Write a GitHub API compatibility layer
Requested by: https://na34.salesforce.com/00161000002xBeQ?srPos=0&srKp=001
On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 3:35 PM, We have an ask about migrating a large group from GitHub to GitLab. Nothing official yet but the big blocker is their current integrations with GitHub's API. Redoing all of that work would incur a significant cost and would have to be done multiple times if other groups were to move as well. I expect some push back on this as you have said before you are not GitHub, however would you entertain the thought of writing a GitHub API compatibility layer? Would it be possible for us to request priority for such a feature, and if so, what would be needed from us in order to do so?
We're open to building anything.
How big is the 'large group'?
I think any tool or feature that would help resolve migration pain from github to gitlab will only benefit adoption. And these days, most of that pain (for us, at least) centers around the significant amount of dev time teams have already spent configuring external build service integrations (Maven, Jenkins, etc) to leverage one vs the other. Some of these teams maintain a huge quantity of these configs, making the switch cost real financial and productivity blockers.
We have thousands of github users today which are part of hundreds of dev teams all running their own independent flavors of build services. If nothing had to change for them should they consider switching over to gitlab, then hundreds (at a minimum) of transition hours could be saved. We could even potentially automate much, if not all of the migrations.
To add a bit about the integrations, the Jenkins and whatnot do have existing alternatives the bigger issue we face is the custom integrations. We have teams that have written large custom workflows around the GitHub API and getting them to redo all that work is more or less a deal breaker.
cc/ @JobV @DouweM @dzaporozhets @sytses @ChadMalchow @stanhu
Activity
Coincidentally, I hacked on a GitHub/GitLab API translation layer when I attempted to support Huboard before I joined GitLab:
https://github.com/huboard/ghee/pull/37/files
Based on my experience, there are a lot of subtle differences between GitLab and GitHub APIs that it will be difficult to get 100% compatibility. But we might be able get close; it really depends on the requirements of each app to support.
Its a lot of efforts since we need to support our API and at same time implement (and support) compatible API of competitor. I am sceptical because of next scenario: we put a lot of efforts into it but in the end people need to make changes into their apps anyway because of 1-2 incompatible API calls. So you anyway go to documentation and change source code of your application.
@Haydn our APIs are pretty close, but with small differences. I think we'll be better off making small changes / helping them in individual points or get an idea of the actual amount of work required on their side.
Cross reference: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/support/issues/187
