Use/Migrate to Open Source softwares to manage the MOOC

[heitorPB]

This OpenScience initiative is great! Keep the good work!

I'd like to brainstorm a bit on how to select a tool to use. In order to achieve an Open Everything status, the tools/services used should be Open Source also. For example, git is an free and open-source tool, but GitHub is a non-paid proprietary service. GitLab on the other hand uses only open-source software on their services. An open-source alternative to Slack is Riot.

[Protohedgehog]

Aha, this is an excellent discussion to have. I think @dannycolin has been looking into some alternatives for this too.

While I love the idea, we have to consider the impact of moving the whole project to different platforms, especially with large existing communities in them. For example, if we could do a simple migration from GitHub to GitLab, I wouldn't object to that. This is something I'd love to hear about from others too though. :)

[stain]

That is a great political principle I would support! Agree with @Protohedgehog a community transition would have to be carefully managed. Moving repositories and issues are generally easy, moving people is tricky. And if you make yourself "too GNU" it can be alienating to newcomers.

[alexmorley]

I ❤️ Open but would be very cautious with moving away from Github (slack to a lesser extent) - I'd be happy with just making clear to learners that this is a proprietary platform, and that there are OSS alternatives.

My main justification for the worry would be that for educational purposes I want to:

• have the lowest possible barrier to entry (IMO github UI and docs are >>> for beginners than anything else)
• give people the skills that will be the most transferable to other projects (alas there are still many more people developing openly on github, in science and elsewhere, than anywhere else)

[heitorPB]

On Mon, 12 Nov 2018 03:55:42 -0800 Alexander Morley ***@***.***> wrote: I :heart: Open but would be very cautious with moving away from Github (slack to a lesser extent) - I'd be happy with just making clear to learners that this is a proprietary platform, and that there are OSS alternatives. My main justification for the worry would be that for educational purposes I want to: - have the lowest possible barrier to entry (IMO github UI and docs are >>> for beginners than anything else) - give people the skills that will be the most transferable to other projects (alas there are still many more people developing openly on github, in science and elsewhere, than anywhere else)

indeed. GitHub is the biggest repository of repositories. But GitLab is growing a lot. When Microsoft bought GitHub some time ago, several projects migrated to GitLab. This idea of having a note saying the tool/service/platform is proprietary and a list of alternatives is a good idea.

[dannycolin]

As a Free and Open Source user myself (and also developer), I'm really for having
more open tools but like others already said we need to be carefully when it
comes to migrate to a new platform.

So here's my opinion on the subject and some informations on the tools proposed.

GitLab

It's true that GitLab is more free than GitHub but the instance running on
GitLab.com isn't Open. GitLab offers two versions that are :

1. Community Edition
   100% Free and Open Source but you have to host it yourself. That mean you
   need to pay for a server and you need to maintain it (keep it up-to-date).
2. Enterprise Edition
   Not 100% Open and this is the version running on GitLab.com

In other word, moving to GitLab.com wouldn't make us more free. And at the
moment, we don't have the people nor the financial resources to self-host an
instance of GitLab.

A solution for now could be to create a task in the module 5 based
on GitLab. It would give people a free alternative to GitHub.

We could also add this as a prerequiste to every tools we teach in the different modules.
What do you think about that?

Riot

I've tested it and it works great but I have to admit that newcomers will
probably face a bigger learning curve with this platform than they have to face
with Slack. The interface is a bit less intuitive and like others pointed out
it's not an easy task to move people to a new platform.

So my opinion on that would be that in order to move on Riot we would definitely
need to do a guide to help people migrating. We would also need to give people
time. I think if we go that way we should open an issue just for that migration.

Finally,

I'd be happy with just making clear to learners that this is a proprietary platform, and that there are OSS alternatives.

I'm also voting for that. I think it should even be an obligation to make clear if a software that we propose is Open or not.

This idea of having a note saying the tool/service/platform is proprietary and a list of alternatives is a good idea.

So since it's not the first time someone on a thread think that a list of alternative would be a good idea, I have added to my todo list a task of creating a small website à la alternativeto.net (nothing to fancy) where people could enter a software name and in return a list a Free and Open Source alternative will pop up. If others here would be interested to help I could create a new repository to coordinate it.

[heitorPB]

In other word, moving to GitLab.com wouldn't make us more free. And at the moment, we don't have the people nor the financial resources to self-host an instance of GitLab.

