The Cost of Developers • Hacker News Board

Re: The Cost of Developers

#131

Post by blattimwind » Tue, Jun 05, 2018, 2:08 PM UTC

mikekchar wrote: post #42

coldcode wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At where I work we use Github Enterprise, which costs way more than Gitlab Enterprise, is not scalable, and barely cares about enterprise customers like ourselves. Gitlab on the other hand is much cheaper, is highly scalable, runs in AWS, and is responsive to requests. Ultimately to make it as a business you need to provide what the customer wants and is willing to pay. Github never did.

Have I missed something here? Why are you with Github and not Gitlab?

Generally speaking, the set of people who live with the consequences of a decision is not the same set of people who made said decision.

Re: The Cost of Developers

#132

Post by rwallace » Tue, Jun 05, 2018, 2:13 PM UTC

pythonaut_16 wrote: post #100

jasode wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>, github sold out to investors, >Investors were in this for a huge exit I think these excerpts from your comment and also DHH's "VCs need their pound of flesh" are not helpful for readers on how to analyze the situation. They (maybe unintentionally) taint the discussion. Github is an entity owned by human beings. The founders included Chris Wanstrath, Tom Preston-Werner, PJ Hyett, and Scott Chacon. Therefore, emphas…

From the standpoint of an end user (which is all of the people complaining about Microsoft acquiring Github) VCs and their money are the bad guys, because the dynamics of their investment is what causes the acquisitions which change the service in ways that I (the end user) do not like. Not saying they're right or wrong (I think at the very least it's a limited point of view) but that's the argument being made.

Okay, but anyone making that argument should also consider that the existence of VCs and their money may well have been part of the reasoning that led the founders to create the service in the first place. Look at the almost total absence of such useful or interesting services created in places that don't have VCs.

Re: The Cost of Developers

#133

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jun 05, 2018, 2:17 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #113

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the place of myth and legend: outside of SV. I know, it's crazy.

Name some companies making any substantial money selling Windows desktop apps besides Microsoft and Adobe? Again games don't count, they aren't for the most part developing "Windows apps" they are developing apps on top of game engines.

[deleted]

Re: The Cost of Developers

#134

Post by nu-world-odor » Tue, Jun 05, 2018, 2:26 PM UTC

Hey! Where's the beef?

Self-hosted GitBlit should be fine and not so amateurish horrific Rails distribution as Gitlab.

Re: The Cost of Developers

#135

Post by davidgay » Tue, Jun 05, 2018, 2:29 PM UTC

avip wrote: post #4

future1979 wrote: post #2

The purchase of github doesn't make immediate financial sense to me. This article posted a reason - to stave off Windows decline. While it is plausible, I still don't see it.

Which MS acquisition did make sense? Skype? Nokia? LI? Yammer?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_PowerPoint#History

Re: The Cost of Developers

#136

Post by HeyLaughingBoy » Tue, Jun 05, 2018, 2:34 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #113

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the place of myth and legend: outside of SV. I know, it's crazy.

Name some companies making any substantial money selling Windows desktop apps besides Microsoft and Adobe? Again games don't count, they aren't for the most part developing "Windows apps" they are developing apps on top of game engines.

Depends on your definition of "substantial money."

There are many, many ecosystems where a Windows desktop app is the ideal platform. I spend my days writing libraries for Windows desktop software and sharing them with many other companies in the same space.

Almost by definition, most of the companies in any particular set of domains will not be household names you've heard of. There are really very few consumer software businesses, but somehow these unknown companies manage to be pretty damn profitable, even if they're not on the scope of Microsoft or Adobe.

Re: The Cost of Developers

#137

Post by foobarbazetc » Tue, Jun 05, 2018, 2:39 PM UTC

coldcode wrote: post #38

jillesvangurp wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct, github sold out to investors, which then owned them, which then sold them out to get an exit when it turned out the company was in no shape for an IPO which is the only reasonable other exit if you are looking for a 10x ROI on a company that burned through hundreds of millions. Investors were in this for a huge exit and they just got it. In fairness, MS bought a valuable social network of essentially the ent…

At where I work we use Github Enterprise, which costs way more than Gitlab Enterprise, is not scalable, and barely cares about enterprise customers like ourselves. Gitlab on the other hand is much cheaper, is highly scalable, runs in AWS, and is responsive to requests. Ultimately to make it as a business you need to provide what the customer wants and is willing to pay. Github never did.

We switched from GitHub Enterprise to BitBucket Server several years ago and are pretty (80%) happy with the decision. Saved an absolute truck load of money.

The only issue with BitBucket Server is that it (inexplicably) does not have a commit compare view.

https://jira.atlassian.com/plugins/servlet/mobile#issue/BSER...

This is such a massive oversight I have to conclude Atlassian themselves don’t use this product.

It annoys us but not enough to pay GH.

We don’t like GitLab as it was slow when we tested it and the UI wasn’t designed as nicely as the other two (tbh it looks like it was designed by programmers). Something about GitLab feels off and I don’t really know what it is.

If MS changes the cost structure of GH Enterprise we’d probably switch back (haven’t looked into how well it integrates with Jira etc recently).

Re: The Cost of Developers

#138

Post by forgotAgain » Tue, Jun 05, 2018, 2:51 PM UTC

My experience is that developers are hardcore in their opinion on Microsoft: they are either all in or have no interest in dealing with them.

I don't see Microsoft being able to move developers with this purchase.

Re: The Cost of Developers

#139

Post by FeloniousHam » Tue, Jun 05, 2018, 2:53 PM UTC

coldcode wrote: post #38

jillesvangurp wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct, github sold out to investors, which then owned them, which then sold them out to get an exit when it turned out the company was in no shape for an IPO which is the only reasonable other exit if you are looking for a 10x ROI on a company that burned through hundreds of millions. Investors were in this for a huge exit and they just got it. In fairness, MS bought a valuable social network of essentially the ent…

At where I work we use Github Enterprise, which costs way more than Gitlab Enterprise, is not scalable, and barely cares about enterprise customers like ourselves. Gitlab on the other hand is much cheaper, is highly scalable, runs in AWS, and is responsive to requests. Ultimately to make it as a business you need to provide what the customer wants and is willing to pay. Github never did.

I was on a team evaluating Github and Gitlab for a large corporation (>10000 seats). Github was multiples more expensive than Gitlab, and unwilling to even come close on a counter offer.

I am a fan of Github (and can appreciate their reluctance to deal with Enterprise headaches), but Gitlab was much more engaged and committed to win the contract. Github didn't seem to care whether they got it or not.

Re: The Cost of Developers

#140

Post by acdha » Tue, Jun 05, 2018, 3:02 PM UTC

panic wrote: post #129

acdha wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before the App Store selling mobile apps required negotiating with every carrier individually, and they priced based on your perceived ability to pay. We had clients who were interested until they were quoted around $50k per carrier just for the privilege of being listed!

The old Palm smartphones let you run whatever you wanted on them.

Yes but relatively few people had them and the carriers were trending in the direction of taking away flexibility. If Palm had hung around longer, I'd bet that one of them would have tried the locked down store there as well.