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Community Management

Open Collaboration: OpenProject + GitLab Integrate

Posted byby Corinna Günther
May 14, 2024

Open source thrives on collaboration. Developer Benjamin Tey identified a missing feature and took action. His…

Home » Blog » Open Collaboration: OpenProject + GitLab Integrate

Open source software shows its greatest strength when the community and core team work together.

True to the motto: “Missing a feature? – Build it!” developer Benjamin Tey wrote a GitLab plugin for OpenProject, the project management software, and shared it with the community.

In 2024, OpenProject addressed community demand by integrating the GitLab plugin directly into the core software. This eliminated the previous friction between the two platforms, allowing users to collaborate seamlessly and benefit from a constantly-improved integration. Now the GitLab integration is available to all OpenProject users and is maintained and further developed by the OpenProject core team.

Read on for more on how Tey worked with the OpenProject core team, how big the Community’s influence is in Open Source software and how the integration connects to openDesk.

Amplifying the voice of the user

“Given my need to be able to integrate GitLab with OpenProject, I chose to start something on my own by cloning OpenProject’s GitHub module and starting from the most basic [use-case],” he says. A seasoned IT analyst with over 20 years of experience, Tey hails from Spain. For the past eight years, he’s focused on business intelligence development utilizing Oracle solutions for clients in the banking sector.

His plugin turned out to be a hit: Lots of people started using it, so he kept adding new features and improvements. Other programmers jumped in too, fixing bugs and making the code cleaner. Together, they turned it into a really useful tool for everyone. Once it took off, the OpenProject team shifted focus. While they were initially busy elsewhere, the community’s loud voice – reflected in the plugin’s popularity – made official integration a priority. (Tey extends a big “thank you” to everyone who helped make it happen.)

By early 2024, it was clear that the community plugin should be part of the OpenProject core. Tey’s GitHub integration code provided a foundation, allowing the OpenProject team to easily build their GitLab integration by leveraging Benjamin’s plugin with minimal extra effort. Tey is thrilled with this decision, happy his code is now a core part of the project, contributing his work and simplifying future updates by integrating seamlessly with the rest of the codebase.

Including the code in the core doesn’t sideline community contributors. Open Source development allows ongoing community contributions, while OpenProject staff now handles maintenance. While Tey was happy with the outcome, developing and maintaining the plugin required significant effort, especially due to his limited backend experience.

OpenProject’s integrations lead, Wieland Lindenthal, emphasizes the value of community contributors like Tey. Highlighting the importance of community, Lindenthal says that Open Source thrives on user participation. When internal development capacity is stretched thin, he encourages the community to speak up and contribute to development. This active involvement strengthens the entire Open Source ecosystem, demonstrating the value of collaborative work.

A symphony of Open Source tools

The GitLab integration is also a game-changer for OpenProject users. It brings together two powerful Open Source tools that developers rely on. They can seamlessly create GitLab merge requests linked to OpenProject work packages, boosting workflow efficiency. It’s a prime example of how Open Source collaboration can supercharge the development process.

orchestra playing their piece — Photo by Manuel Nägeli on Unsplash

Open source fosters collaboration, exemplified by projects like openDesk, a joint effort that provides public-sector organizations with Open Source software important for work in the public sector, such as text creation, file collaboration, project management, email, calendar and messaging. Further strengthening this collaborative spirit, Germany’s public repository, openCoDE, now offers seamless integration between GitLab and OpenProject.

However, this story doesn’t end here. From OpenProject’s side, further improvements are planned, and, of course, continuous maintenance. Lindenthal assures users of continued support for the GitLab integration and welcomes feedback to improve it further. Tey also has further plans. He recently started another proof-of-concept with the most basic things to achieve an integration between the community-driven and Open Source software DependencyTrack and OpenProject.

Know any other examples of Open Source in government?
We’d love to hear from you! Get in touch.

Author

Corinna Günther

Corinna Günther is an international marketing manager at the open source project management software OpenProject. At the time of this publication, she is collaborating to communicate for the openDesk project. By exchanging ideas with other open source enthusiasts, she wants to spread the principles of sovereign, free and open source software to the world.

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