Love to see it. Unlike tangled.org this is local-first and has a solid story around private repos. I’m bullish on distributed forges in general, but I’m all for experimentation in figuring out exactly what that looks like.
xvilka 2 hours ago [-]
I wish they would make local-only deployment easier. For example, lets take 3 machines and try to setup Radicle to work only on those, without joining the common Radicle network. Like on-premises GitLab, but decentralized, without the need of the server. It requires quite some serious scripting and usecase not covered in the documentation.
endiangroup 2 hours ago [-]
AD: We've just been discussing this! There's an open RIP [^1] that we will be supplying feedback for soon.
.xyz and similar domains are often blocked by ISPs due to higher than usual rates of spam from domains using that TLD.
deaton 3 hours ago [-]
Makes sense. Usually if you want a 99 cent registration, .xyz is whats available.
h1watt 4 hours ago [-]
Radicle is really underrated, especially when working with agents. I find it a joy to use for my agentic workflows.
If there's purely an agentic forge one day, it's likely going to be a distributed one, with cryptographic identities and signed artifacts by default.
endiangroup 4 hours ago [-]
AD: Feel free to post on our Zulip [^1] about your experiences of agentic workflow if you haven't already! Some of the team are interested in developing the agentic workflow experience.
Doesn't even come close to Zulip in terms of features.
jejejejjejei 2 hours ago [-]
[dead]
chrisweekly 4 hours ago [-]
"AD" ?
asibahi 3 hours ago [-]
His initials
3 hours ago [-]
KolmogorovComp 4 hours ago [-]
Advertisement
eightysixfour 4 hours ago [-]
What makes it a joy to use with agents?
bfrog 4 hours ago [-]
radicle is awesome and Just Works from what I've tried of it
pessimizer 3 hours ago [-]
I'd like to see radicle replace crates.io. I can't get over Rust's dependency on github/Microsoft, and I can't get over the lack of namespacing.
All you would need is cargo compatibility, and a trusted namespace that kept up with the metadata of the current contents of crates.io, right?
edit: I really, really like rust, and love basically all of their choices about the language, but I can't stand the feeling that I'm being tricked into an ecosystem dependent on one of the worst behaved companies in the world, and I can't stand that a lot of rust projects smell like GPL-washing.
That being said, git is GPL and radicle is MIT, so it feels like the same thing, but Github also ain't git. I prefer MIT to MS; if radicle gets important enough and decides to rubpull, there will inevitably be a Free fork anyway.
Pay08 2 hours ago [-]
Does radicle have some way of storing binaries outside of the source tree? I know cargo compiles from source by default, but AFAIK it can (and does) download binaries as well.
endiangroup 2 hours ago [-]
AD: Theres a project `artifact-cob` [^1] that enables some of the functionality you are looking for. You can host artifacts off-network and make 'releases' that point to them.
The more I have been using git and building my own tooling and services around it for usage, I have figured out that something like radicle feels like the right/better solution, definitely better than what github is atm.
There are rough edges and the seeding thing is a bit mehhh. And honestly there are a bunch of things I would do differently but I like the spirit of things.
Not sure where the authors of the project stand, but it's fun to see them make progress.
endiangroup 4 hours ago [-]
AD: We're definitely interested in hearing about the rough edges and opinions! Feel free to post on our Zulip [^1] if you haven't already :).
This just describes a watcher service that kicks jobs off on an external CI system and logs the results? Not much more detail than that.
Gitlab and Github have pages and pages going over the domain language used to configure the job triggers. Jobs can trigger other jobs either in response to completion or as a dependency etc etc.
I would say these radicle-ci designs as they are now are actually quite rudimentary. That's perfectly fine for an early project but at this point I think you have to say that they won't have a CI system ready for quite some time.
stephbook 45 minutes ago [-]
I don't understand why you'd want them to built another CI system. Just for the sake of it?
Feels like using a free Jenkins gets you everything you want. Doesn't need more than a container or Java either.
jayd16 4 minutes ago [-]
That's also perfectly fine if that's what it is. I would just phrase that as "They don't have CI but they provide hooks."
1 hours ago [-]
einpoklum 5 hours ago [-]
I like this idea a lot! I need to find people to try it with, though, which is not so easy with GH being so popular :-(
Some nitpicks:
* What is with the forced serif font on the website?
* Does this support other version control systems? Like mercurial, SVN, pijul, etc.?
endiangroup 4 hours ago [-]
AD: The website is currently being redesigned, I suspect we'll have it up in the next few weeks.
No it doesn't currently support other VCS's but we have planned for that possibility in future!
esafak 3 hours ago [-]
VCS agnosticism would be a selling point.
adastra22 3 hours ago [-]
How would that work? Radicle is deeply tied to git. It stores all its info as git objects.
esafak 3 hours ago [-]
That's why architecture matters.
Pay08 2 hours ago [-]
Would it? Realistically, what support could they add that would make it a selling point? Mercurial?
esafak 2 hours ago [-]
Jujutsu + stacked PRs.
backscratches 2 hours ago [-]
I read that it works well with jujutsu
crabbone 2 hours ago [-]
I tried to understand what this does...
> What is Radicle? How is it different from Git/GitHub?
> Radicle is a peer-to-peer code collaboration platform (“forge”) built on Git. Unlike centralized platforms like GitHub, there is no single entity controlling the network or user data. Repositories are replicated across peers in a decentralized manner. Radicle is an alternative for people and organizations who want full control of their data and user experience, without compromising on the social aspects of collaboration platforms.
