
Apache Allura — Open source project hosting platform - ahmedfromtunis
http://allura.apache.org/
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hashkb
Let me apologize in advance for neglecting to sugarcoat this feedback:

This would benefit in a major way from a pass by a designer / UX person. The
first thing I noticed (and the reason that I won't even try using it) is that
it's significantly uglier than my terminal. GitHub has set the bar for Git web
UX at "pleasant enough to look at all day" and this falls way short of that. I
struggle, probably more than average, with spacing and layout; but I am one
dev and they are the Apache Foundation.

It's also hella slow: it is to GitLab as GitLab is to GitHub.

~~~
awalton
It looks like someone saw SourceForge and thought "You know what would be
great, if I could host my project on SourceForge, but have to deal with all of
the admin myself too!"

If the infrastructure underneath is solid, it might be as easy as redoing the
presentation layer to make it more reasonable... but I'd have to have more
than a cursory glance to tell. It's just hard to want to do that when you've
immediately got the taste of SourceForge in your mouth...

~~~
lvillani
I think it's the underlying software that powers SourceForge itself. At least,
that's what I gather from some pages on sourceforge.net displaying "Powered by
Apache Allura" inside the footer.

~~~
bsimpson
It is literally SourceForge:

"Allura began in October 2009 as an open-source reimplementation in Python of
the developer tools for SourceForge (previously written in PHP), and was first
announced in March 2011. Allura became the default platform for new projects
on SourceForge in July 2011."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Allura#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Allura#History)

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SEJeff
And it is python, not java! Color me surprised coming from an Apache project.
Nice!

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timdorr
Does this have some relation to Sourceforge? The UI is a direct copy:

[https://sourceforge.net/p/smplayer/code/HEAD/tree/](https://sourceforge.net/p/smplayer/code/HEAD/tree/)
[https://forge-allura.apache.org/p/allura/git/ci/master/tree/](https://forge-
allura.apache.org/p/allura/git/ci/master/tree/)

I'm also curious why this is such a thing in various code/project hosting
applications. GOGS was cloning GitHub's UI (down to the level of copying their
CSS) for a long time and still retains a lot of similarities. Is it that hard
to come up with a novel UX for code browsing and project management?

~~~
niftich
Yes. SourceForge developed Allura [1] starting in around 2009 [2], and was
accepted to the Apache Incubator in 2012. Meanwhile, the preceding SourceForge
software was a fork of a community project that was in itself a fork of their
oldest platform, apparently [3].

[1]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20110315035603/http://sourceforg...](https://web.archive.org/web/20110315035603/http://sourceforge.net/p/allura/home/)
[2] [https://blog.bitergia.com/2012/11/13/some-charts-about-
allur...](https://blog.bitergia.com/2012/11/13/some-charts-about-allura/) [3]
[https://blog.bitergia.com/2012/11/16/the-history-of-
fusionfo...](https://blog.bitergia.com/2012/11/16/the-history-of-fusionforge-
and-gforge/)

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hyperrail
Interestingly, there is also Apache Bloodhound
([http://bloodhound.apache.org/](http://bloodhound.apache.org/) ), which is
_also_ a forge/project hosting system.

However, Bloodhound, which started out as a Trac clone, seems to be less
active in development:
[http://svn.apache.org/viewvc/bloodhound/trunk/](http://svn.apache.org/viewvc/bloodhound/trunk/)

~~~
voxio
I'm a bloodhound PMC member by way of working at the company that initially
sponsored development. Unfortunately that project is pretty much dead.

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sergiotapia
Instead of a random stock photo from a factory, why not put up a screenshot of
the main UI.

~~~
thewhitetulip
[https://forge-allura.apache.org/p/allura/tickets/](https://forge-
allura.apache.org/p/allura/tickets/) this is a live version, why need
screenshot?

~~~
falsedan
Because as someone new to the project, I have to spend a non-trivial amount of
time to learn how to use a demo before I get to see how it works/whether I
should consider it.

It's marketing, and a proxy for how much they care about the user experience.
A first-contact message of "You work it out" makes me worry that they will
prioritize other technical work above user-facing interface issues.

~~~
thewhitetulip
All you have to do is click one link. That is hardly non trivial. Also, there
are screenshots, at least I found it in a non trivial way.

~~~
falsedan
As a new user, which link do I click on? Git, Wiki, …? How do I get to the
"compare proposed changes against existing changes" screen? Does it allow me
to make comments? How many lines can each comment be associated with?

This is roughly what I want to find out.

edit: I think it's great that you have the time/familiarity to work out how to
use the product quickly. I need help to see the potential advantages quickly,
and I'd appreciate it if the project made a big effort to show itself off.

This isn't a knock against OSS projects; commercial projects are just as bad
(or worse, since decision makers can always pay extra for support and shift
blame to the vendor).

