Backport Merge Request Approvals from Starter to CE
Problem to solve
Merge Request Approvals are implemented in GitLab Starter, but are not available in Core (gitlab-ce).
Even the smallest development teams (2-3 people) and personal/non-commercial projects require essential features for good coding practices like peer-reviewing:
- Selection of reviewers from a list
- Blocking of merge requests until all reviewers approve them
Further details: abstract of the discussion bellow
Gitlab is not currently, as of 2019-06-07, willing to move the Merge Request Approvals feature from Starter to CE.
There is a separate issue (https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/59197) for which Gitlab is ~"Accepting merge requests" though. Gitlab will allow contributors to propose merge-requests based on EE code for the features described in that issue.
https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/59197 proposes:
- Add the Approve button to the merge request widget as an entirely optional step
- Number of approvals and a green tick would be shown in the merge request list
Which improves the current situation in this way:
- It is better than relying on norms/culture, like using
✔ or✅ reaction to note approval in a merge request - Number of approvals (and a green tick) shown in the MR list
It does not allow (and merge-requests implementing this will probably be rejected):
- Selection of reviewers from a list
- Blocking of merge requests until all reviewers approve them
Proposal
GitLab should make the Merge Request Approvals feature implemented in GitLab Starter available in Core (GitLab CE)