Friday, March 22, 2013

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.