GitLab 5.0 released in BitNami

We are happy to announce that GitLab v5.0 has just been released in BitNami. For those not familiar with this project, GitLab allows you to keep your code secure on your own server, manage repositories, users and access permissions, communicate through issues, line-comments and wiki pages and perform code review with merge requests.

The most important changes in this version are the following:

- GitLab-shell replaces Gitolite
- Instead of needing gitlab & git users accounts on the system we now only need git user to run GitLab
- The wiki is now stored in a git repository using the gollum library

You can download now the free and ready to run native installers for Linux, virtual machines and Windows Azure & Amazon EC2 images.

Discourse: modern forum platform now part of the BitNami library

We are happy to announce that Discourse is now part of the BitNami family! Discourse is a modern, sustainable, fully open-source Internet discussion platform built on Ruby on Rails.

Jeff Atwood, co-founder of the popular network StackOverflow, solved the Q&A problem by essentially suppressing free-form discussion. He started the Discourse project last year with one goal in mind, to support a broader discussion without falling victim to the trolling and spam that afflict many other forums and comment threads.

You can now launch a free cloud demo server with the BitNami Cloud Launchpad by clicking the launch button below.

You can also download free, ready to run native installers for Linux and OS X, virtual machines and Azure & Amazon EC2 images. Discourse was included in BitNami because they were a winner of the BitNami bi-weekly packaging contest. Head over there to vote for the next application to be packaged or to suggest your own.

Discourse forum

New BitNami Apps Released on Windows Azure

At the beginning of the year, we announced that several apps from the BitNami library were made available for the Windows Azure cloud computing platform. We are happy to report that a new batch of BitNami applications was just released for Azure, so you can get the same easy deployment you expect from BitNami on Microsoft's cloud. The following new apps are now available:

Alfresco CMS	LAPP Stack Infrastructure	LimeSurvey Poll Management	Magento e-Commerce
TestLink Continuous Integration	ocPortal CMS	Osclass Online Classifieds	Piwik Analytics
Radiant CMS	Roller Blog	Trac Bug Tracking	Tracks Planning
Weblate Translation Tools	Enano CMS CMS	eZ Publish CMS	Gallery Photo Sharing
JasperReports Business Intelligence	OSQA Forum	GitLab Version Control	OpenERP ERP

Haven't signed up for Azure yet? Microsoft offers a free 90 day trial of Azure, so head over and give it a try!

More on GitLab, Meet the Project

Last week, we announced GitLab as part of the BitNami Library.  GitLab is an open source application for git repository management through a web interface.

Nice diff views, merge requests, issues with attachments, project wall, wiki, code snippets, branches, network graph, different permission levels, protected branches are just a few of its many features. Of course, the best way of getting an idea of what GitLab has to offer is to take a look at it yourself. Visit the GitLab demo server  or launch a free cloud demo server with the BitNami Cloud Launchpad by clicking the launch button below. The first will show you a running application with demo data, while the second will allow you to check how easy it is to administer your projects and users through the GitLab web interface. You can also take a look at the screenshots, but it will not be the same :)

Note that some of functionality is deactivated because it requires further configuration in the machine which hosts the application. You still can take a further look with the free BitNami installers, virtual machines or cloud images and have full access to the application.

We have contacted the GitLab team and Dmitriy Zaporozhets, co-author and lead developer of GitLab, was so kind of answering us a few questions:

> What is the goal of the GitLab application?

Give people a freedom of code hosting :)

> What are some of the features of GitLab?

Repository management, code review, issue tracker and Merge Requests

> Which projects or organizations are using GitLab currently?  What kind of projects do they use it for?

Thomson Reuters, Brightbox, Phusion etc. You can view a longer list at http://gitlab.org/

> What do you expect will be the main benefits of having BitNami packages available for GitLab?

Users who want to use GitLab but find setup a bit complicated can use it now with BitNami packages

BitNami is great for running GitLab behind your firewall. If you are looking for hosted repositories, you should sign up with GitLab at GitLab.com, where you can also purchase support, consulting, training and other services from Dmitriy and his team.



 

GitLab now part of BitNami

We are happy to announce that the GitLab self-hosted Git management software is now available in BitNami. GitLab allows you to keep your code secure on your own server, manage repositories, users and access permissions, communicate through issues, line-comments, wiki pages and perform code review with merge requests.

