follow list.

Cross-posted to Mastodon: https://writing.exchange/@erlend/110949168258462158