Developers cloning repositories from GNOME’s official GitLab are now being automatically redirected to GitHub. The GNOME infrastructure team confirmed the redirect is routing Git traffic to its GitHub mirrors to reduce significant bandwidth costs associated with serving one of the world’s largest open-source desktop environments.
How the Redirect Works
When a developer runs git clone https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/[repo-name], the request is now automatically forwarded to the corresponding repository mirror hosted on GitHub. According to Sophie Herold, a GNOME infrastructure team member, As a cost-saving measure, git traffic like git clone https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/[repo] is now redirected to our mirror under https://github.com/GNOME/[repo].
Andrea Veri, another team member, noted that This change was required due to the significant data transfer costs we are incurring, we applied a set of potential mitigations and will monitor costs during February.
He added that if current measures aren’t sufficient, additional changes may be implemented to bring costs down and potentially remove the redirect in the future.
The Timing and Context
The redirect was implemented in late February 2026 after bug reports from users finding their Git clones redirecting to GitHub rather than the official GNOME GitLab repositories. The GNOME infrastructure team clarified this was an intentional change to address bandwidth costs from their self-hosted GitLab instance.
The decision is notable because it runs counter to a trend in the open-source community, where projects have been migrating away from GitHub following concerns over Microsoft’s use of public code to train its AI-powered GitHub Copilot service. GNOME is instead increasing reliance on its GitHub mirrors for distribution, at least temporarily.
Impact on Developers
For most developers, the change will have minimal workflow impact. However, the remote URL in cloned repositories will now point to GitHub rather than GNOME’s GitLab. The GitLab instance remains the canonical source for contributions and issue tracking, while GitHub serves as a read-only mirror for Git operations.
The redirect serves as a clear indicator that even major, well-established open-source projects must make difficult financial decisions. By offloading high-cost, read-only Git traffic to GitHub’s infrastructure, GNOME can preserve resources while maintaining its self-hosted GitLab for collaboration and development workflows.
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