~~~
thewhitetulip
In the "WHAT IS ALLURA?" section

The first link takes you to: [https://forge-
allura.apache.org/p/allura/wiki/Features/](https://forge-
allura.apache.org/p/allura/wiki/Features/)

Which tells you a LOT of information like "tickets" or "git" or "activity".

now, if you are a tech person, you won't need any more information, this is
already _exactly_ same as soureforge, if you are non tech then my above
comment does not apply to you.

~~~
falsedan
This isn't about me, it's about how the project is presenting itself. Blaming
me for not getting it is missing the point: the project's presentation makes
it hard for people who don't know what it is to work out if they should spend
some time with it to work out if it's worth paying attention to.

Saying "it's _just_ like SourceForge" doesn't help me: the last time I
earnestly used SF was with
[https://sourceforge.net/projects/sdlpl/files/](https://sourceforge.net/projects/sdlpl/files/),
and it's changed a lot in the last 10 years, and my single question "can I do
code reviews with this?" becomes two: "can I do code reviews with SF?" & "does
this project attentively include every SF feature?"

I looked at [https://forge-
allura.apache.org/p/allura/wiki/Features/#code...](https://forge-
allura.apache.org/p/allura/wiki/Features/#code-repository) , and I don't see
any ability to comment on a proposed diff. But this might be an omission! My
lunchtime is nearly over…

~~~
thewhitetulip
I am sorry if I appeared to attack you, I had no intention :)

you do have valid points, the project should be proactive in advertising.

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neves
Why I would use it instead of GitLab?

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fiatjaf
Well, GitLab is slower than my pet tortoise.

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sytse
Are you talking about GitLab self installed or the SaaS? GitLab.com is slow
and we're working to improve that in [https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-
ce/issues?scope=all&utf...](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-
ce/issues?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&state=all&label_name\[\]=performance) and
[https://gitlab.com/gitlab-
com/infrastructure/issues/947](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-
com/infrastructure/issues/947) GitLab self installed should be fast with
enough memory. I don't know if Allura has a SaaS service.

~~~
fiatjaf
Sorry, I'm talking about GitLab.com. I don't use it, but anytime I visit the
site suffer so much with it that the experience makes me think the worst from
GitLab in general.

~~~
sytse
GitLab.com is not representative of the speed of GitLab self hosted. If
anything it is making self hosted faster by surfacing scaling problems.

~~~
i-machine-learn
While that may be true, don't you see a marketing problem here? Most people
would assume that Gitlab.com is representative of the speed and UX of Gitlab
self hosted. It's almost like your demo site to be honest.

~~~
OJFord
Surely anyone considering self-hosting it would realise it's performance was
going to depend on what they hosted it on?

I don't think I would assume the free 'demo site' would be hosted on the
beefiest offering available such that I could only do worse by self-hosting.

~~~
viraptor
Without actually trying it out in a self-hosted scenario (and this is a non-
trivial time investment to do), you don't know if that situation is because of
the scale or some constant factors. The slowness could be because of thousands
of projects hosted, or because of stupid interaction with git which slows down
every single page. Until you try it for yourself, it could be either. (it
seems to be the former mostly)

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sigi45
Aaaaand the UI is ugly like hell.

A combination of gitorious, sourceforge and the 90ths with a bit of modern
dripplet over :D

~~~
blauditore
I wouldn't say "ugly as hell", more like old-fashioned. I've seen much
worse...

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cocktailpeanuts
Not even a screenshot?

I don't have time to play around with this at the moment, but I don't think I
would want to mess with something whose author didn't even bother to put a
screenshot up for a product that requires you to jump through a lot of
installation hoops like setting up docker server, etc.

~~~
sverhagen
Can't you click "Wiki" and see it in action? Beats a screenshot.

~~~
kodfodrasz
No, it doesn't beat a screenshot. Their purpose is totally different.

Screenshots (on a landing page) usually depict a view the creators think is
important, and beautiful to show the visitors.

A wiki to a screenshot is like a man page to... A screenshot.

After having made a look at the tool though I understand why there is no
screenshot. It is basically an uglier and slower version of gogs.

~~~
Vinnl
I think he means that the wiki is part of Allura, so it's more like a demo.
You can try it directly, see here: [https://forge-
allura.apache.org/p/allura/git/ci/master/tree/](https://forge-
allura.apache.org/p/allura/git/ci/master/tree/)

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TallGuyShort
The comments on this page remind me why I've never posted any of my projects
here.

~~~
oblio
Heh, any public internet forum will more likely come up with criticism than
with new contributors.

In my opinion if you post your project here, it should realistically be for
two reasons:

* you want to learn - in which case I think this HackerNews is probably better than the vast majority of internet forums

* you want to promote your project/product and probably have some financial end goal - again, it's probably a good idea to post here if you're at least a bit confident in your product

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TheSmoke
this is one of the biggest TurboGears projects out there. loved it that they
open sourced it.

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jlebrech
not very alluring, the features are OK. but nothing you can't get on free tier
elsewhere.

