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GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

akr.am

91–100 of 162 posts

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#91
post #84
post #8

Even if every last byte of Gitlab and the bits behind it aren't OSS, it is lightyears ahead of GitHub in terms of source availability. And while I suspect the gap will only grow, I'd love for Microsoft to make me wrong.

Give me service availability over "source availability" any day. The gitlab paas product has shocking performance and uptime.

Why not have both and host it yourself?

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because most of the open source world is more than happy to use that closed-source service.

Including Linux, which originally used the proprietary BitKeeper VCS system before Torvalds wrote git.

> Including Linux, which originally used the proprietary BitKeeper VCS system before Torvalds wrote git.

BitKeeper is by that time open source under Apache 2.0 License:

http://www.bitkeeper.org/

EDIT: Why the downvote?

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#93

I've been a user of gitlab for 4yrs+. Its a great tool and a nice alternative to github for all us crazy "i want to have code on-prem" folks. That being said gitlab ce and its relationship to ee is more and more complicated. What started out at missing select features is now full out armaggedon of lacking features. See latest releases and youll see that all the cool stuff is comming out only to ee. Whats even worse,…

We went Gitlab to Bitbucket + Jira. Quite a bit more power, for less money (even after paying for cloud testers).

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#94
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why not? You can modify/redistribute it, you can't just deploy it to production without having a valid subscription. It's not Free Software, but it is Open Source.

It's not Open Source because the terms aren't compliant with the OSD[1]. And while the OSD may not be a de-jure definition of "Open Source" it is the de-facto definition in the popular vernacular around this subject.

[1]: https://opensource.org/osd-annotated

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#95
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.

Open Source does not care about the Free Software ideals. Except for that one thing, that source code shall be available.

The meaning of Open Source is a lot more precise than just "the source code shall be available". See:

https://opensource.org/osd-annotated

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#96
post #20
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The open source and free software movements came from a time where if you bought a big piece of software - a UNIX system or what-have-you - you would get the source code, and be permitted to modify it and maybe even share your patches with other people who’d also bought the software. That wasn’t the point of either movement at all.

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#97
I don't really agree with the premise here. Gitlab is getting lots of new users because of the Github/MS deal but if those users cared about how open-source their git host was, they would not have been using Github. And the value that Github and Gitlab.com provide have nothing to do with their source code availability. They both provide a relatively trustworthy community resource on which to share your code without having to run your own public server.

Yes, Gitlab has generated goodwill by having an open-source version of their product, and lots of people have tried it out for self-hosted needs. And so they are the natural first place people will flock to. But the main reason people are moving to Gitlab.com is because it provides an easy and open place to host source code that remains (for now) independent from the tech oligopolists.

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#98
post #65
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but that's essentially a branding criticism (labeling them "enterprise" features) rather than a criticism of the "open core" model.

This isn't really the "open core" model if the core is not actually open. GP would like to contribute these features themselves to the open core but GitLab likely would not allow it.

But absolutely nothing is preventing you from using a a fork of CE which adds every EE feature so long as they were developed independently of the closed-source EE code-base.

Open source doesn't mean the maintainers have to accept your patches.

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#99
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we'd have to carry our own internal fork of Gitlab So you have the choice between buying Gitlab or coding yourself. You would prefer it to be free and without hassle, but lack to see everything has a cost.

That's not OP's main point. It's that even if they implement it (as in a clean room), there is no chance of it being merged upstream. Now, if the OP implements some entirely different feature not related to gitlab's pricing, it can be merged upstream in the CE. This is in contrast to conventional open source projects.

uh, a lot of patches to open source get rejected for all kinds of reasons, incl code quality, being off topic or just because the maintainers (irrationally) dislike the patches.

GNU emacs (or more specically RMS) rejected patches that would integrate clang, or provided colorful emoji support on OSX, for political reasons, and that's perfectly fine for a project to do.

Gitlab will reject some patches for business political reasons, which is also perfectly fine.

If you don't like that, fork. If a lot of people don't like it, then the fork becomes effectively the new upstream (e.g. GCC/ecgs).

There is no "Right to have my patch merged" anyway.

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#100

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 technicall…

> 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.

This has come up in the past; they've stated that this hasn't happened yet, and that they wouldn't outright reject it, but would have to consider the situation.

So you might want to give it a try.

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