From 67ad3b7a26ed0dc99f3324011fa8e5ed316a655a Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Katharina Fey Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2020 15:22:10 +0200 Subject: templates: adding repo/details template --- README | 34 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 34 insertions(+) (limited to 'README') diff --git a/README b/README index 03c661f..ed972cd 100644 --- a/README +++ b/README @@ -12,6 +12,40 @@ A git web frontend that wants to hug your code. +Why? +---- + +This is a very good first question, and one that I think is important +to answer before getting more into the project. Whenever I brought up +this project during the creation of it, most people would react with +"have you tried...", followed by some git web software, such as +gitlab, gittea, and many many more. But there is a reason why I stuck +with octopus and the design ideas I had for it. + +Fundamentally it's about decentralisation. The internet is a pretty +big place (allegedly), but a lot of the services that people use are +very centralised by a single company or even server. If this company +or server goes away, so does valuable knowledge. There are many ways +to create more decentralised systems, and one aspect of this for me, +is code repos. + +Git is by it's nature decentralised, meaning that it doesn't require +an "upstream" or canonical server to function. Theoretically you +could use git to exchange code patches with people without the +internet. Yet, a lot of people's perception of git is one that is +dictated by the workflows on github and gitlab: centralised into a +single service. Many git web frontends mirror this workflow, because +after all, it is what people want and love. + +However, it has some flaws (which would take too long to elaborate +here), and for octopus I had something else in mind. Instead of +replicating the same mistakes, I took much more inspiration from cgit, +which is used and loved by many today. octopus is a re-imagining of +cgit, trying to improve the UX and maintainability where possible, +adding new features, but mostly staying true to it's core: a simple +git web service, that doesn't lock you into a vendor, or server. + + Configuration ------------- -- cgit v1.2.3