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GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

akr.am

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Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#61

Post by ttoinou »

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…

   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.

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#62

Post by tlb »

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…

That seems to be part of the $4 / mo / user subscription. A server to self-host costs $100-$500 / mo, so it doesn't seem like an impossible obstacle with What fee structure would work for you? Maybe per-installation or per-repo?

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#63

Post by ModernMech »

mankash666 wrote: post #44
ModernMech wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

Ghost is NOT a for-profit company, you can't compare them to companies whose mission is profit. Unless you're implying the pursuit of profit to be unacceptable, this is an apples to oranges comparison

> you can't compare them to companies whose mission is profit.

Why not? They're a non-profit, sure, but that doesn't make them a charity. Like Redhat, they also don't have an obligation to give anything away for free. They just have an obligation to make sure at the end of the day, there's no money left over in the form of profit.

And yet, they manage to not only generate revenue on an open source project, they make enough to keep the company afloat.

That's not to say their model would work for gitlab or github. Ghost works because they're small. But the point I'm trying to make is there is a model demonstrated by Ghost and others that allows for small fully open source project to support itself, while not relying on a closed core.

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#64

Post by [deleted] »

webkike wrote: post #53
geofft wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Open source" is an incredibly ambiguous term. Some people use it to mean the literal "the source is open to the world." Some people use it to mean the Open Source Definition from the Open Source Initiative https://opensource.org/osd , which is a very small set of modifications of the Debian Free Software Guidelines https://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines to make them not talk about Debian or use the term "…

Agreed. I personally prefer the term libre software because it is entirely unambiguous

[deleted]

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#65

Post by dnomad »

dpark wrote: post #60
tonyarkles wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the parent's defense, the two features listed aren't really what I think of when I think of "enterprise" features. I think more of things like SAML and Active Directory integration, auditing, etc.

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.

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#66

Post by da_chicken »

draw_down wrote: post #31
dpedu wrote: 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.

Exactly, which is what makes the "Microsoft LOVES open source!!!!" angle of this acquisition so strange. If they love open-source so much why did they acquire the closed-source service?

Because they bought the service that they chose to use, and in choosing the criteria of what to buy, they chose "best overall" over "best 100% open source." Microsoft is one of the the largest contributors on GitHub.

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#67

Post by pythonaut_16 »

jordigh wrote: post #39

"Open core" is just plain ol' proprietary software. Mac OS X is "open core" in the very literal sense that kernel and core are synonyms. It's really no big innovation to be selling secret sauce on top of free software; Android is also "open core" as is Matlab. Nowadays literally almost all proprietary software has bits of weakly-licensed free software in it such as curl or React. I've never been very impressed by Git…

I strongly disagree.

GitLab is open core because I can run and use the software in a meaningful way under open source licenses.

MacOs is substantially different because I cannot take their open source kernel and run a functioning version of MacOs

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#68

Post by zokier »

ianamartin wrote: post #49

This kind of sort-of open source needs a word. Openium source or something. You get the basics under open source with all that implies. And if you want the premium features, that's also there in a sort-of open source way.

Open core is pretty well-established phrase

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_core

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#69

Post by [deleted] »

pythonaut_16 wrote: post #67
jordigh wrote: post #39

"Open core" is just plain ol' proprietary software. Mac OS X is "open core" in the very literal sense that kernel and core are synonyms. It's really no big innovation to be selling secret sauce on top of free software; Android is also "open core" as is Matlab. Nowadays literally almost all proprietary software has bits of weakly-licensed free software in it such as curl or React. I've never been very impressed by Git…

I strongly disagree. GitLab is open core because I can run and use the software in a meaningful way under open source licenses. MacOs is substantially different because I cannot take their open source kernel and run a functioning version of MacOs

[deleted]

Re: GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source

#70

Post by jordigh »

pythonaut_16 wrote: post #67
jordigh wrote: post #39

"Open core" is just plain ol' proprietary software. Mac OS X is "open core" in the very literal sense that kernel and core are synonyms. It's really no big innovation to be selling secret sauce on top of free software; Android is also "open core" as is Matlab. Nowadays literally almost all proprietary software has bits of weakly-licensed free software in it such as curl or React. I've never been very impressed by Git…

I strongly disagree. GitLab is open core because I can run and use the software in a meaningful way under open source licenses. MacOs is substantially different because I cannot take their open source kernel and run a functioning version of MacOs

Well, you used to be able to do that with macOS, but I think they stopped that from happening in the last few years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system)#Open...

Gitlab may one day also decide that their core is too large and too useful to let everyone play with it too.

Also, you're not strongly disagreeing with me. I said the same thing, the only difference is that you can get most (but not all) of the useful things from whatever GitLab currently considers its core to be.

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