Because GitLab was a winner of the BitNami bi-weekly packaging contest, you can now download free, ready to run native installers for Linux, virtual machines and Azure &Amazon EC2 cloud images for GitLab.

GitLab dashboard

GitLab new project

GitLab commit page

Discourse: Meet the last BitNami contest winner

We recently released OpenERP on BitNami and are working on GitLab and XOOPS. Now our users have selected to add Discourse to the BitNami Library as a part of our bi-weekly contest.

Discourse is a recently released open source project that aims to reinvent internet forums and it is "an attempt to reimagine what a modern, sustainable, fully open-source Internet discussion platform should be today".

The project has created some buzz since it was released, in part because Jeff Atwood, co-founder of Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange is one of the main developers behind Discourse. While Stack Exchange focused on providing users with a quick answer to their questions, avoiding discussions, Discourse tries to solve the opposite problem. For that, hey have added social and real-time twists to forums:

• Conversations, not pages
• Get notifications when you are mentioned
• Simple, but with context
• Remembers your place
• Reply while you read
• Reply as a linked topic
• Real time updates
• And more...

While using Discourse is simple, installing it is not straight forward. We want to change this by simplifying Discourse deployment for everyone, providing free, ready to run, native installers, virtual machines and cloud images. Also as soon as we release Discourse, we will at it to our BitNami Launchpad platform so you can quickly try it out in the cloud with one click.

Discourse, welcome to BitNami!

OpenERP v7.0 now available in BitNami

We are happy to announce a new member of the BitNami family: OpenERP, an open source integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP). OpenERP server is written in Python and is modular, allowing you to easily extend or customize its functionality with dozens of extensions.

OpenERP has been a frequently requested application and was a winner of the BitNami bi-weekly packaging contest. You can now download free, ready to run native installers for Linux, virtual machines and Azure & Amazon EC2 images.

OpenERP modules

Want to check OpenERP out without having to install it? Just use the new BitNami Cloud Launchpad service and you can test any BitNami application in the Cloud, for free. Try now OpenERP v7.0 in the cloud.

Share Your Thoughts on the Future of Open Source

As open source has evolved into an influential movement and adoption has grown, there continues to be new sets of important questions that will shape its future. The survey, sponsored by Black Duck, North Bridge Venture Partners and Forrester Research and supported by BitNami and over 30 other organizations, drives broad industry discussion around key issues for new and established software-related organizations and the open source community.

Help shape the future of open source by taking this year’s survey!

Last year’s survey had 740 responses – the most robust response to date – and we aim to reach 1,000 in 2013. This year’s survey will close on March 28, 2013.

For the first time ever, the survey results will be revealed during a live webinar panel discussion on April 17th. The results will also be announced to the media and shared on Twitter from the @FutureofOSSaccount, using the #FutureOSS hashtag. 

Introducing BitNami Cloud Launchpad: Demo Your Favorite Apps in the Cloud for Free

We started BitNami with the goal of making open source server software easier to discover and install. Many BitNami users come to our website to test and compare different projects: wikis, content management systems, bug trackers and so on. We help them select the best one for them because our stacks make it easy to install and run multiple applications side by side. For others, BitNami is a great way to test the very latest release of their favorite application or language framework . Our stacks are self-contained, so they can be installed and removed without interfering with their existing setups.

Today, we are happy to announce the BitNami Cloud Launchpad, a service that allows you to test BitNami applications in the Cloud, for free.

To launch a server, just select an application from our library and click on the 'launch server now' button, as shown below:

After logging in to BitNami, you will be able to launch up to 10 apps with the click of a button. After you click to launch an app, it takes just a couple of minutes to get your server up and running. When the process is complete, you will receive an email with information on how to access the application. Each server will stay up for one hour so you have plenty of time to experiment and play with it.

We have been beta-testing this functionality for the past week and the feedback has been extremely positive. We hope that you will find the BitNami Cloud Launchpad useful for quickly testing new versions of your favorite apps or for exploring new applications.

We have plans to extend and improve this new service, so stay tuned! In the mean time, if you are looking to host your BitNami applications in the cloud, consider BitNami Cloud Hosting.  It provides the same ease of deployment as the Cloud Launchpad but adds monitoring, automatic backups and the ability to resize servers as needed.