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

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#121

Post by mcepl » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 9:33 PM UTC

ModernMech wrote: post #38

mankash666 wrote: post #29

GitLab or ANY company has no obligation to give away it's work under liberal OSS terms. GitLab is NOT a charity, the hypocritical expectation of OSS while still expecting silicon-valley style exorbitant compensation for being an employee is clearly at odds, companies can only afford such salaries if they eke out handsome profits. Ergo, if you expect a good salary for your work, prepare to pay for good products. RedHa…

> RedHat is the ONLY company managing a reasonable revenue stream while being fully open source For their size. There are other open source projects that are actually profitable. They're just not billion dollar companies. e.g. ghost.org

Just to say I have just switched from Red Hat to SUSE, and the latter is not a charity either.

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#122

Post by Someone1234 » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 9:35 PM UTC

amingilani wrote: post #77

There's honestly nothing new here. GitLab calls itself open core because only the Community Edition (CE) is open-source and the Enterprise Edition is source-available. Anyone, after five minutes of looking at GitLab.com, knows this. They aren't hiding it and it's already incredibly public. They've even publicly talk about their 100+ user-relevant rule for features that decides what CE doesn't get [1] I don't understa…

> I don't understand what compelled the author to write this but GitLab CE really is open-source.

To counter all the comments throughout today claiming that GitLab is the bastion of Open Source. There's nothing wrong with GitLab or their "open core" business model, but a lot of posters today surrounding the GitHub acquisition have been misstating GitLab's OSS credentials.

GitLab did nothing wrong. But facts somethings need to be restated.

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#123

Post by Someone1234 » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 9:36 PM UTC

pritambaral wrote: post #91

mwj wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Self hosting typically lowers service availability, rather than increases it. For example, how many availability zones are you putting it in?

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#124

Post by stealthmodeclan » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 9:38 PM UTC

x0x0 wrote: post #115

stealthmodeclan wrote: post #109

So it's not financially viable to run such companies without trick like these. If our financial system does not allow for companies like Github/Gitlab who provided positive value to society at large to sustain then perhaps the finanical system is to blame. About Github/Gitlab employees, I can provide them housing, food, and some soft benefits. Can they work for free so that Github/Gitlab become sustainable? Why gover…

The acquisition was the almost inevitable outcome of decisions that github alone made: - comping employees with options and/or RSUs; - taking $350m of VC money.

Had they not made those decisions, would they've managed to attract developers, pay bills and keep their lights on?

Do the founders wanted billions or a big impact on the world?

Today, they've sold their customers to an evil tech empire.

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#125

Post by iddan » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 9:44 PM UTC

Stop the clickbait

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#126

Post by EspadaV9 » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 9:55 PM UTC

nightfly wrote: post #13

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…

Check out the issue list on gitlab-ce and see if anyone has requested it come to CE. They may have other reasons or they may bring it over if enough people ask. I've seen threads on HN where they've agreed to bring something over from EE because someone was asking about it so they definitely are happy to do that where it makes sense.

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#127

Post by jwalton » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 10:03 PM UTC

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?"

GNU has listed "Four Essential Freedoms" https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html to meet the definition of "free software". Does the gitlab-ee license meet these? I think for the most part it does, although I'm not sure this ever had a "subscription model" in mind when it was written. You can run the software, you can modify the software, you can distribute your changes... You could theoretically sell your modifications so long as third parties had a subscription with gitlab, although you'd have the weirdest business model ever.

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#128

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

wolfgke wrote: post #92

TAForObvReasons wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Probably because BitKeeper definitely was proprietary back when the Linux kernel was using it even if it got open sourced later... Your comment seemed to be suggesting otherwise.

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#129

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

geostyx wrote: post #120

pritambaral wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not have both and host it yourself?

Maintaining a GitLab server takes time.

This is just utterly wrong.

yum upgrade

Done.

No problems for years now. Not a single one.

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#130

Post by wolfgke » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 10:19 PM UTC

ajsalminen wrote: post #128

wolfgke wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Probably because BitKeeper definitely was proprietary back when the Linux kernel was using it even if it got open sourced later... Your comment seemed to be suggesting otherwise.

> Probably because BitKeeper definitely was proprietary back when the Linux kernel was using it even if it got open sourced later... Your comment seemed to be suggesting otherwise.

I specially looked in the dictionary what the translation of "mittlerweile" [de] means in English ("by that time"). Additionally I did not write "BitKeeper was by that time open source under Apache 2.0 License", but "BitKeeper is by that time open source under Apache 2.0 License", which to my understanding of English grammar means that I am writing about something that currently holds. Additionally the German word "mittlerweile" (which by my dictionary means "by that time", as I already remarked) has exactly the meaning that it was different in the past - and my language feeling says this also holds if "by that time" is used in a present tense sentence. Even if not: if I were to say that it was already open source in the past (when Linus Torvald decided to create Git), I would have used the simple past tense. Using a present tense sentence for such a formulation does not make sense with respect to my understanding of the English grammar.