Updated April 18, 2023
Introduction to Gitlab Version
A DevOps lifecycle tool based on the internet that helps in continuous integration and development with the help of a repository where issue tracking is done continuously with pipeline and open-source features is called Gitlab. It was written in Ruby, Go, and JavaScript and it helps developers to do all the tasks of a project starting from project planning to release in Gitlab directly. Projects are used to track the code and manage the codebase. These projects can be made either public or private or can be kept within a group of members. The free repository is provided to make any changes within the project.
Versions
- The initial announcement of Gitlab virtual machine and VMware image was released in Oct 2011. In November 2011, Gitlab Pronto was released that had the features of the dashboard, project activities, network graph along with comments and improved wall in the new design feature. This was provided with two branches master and pronto where pronto had all the new features. Till now Gitlab was called gitosis and version 2 that was released in December 2011 saw gitolite with changes in project wiki, workflow management, merge requests, commits, changes in user profile, user tags, and file tab lists. Browsing was given in the form of a tree and usability of the interface was improved.
- January 2012 saw Version 2.1 release with repository and project tab followed by 2.2 in February 2012 which had improved usability and comparison between commits where submodules were displayed for ease of access. The next release update in March saw changes in merge requests along with MySQL support in the 2.3 version. A search page was provided and an automatic close of merge request on push command was initiated. April saw the version 2.4 release which helped to block user from any unauthorized activity with big commits handling and responsive layout in the system. With version 2.5 release in May, emails could be sent in the background and bugs can be fixed easily. The user interface was also changed for ease of access.
- Version 3 in October 2012 saw changes in web editor with more API support and file browsing in the system along with project groups and refactoring. Postgres support was also provided in this version. This was followed by 3.1 which had continuous integration for merge requests and image comparison. Version 4 was released in December 2012 with new projects, usernames, owners, group directories, and the transfer of projects from one user to another. 5.3 was released in June 2013 which fixed few bugs along with repository graphs, code snippets, and renaming the repository with improved security features. Also, more APIs were added to Gitlab to improve the usability of the application.
- Gitlab 6 was released in Aug 2013 with many major changes such as a sign-in page, improved groups, merge requests between any groups, and user interface improvement. 6.2 saw public project pages and user profiles along with the admin page. 6.7 was released with markdown, emojis, and links to explore new options. We can import the repository into Gitlab now and Slack, Gemnasium was integrated. Version 7 saw the option to add images into the repository and permission changes where developers and masters have different permissions owing to the security. This also helped in improving performance. Several versions of 7 were released for fixing bugs and improving security but the major breakthrough happened in Version 8.0.
- Version 8.0 was released in September 2015 that allowed people to create codes and review the same together where changes can be made and deployed at the same time. The performance improvement and less disk space made Gitlab liked by every developer. The status of the projects and test codes can be seen directly in this version. All the user interface feature was changed and modified to improve the performance of the application. Easy uploads and HTTP supports are provided to the application. 8.1 saw much integration support and other releases of 8 had bug fixes and security improvement. 8.8 was more about pipelines and git templates to help developers in merging different projects. 8.14 version came with time tracking and chat commands where several comments can be added while making changes in the project.
- Gitlab 9.0 was released in March 2017 which had improved usability and design where we had project navigation and subgroups. These subgroups helped in the integration of project work of team members with code collaboration. This was followed by different patch releases and web application monitoring. There were various project templates, automation for failed CI jobs, and various security updates for different Gitlab 9.0 versions.
- Version 10.0 came with group issue boards, auto DevOps and bug fixes. Many patch releases and security fixes happened in Version 10 various releases. Version 11 in 2018 was released with security updates at the pipeline level. By then, Gitlab had been used by many developers so that the security was improved at all levels. We could search codes in pipeline levels and code merge levels. Feature flags, merge request reviews, and operations dashboards happened in Version 11.5. Kubernetes and error tracking was included in this version. 12.0 version saw graphs for pipelines, merge request dependencies for various projects, and parallel merge trains for various projects of the same user.
- Gitlab 13 was released with roadmaps, PHP support, load performance testing, and alert management. The mobile application was introduced in this version with a generic package register and maintenance mode in the application. Pipeline editor and DORA metrics have been introduced in this version. Version 14 was released in 2021 with the ability to build and share Helm charts and connect with the git repository directly from the project. We can also create escalation policies to the page responders within the project itself.
With all the versions released, Gitlab has made it useful to almost all the developers to build and share any application to anyone in the world. This application helped developers to improve themselves and correct their mistakes from the application. This also saved time by continuously integrating and deploying the projects.
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