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Gitlab U-turns on deleting dormant projects after backlash

theregister.com

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Re: Gitlab U-turns on deleting dormant projects after backlash

#101

Post by moron4hire »

ddevault wrote: post #75
lol768 wrote: post #73

There's a reason GitHub is the de facto host for OSS projects, I'd posit that open source maintainers who deliberately choose an unconventional host like GitLab already increase the barrier to contributions (not just due to network effects, but an unfamiliar UI, feature parity, poor performance etc) and this change would've already tipped the balance in my view and made it even clearer GitLab is not the right choice…

If you believe that it's important for free software to use free software infrastructure (and you should[0]), then there is no choice but to do so. Infrastructure like GitHub is primarily a function of network effects and the only way to overcome them is to cast your lot appropriately. A maintainer who "doesn't care" if their infrastructure is proprietary is not doing a good job. [0]: https://drewdevault.com/2022/03/…

>> A maintainer who "doesn't care" if their infrastructure is proprietary is not doing a good job.

This is why pure FOSS hasn't, doesn't, and won't win. This overly moralistic posturing at every turn drives people away.

Re: Gitlab U-turns on deleting dormant projects after backlash

#102

Post by Bluecobra »

andrew_ wrote: post #22
eslaught wrote: post #15

I've had open source projects be dormant for 10 years only to get a question pop up out of the blue from someone who found it useful. I hope that Gitlab and other hosts of the open source community think hard about this before implementing any policy like this. There are projects that are useful, and stable, but for whatever reason do not have a lot of users. There is no reason to let those projects die, or force the…

Ditto. Sometimes stuff reaches a point where it's mature or stable and doesn't need more development. Sometimes life gets in the way and years down the road someone stops in to pick up the torch. That's open source.

I use this small utility in Linux called mdump to test multicast on a semi regular basis. It does what it is supposed to and I never ran into any issues. I just happened to look at the source code again the other day and it was last updated in 1994!

Re: Gitlab U-turns on deleting dormant projects after backlash

#103

Post by sokoloff »

malikNF wrote: post #28
xupybd wrote: post #23

Gitlab is great but they don't make money out of me and I'm not sure why. There is no reason for me to go to a paid account. There is no way that I could justify the cost to my boss. We have 5 slots for the team and only need 3. There is nothing that we'd gain from paying. If they said tomorrow that we had to pay $60 a month to get what we're getting now, then I'd say to my manager we need to pay for this or we won't…

>If they said tomorrow that we had to pay $60 a month to get what we're getting now 0 to 60 overnight sounds like a very disastrous thing for a company to do, like a big ol bait and switch. I would immediately stop using that company and find alternatives, and I am guessing it will be the same for a lot of people too. At 60usd a month for 5 people, a developer should be able to buy a few servers(~4) for less than $30…

“Would you like to pay $60 a month to avoid a yak shave and on-going yak beard trimming?” Yes, I would.

I’m often accused of being somewhat too frugal, but in this case frugality points me strongly towards paying the $60/mo.

Re: Gitlab U-turns on deleting dormant projects after backlash

#104

Post by fariszr »

lol768 wrote: post #73

There's a reason GitHub is the de facto host for OSS projects, I'd posit that open source maintainers who deliberately choose an unconventional host like GitLab already increase the barrier to contributions (not just due to network effects, but an unfamiliar UI, feature parity, poor performance etc) and this change would've already tipped the balance in my view and made it even clearer GitLab is not the right choice…

After Copilot, and their complete refusal to explain their stance towards software license compliance with CoPilot, I don't think sticking to GitHub is the right thing to do.

And GitHub can afford to offer all of these things for free because they are owned by Microsoft and they are playing the long game. CoPilot is probably one of monetization steps coming.

I have been planing to switch to GitLab because of it, even though I don't have any important public projects currently.

This Blog post is very helpful.

https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2022/jun/30/give-up-github-la...

I choose gitlab because IMO its the only full GitHub alternative, Gitea lacks advanced CI, while Gitlab has everything GH has and more.

Also if dont really agree that if you care about the platform being open source, that you should use SourceHut.

New user experience is horrible IMO, its lacks a lot of stuff GitHub has, and the UI isn't great.

IMO the best alternative is GitLab for a complete GH alternative, and Gitea for core stuff.

Re: Gitlab U-turns on deleting dormant projects after backlash

#105

Post by 5e92cb50239222b »

KronisLV wrote: post #96
aaaaaaaaaaab wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$60 is like 30-60min at a developer’s hourly rate.

> $60 is like 30-60min at a developer’s hourly rate. More like 4 hours of my salary (~2100 euros per month after taxes), given that I live in Eastern Europe and work for a local company. I think that there is definitely an interesting shift in opinions towards expenditure towards software, platforms and tools. The poorer a particular nation (and its developers) are on average, the more inclined everyone is towards a…

Makes sense. I am from an even poorer ex-soviet country. I think we have zero (or very close to zero) subscriptions, use no external services for anything critical, and host everything ourselves. It's not only much cheaper, but faster as well (when the closest datacenter is 150 ms away, the difference is obvious). It also protects us in case the dictator does something stupid and we get cut off because of sanctions or inability to pay. I've seen an even stronger drive towards self-hosting since February of this year, just in case.

Re: Gitlab U-turns on deleting dormant projects after backlash

#106

Post by fariszr »

foxbee wrote: post #63

I understand their intentions for doing this - i don't agree with them. My initial reaction was 'sleep mode' may be better and alert people to either log in and "activate" their repo. Once again, i don't agree with deleting dormant projects, I'm just curious what an alternative solution is?

> My initial reaction was 'sleep mode' may be better and alert people to either log in and "activate" their repo.

That's what they ended up deciding to do

> We reached a decision to move unused repos to object storage. Once implemented, they will still be accessible but take a bit longer to access after a long period of inactivity.

Re: Gitlab U-turns on deleting dormant projects after backlash

#107

Post by Volundr »

saurik wrote: post #87
pca006132 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding copilot training issue, I wonder if they can just train on any open-source projects that they can access, e.g. projects in SourceHut. I remember their argument is that their training is considered fair use, legal/moral questions aside, doesn't it means that they can also justify using projects hosted on alternative platforms for training?

If your code is open source and matters at all, people put it on GitHub anyway. I refused to self-host any of my stuff on GitHub, but there are a ton of forks and mirrors of old versions there anyway (and then people get confused being unable to find the real copy because there seriously are asshats out there searching for code repositories exclusively on GitHub instead of Google).

While I am all for hosting elsewhere (and do so myself) I will admit to being one of these asshats. Lots of projects have semi-common names and Google/DDG will often surface irrelevant results. I often find it easier to find projects by just searching GitHub instead.

Re: Gitlab U-turns on deleting dormant projects after backlash

#110

Post by trinovantes »

L6489afSMNLNFDa wrote: post #90
trinovantes wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gitlab's approach also sounds like an easy way to hijack dormant projects to inject malicious code and let unsuspecting users download "updates"

Except that projects are namespaced under their owner, so you'd need to hijack the owner's account. They don't appear to have been proposing deleting users (or groups), just projects. Other than that, you can fork whatever you want today...

OP is talking about obtaining an username from an inactive user. If they were able to obtain the username, they effective took over the namespace.
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