Here is a list of what we are loosing when moving to GitHub:

• no private branches (where we'll put our repository for papers?)

• no private wiki pages (where we'll put our todo list and referee comments?)

• command line unfriendly behavior of the GitHub download links for .zip and .tar.gz files
  • here is how it works currently:

    wget http://cp3.irmp.ucl.ac.be/downloads/Delphes-3.1.2.tar.gz
    

  • here is how it works with GitHub (command is almost twice longer and with additional parameters):

    wget --no-check-certificate https://github.com/delphes/delphes/archive/master.tar.gz -O delphes-master.tar.gz
    

• no search in wiki pages (GitHub proposes to do it from command line using grep)

• limited code browser:
  • no way to see file history for files moved to a new directory (GitLab does it and it's now needed because all configuration files moved from examples to cards)
  • no way to compare old and new versions of the same file (I regularly use this functionality)

• no way to adapt to our needs the interface of the code browser, wiki pages and issue tracker (for example, currently it's difficult to switch from code browser back to documentation)

• some information (formatting, dates, users) will be lost after migration of the tickets from trac to github.

• backup of GitHub code repositories is more difficult (needs manual intervention for any new repository)

• backup of issues/tickets is even more difficult

• restore from backup is not clear at all

Possible alternatives:

• local Trac with local Subversion repository and mirrors on GitHub, LaunchPad and BitBucket as for example it's done by the Trac, and Redmine developers:
  • ​http://trac.edgewall.org/ticket/9235
  • ​​http://github.com/edgewall/trac
  • ​http://github.com/redmine/redmine

• local Trac with local Git repository and mirrors

• local Redmine with local Git repository and mirrors

• local GitLab with local Git repository and mirrors

I've just quickly checked a couple of alternatives from the above list:

• while GitLab is good for local projects, the initial page of the project is not customizable and the developers refuse to add this functionality: ​http://feedback.gitlab.com/forums/176466-general/suggestions/3907476-add-readme-to-project-home-view

• LaunchPad does not have wiki pages or any other way to store documentation

So far, the following solution looks the most promising:

• main Git repository goes to GitHub

• wiki pages, tickets and mirror Git repository go to local Trac

• local private repository should be created for older Delphes versions and papers (we could keep current Subversion repository)

• trac-github (​https://github.com/aaugustin/trac-github) plugin should be installed to automatically synchronize both repositories