(Quote from their FAQ).
This isn't even trying to answer the titular question... None of them, actually.
So, what is Radicle? A platform built on Git? What does this mean? A platform for what? What is it for?
Why Git/GitHub are used as if they were the same category of things? There's not even an attempt at answering the "how is this different from Git?" question. What does it offer that Git doesn't? Wtf is "forge"?
Radicle is an alternative... to what? I believe I have full control of my data in my Git repository... why do I need an alternative with even more control? How will I have even more control?
* * *
Maybe whatever this software does is actually useful or even good, but the documentation can't be worse.
ghostpepper 1 hours ago [-]
I agree it's not immediately clear how it works, although I think I understand the role it's intending to fill.
If you're not familiar with the distinction between git and github it could be even more confusing.
As soon as I hear decentralized I have lots of questions about the underlying protocols. Their protocol page helps a little but also uses terms I'm not familiar with like "gossip protocol".
It would be nice for there to be a page that motivates the project a bit more, ie. explaining the technical problems they are attempting to solve before enumerating the components of the complex system they've built.
pessimizer 2 hours ago [-]
> So, what is Radicle?
> Radicle is a peer-to-peer code collaboration platform (“forge”) built on Git.
-----
> Why Git/GitHub are used as if they were the same category of things?
They are not. Github is a centralized collaboration platform built on git, and radicle is a peer-to-peer collaboration platform built on git.
-----
> Wtf is "forge"?
A word some people started using for the class of Github/Bitbucket(RIP) or even Fossil-type things, as FOSS alternatives began to multiply.
-----
> Radicle is an alternative... to what?
To Github, or other "forges."
47282847 2 hours ago [-]
The first I remember using it was SourceForge (1999).
Rendered at 17:57:43 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
[^1]: https://radicle.zulipchat.com/#narrow/channel/369876-RIPs/to...
If there's purely an agentic forge one day, it's likely going to be a distributed one, with cryptographic identities and signed artifacts by default.
[^1]: https://radicle.zulipchat.com/
[1] https://rustchat.io/
All you would need is cargo compatibility, and a trusted namespace that kept up with the metadata of the current contents of crates.io, right?
edit: I really, really like rust, and love basically all of their choices about the language, but I can't stand the feeling that I'm being tricked into an ecosystem dependent on one of the worst behaved companies in the world, and I can't stand that a lot of rust projects smell like GPL-washing.
That being said, git is GPL and radicle is MIT, so it feels like the same thing, but Github also ain't git. I prefer MIT to MS; if radicle gets important enough and decides to rubpull, there will inevitably be a Free fork anyway.
[^1]: https://radicle.zulipchat.com/#narrow/channel/369274-General...
There are rough edges and the seeding thing is a bit mehhh. And honestly there are a bunch of things I would do differently but I like the spirit of things.
Not sure where the authors of the project stand, but it's fun to see them make progress.
[^1]: https://radicle.zulipchat.com/
Gitlab and Github have pages and pages going over the domain language used to configure the job triggers. Jobs can trigger other jobs either in response to completion or as a dependency etc etc.
I would say these radicle-ci designs as they are now are actually quite rudimentary. That's perfectly fine for an early project but at this point I think you have to say that they won't have a CI system ready for quite some time.
Feels like using a free Jenkins gets you everything you want. Doesn't need more than a container or Java either.
Some nitpicks:
* What is with the forced serif font on the website?
* Does this support other version control systems? Like mercurial, SVN, pijul, etc.?
No it doesn't currently support other VCS's but we have planned for that possibility in future!
> What is Radicle? How is it different from Git/GitHub?
> Radicle is a peer-to-peer code collaboration platform (“forge”) built on Git. Unlike centralized platforms like GitHub, there is no single entity controlling the network or user data. Repositories are replicated across peers in a decentralized manner. Radicle is an alternative for people and organizations who want full control of their data and user experience, without compromising on the social aspects of collaboration platforms.
(Quote from their FAQ).
This isn't even trying to answer the titular question... None of them, actually.
So, what is Radicle? A platform built on Git? What does this mean? A platform for what? What is it for?
Why Git/GitHub are used as if they were the same category of things? There's not even an attempt at answering the "how is this different from Git?" question. What does it offer that Git doesn't? Wtf is "forge"?
Radicle is an alternative... to what? I believe I have full control of my data in my Git repository... why do I need an alternative with even more control? How will I have even more control?
* * *
Maybe whatever this software does is actually useful or even good, but the documentation can't be worse.
If you're not familiar with the distinction between git and github it could be even more confusing.
As soon as I hear decentralized I have lots of questions about the underlying protocols. Their protocol page helps a little but also uses terms I'm not familiar with like "gossip protocol".
It would be nice for there to be a page that motivates the project a bit more, ie. explaining the technical problems they are attempting to solve before enumerating the components of the complex system they've built.
> Radicle is a peer-to-peer code collaboration platform (“forge”) built on Git.
-----
> Why Git/GitHub are used as if they were the same category of things?
They are not. Github is a centralized collaboration platform built on git, and radicle is a peer-to-peer collaboration platform built on git.
-----
> Wtf is "forge"?
A word some people started using for the class of Github/Bitbucket(RIP) or even Fossil-type things, as FOSS alternatives began to multiply.
-----
> Radicle is an alternative... to what?
To Github, or other "forges."