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Graphical git clients

You can use git and NOWA with a graphical git application. Get a free license for one of the professional commercial tools here.

Git with its command line usage is rooted in the open source movement and is free for everybody. There are also a few different graphical git programs, and the more professional ones are commercial. Often users have to pay for commercial use, but non-profit organizations, open source initiatives, or users coming from a purely educational context are allowed to use the programs free of charge. This pattern is typical for productive software in the field of software development. If your product will be public domain, you mostly get a discount. As a member of an academic research group, you have a high chance to qualify for these discounts, because you produce research results that should be open or at least belong to common goods.

The software companies differ a bit in their pricing models and strategies. Some of them have an official application procedure for our use-case; others don't, but applicants can send an informal request via email. In this article I describe my findings about various git applications and how you can get a free license.

Git Tower

Tower is a relatively classical application that focuses more on making git graphical than on project management. NOWA currently owns a multi-user license for Tower Pro. So if you're a CRC member or work in one of the CRC projects, just send a request to the NOWA team and you will get an invitation.

Alternately, every student or university staff member can directly apply for a free Tower Pro license, either as an individual or as a group. The offer description is a bit unclear about the research context, but the Tower support confirmed that researchers and research groups are covered by the educational offer. So if you want to use Tower in a CRC project or in a given working group, a PI could apply for a multi-user license and invite their direct co-workers.

Gitkraken

Gitkraken has a more modern UI and puts a stronger emphasis on integrating git with different project planning tools. The free edition of Gitkraken doesn't support self-hosted platforms like our NOWA Gitlab or private repos on any platform. It can be used locally, but you would have to pull and push via command line. Their Pro Edition is not subject to these restrictions, so if you want to use Gitkraken with NOWA, you will probably need the Pro edition. The company doesn't offer a discount itself, but teachers and researchers (academic staff) can get a free Gitkraken Pro license through Github's Teacher Toolbox. In order to apply, these steps are needed:

  1. Join Github with your university email. If you already have a Github account, add and verify your university email.
  2. Get the toolbox. In addition to a valid school email, you have to upload an employment prove, e.g. a scan of your contract of employment.
  3. Connect your github account with Gitkraken and enjoy the Pro features. You can either directly sign in with Github, or use Preferences > Integrations > Github.