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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

#3

Post by olliej »

I was kind of surprised that the hosting of such stuff was a significant enough cost that removing it was seen as worth it - but I have no idea what their annual revenue is, and a million dollars is a million dollars.

That said, they were talking about deleting dead projects from unpaid accounts, and it does seem kind of shitty that as a community we seem to have decided that once a company has hosted some content that they should be required to host it forever at their own expense.

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

#4

Post by bevelwork »

richbell wrote: post #2

The fact that they walked this back so quickly suggests that they either are strapped for cash or have extremely out-of-touch leadership. Both are worrying.

Looks to be about 250M/year

[source](https://about.gitlab.com/press/releases/2022-03-14-gitlab-re...)

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

#5

Post by olliej »

olliej wrote: post #3

I was kind of surprised that the hosting of such stuff was a significant enough cost that removing it was seen as worth it - but I have no idea what their annual revenue is, and a million dollars is a million dollars. That said, they were talking about deleting dead projects from unpaid accounts, and it does seem kind of shitty that as a community we seem to have decided that once a company has hosted some content th…

Quick googling says 300 million in annual revenue, but a -155M net income or -61M profit margin (how are they different?)

So that’s somewhere between 0.6% and 1.5% of their annual loss according to the claim it would save 1M a year

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

#6

Post by kelnos »

olliej wrote: post #3

I was kind of surprised that the hosting of such stuff was a significant enough cost that removing it was seen as worth it - but I have no idea what their annual revenue is, and a million dollars is a million dollars. That said, they were talking about deleting dead projects from unpaid accounts, and it does seem kind of shitty that as a community we seem to have decided that once a company has hosted some content th…

> it does seem kind of shitty that as a community we seem to have decided that once a company has hosted some content that they should be required to host it forever at their own expense.

This is a really great insight that I hadn't thought of. Sure, if they, from the start, had promised to do so, that would be one thing. But users of free plans are essentially freeloading (sure, there are useful network effects of having free users on the platform), and it's a bit entitled to expect that free services are free in perpetuity (especially from a company that isn't profitable), even for projects that might be abandoned.

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

#7

Post by kyrofa »

richbell wrote: post #2

The fact that they walked this back so quickly suggests that they either are strapped for cash or have extremely out-of-touch leadership. Both are worrying.

Indeed. The fact that they're also limiting free organizations to 5 members (counting members of sub-groups)[1], which feels truly arbitrary, seems to agree.

[1]: https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2022/03/24/efficient-free-tier...

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

#8

Post by UpstandingUser »

olliej wrote: post #3

I was kind of surprised that the hosting of such stuff was a significant enough cost that removing it was seen as worth it - but I have no idea what their annual revenue is, and a million dollars is a million dollars. That said, they were talking about deleting dead projects from unpaid accounts, and it does seem kind of shitty that as a community we seem to have decided that once a company has hosted some content th…

> as a community we seem to have decided that once a company has hosted some content that they should be required to host it forever at their own expense.

We need something like public (book) libraries for code. Or a Library of Congress. FOSS has become critical infrastructure and we need to act like it. Done well, this could also help foster people learning to code. Sure there will be some political issues with it around funding and what code we should or shouldn't host, but the benefits would outweigh the drawbacks I think. I've seen tax money go to worse things, at least.

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

#10

Post by ceejayoz »

bevelwork wrote: post #4
richbell wrote: post #2

The fact that they walked this back so quickly suggests that they either are strapped for cash or have extremely out-of-touch leadership. Both are worrying.

Looks to be about 250M/year [source]( https://about.gitlab.com/press/releases/2022-03-14-gitlab-re... )

That's revenue.

They're spending more money than they're making.

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