GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source • Hacker News Board

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#11

Post by adambrenecki » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 6:10 PM UTC

ng12 wrote: post #5

devmunchies wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the enterprise version is not opened source? big deal. gotta support free software somehow and that is a respectable way.

It is open source though: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/ Open source doesn't mean you can't charge for your work.

Open source doesn't just mean that the source is publicly available, either, though. This definitely isn't an open source license: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/blob/master/LICENSE

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#12

Post by Kostic » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 6:10 PM UTC

I cannot disagree more. The open source core is very featureful for its price, it's easy enough to host on premise and UX is very good.

Granted, the paid version has some nice features and there were some problems in the past when people wanted to integrate features found in the paid version to the open core but that's the price of living in current times. Money is still needed to create and maintain something.

Maybe one day when we start living in a Star Trek society.

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#13

Post by nightfly » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 6:11 PM UTC

Projects that follow the "open core" model bother me when they gate useful features behind their paid version like Gitlab does. My organization would benefit from the "Rebase merge requests before merge" and "Use fast-forward merges when possible" features quite a bit, and we are an in educational environment with lots of volunteers so using the Enterprise edition isn't viable at all. These features aren't technically difficult to implement, but even if we wrote open source versions of them we'd have to carry our own internal fork of Gitlab since there is no chance upstream would accept them since they've already decided they don't /want/ those features in the "community" edition.

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#14

Post by vignesh_m » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 6:11 PM UTC

Whoa, those are some pretty big features I assumed were "core".Static pages, fast-forward merges, Git hooks - aren't these core reasons to use a git website instead of just git+remote

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#15

Post by greenhatman » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 6:12 PM UTC

Phabricator is 100% open source.

https://www.phacility.com/phabricator/

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#16

Post by kerng » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 6:12 PM UTC

haeffin wrote: post #7

ng12 wrote: post #2

> Both versions have their sources published on GitLab with the former having an MIT license and the latter a proprietary one which requires a paid subscription with GitLab. So, it is open source? Doesn't this fall under the adage of "free as in free speech, not as in free beer?"

Usually when people speak about open source, they include not only not being able to view the source, but also the possibility to modify, distribute and use it (and modified versions) in the requirements for a license to be labeled an open source license.

Exactly. For instance Windows source code has been "open source" for about 18 years or so via a license anyone can request. This is still not what most people think of when speaking about open source though.

Edit: They call it Shared Source actually: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sharedsource/default.aspx

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#17

Post by amyjess » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 6:14 PM UTC

zelphirkalt wrote: post #10

ng12 wrote: post #2

> Both versions have their sources published on GitLab with the former having an MIT license and the latter a proprietary one which requires a paid subscription with GitLab. So, it is open source? Doesn't this fall under the adage of "free as in free speech, not as in free beer?"

Please don't confuse Open Source and Free Software. Open Source' ideals are not "free as in free speech, not as in free beer?". That is something of Free Software. Open Source does not care about the Free Software ideals. Except for that one thing, that source code shall be available.

The Open Source Definition [0] cares about more than just "that source code shall be available". Among other things, it says "The license must allow modifications and derived works" and "The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor".

In fact, the OSD is nearly identical to the Debian Free Software Guidelines [1].

[0] https://opensource.org/osd

[1] https://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#18

Post by trevyn » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 6:14 PM UTC

zelphirkalt wrote: post #10

ng12 wrote: post #2

> Both versions have their sources published on GitLab with the former having an MIT license and the latter a proprietary one which requires a paid subscription with GitLab. So, it is open source? Doesn't this fall under the adage of "free as in free speech, not as in free beer?"

Please don't confuse Open Source and Free Software. Open Source' ideals are not "free as in free speech, not as in free beer?". That is something of Free Software. Open Source does not care about the Free Software ideals. Except for that one thing, that source code shall be available.

And I can do what I want with it! :)

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#19

Post by colemickens » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 6:14 PM UTC

It seems that most of the discussion has been around GitLab and then Gogs/Gitea. I hope folks also give attention to other, possibly less-discussed code collaboration platforms that have arguably more open development than GitLab here.

For example, I believe Fedora is developed via Pagure, which also importantly supports "remote" pull requests. (https://pagure.io/pagure) (Fedora's instance: https://src.fedoraproject.org/)

There's also Kallithea, but I haven't looked at it much. (https://kallithea-scm.org/)

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#20

Post by ng12 » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 6:14 PM UTC

haeffin wrote: post #7

ng12 wrote: post #2

> Both versions have their sources published on GitLab with the former having an MIT license and the latter a proprietary one which requires a paid subscription with GitLab. So, it is open source? Doesn't this fall under the adage of "free as in free speech, not as in free beer?"

Usually when people speak about open source, they include not only not being able to view the source, but also the possibility to modify, distribute and use it (and modified versions) in the requirements for a license to be labeled an open source license.

From https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/blob/master/LICENSE:

> ...and all such modifications and/or patches may only be used, copied, modified, displayed, distributed, or otherwise exploited with a valid GitLab Enterprise Edition subscription for the correct number of user seats.

You can do all that assuming you have a license for your production users. It's not GNU-style Free Software, sure, but it still feels like Open Source to me.