That's a very strong argument.

We could also add this as a prerequiste to every tools we teach in the different modules. What do you think about that?

You mean for every tool in the modules to be open source?

I've tested it and it works great but I have to admit that newcomers will probably face a bigger learning curve with this platform than they have to face with Slack. The interface is a bit less intuitive and like others pointed out it's not an easy task to move people to a new platform.

Riot devs are making a new interface to solve lots of issues, some initial comments about it are [here](https://medium.com/@RiotChat/a-sneak-peek-at-a-whole-new-riot-im-1114df653782). I also needed some time to understand Slack and feel comfortable with every concept there. If the tool is Slack, Riot or something else, newcomers will face difficulties for a time.

> This idea of having a note saying the tool/service/platform is > proprietary and a list of alternatives is a good idea. So since it's not the first time someone on a thread think that a list of alternative would be a good idea, I have added to my todo list a task of creating a small website à la *alternativeto.net* (nothing to fancy) where people could enter a software name and in return a list a Free and Open Source alternative will pop up. If others here would be interested to help I could create a new repository to coordinate it.

That would be great! I don't have experience with web development but I am quite good at opening issues at repositories ^^

[dannycolin]

We could also add this as a prerequiste to every tools we teach in
the different modules. What do you think about that?

You mean for every tool in the modules to be open source?

I mean if there's a task with a non-free software, we should at least have a alternative task (if there's a alternative ofc) with a FOSS software. In that case we could have a task with GitLab and a small list of instance that run the Community Edition (maybe also GitLab.com with a note saying that it's not 100% free but better than GitHub etc.).

That would be great! I don't have experience with web development but I am quite good at opening issues at repositories ^^

It's not a problem there's more than just code ;)

Btw here's a list of FOSS gitlab that you can use for your project:

• https://framagit.org (hosted by framasoft a French non-profit that promote FOSS software especially cloud services).
• https://salsa.debian.org (it's Debian but if you respect the Code of Conduct you can use it for your personal projects)
• https://about.0xacab.org/ (it's hosted by Riseup.net)

[alexmorley]

@dannycolin We can coordinate on alternativeto.net if you want, they key step is to create a reasonable database of the correspondence between the FOSS and alternatives; at the moment AFAIK none exists. I need to create one for a separate project (alexmorley/Back-Your-Scientific-Stack#2) so we can collab on making that database if you fancy 😄

[nemobis]

Alexander Morley, 13/11/18 10:32:

FOSS and alternatives at the moment AFAIK none exists.

There's plenty of alternatives: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_source_code_hosting_facilities https://www.gnu.org/software/repo-criteria-evaluation.html (See also <https://about.gitlab.com/press/releases/2017-11-01-gitlab-transitions-contributor-license.html>.) IMHO it's not that hard, a freedom-friendly course can recommend to use GitLab while noting that directions exist to self-host or seek an (even more) ethical hosted solution, including nongnu.org and https://framagit.org.

[dannycolin]

@nemobis I think @alexmorley was talking about an alternative to alternativeto.net :).

If I do a recap of the discussion, we pointed out 3 different issues (see list below). I'll create a new issue for 2 and 3. So this is one could focus on 1.

1. Use/Migrate to Open Source softwares to manage the MOOC (Use/Migrate to Open Source softwares to manage the MOOC #17)
2. Suggest alternative tasks that use Open Source softwares (Suggest alternative tasks that use Open Source softwares #18)
3. Create a OpenSource softwares database à la AlternativeTo.net (Create a OpenSource softwares database à la AlternativeTo.net  #19)

[dannycolin]

To follow up on this issue, here's a proposal for a [possible] future migration.

• I strongly believe that promoting free and open source softwares is a core principle of open science and I know that people here think the same.
• I also know that for the time being we don't have the resources to self-host our own services.
• Finally, it's easy to migrate code but it's harder to do the same with users. But the more we wait the more it'll be hard to do the migration.

I propose that we flag this issue as a bug and act accordingly. This means that :

1. we will use platform that are as free and open source as possible.
2. we will investigate, compare alternatives to GitHub and Slack.;
3. we will put in place a migration plan.

Of course, there's no rush for the moment to put that plan in action. The goal of this proposal is to acknowledge that we all agree on the principle of using as much free and open source softwares as we can.