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I use gitlab because it is free and embodies ethics inline with my own. There has been a conversation that has appeared to be largely one-sided-- developers ask

I use gitlab because it is free and embodies ethics inline with my own. There has been a conversation that has appeared to be largely one-sided-- developers asking for more features, control, consideration ect; and it github largely seemed to be ignoring these concerns. A large group of popular open source contributors wrote an open letter to github and even then, there was not much change until gitlab responded. Github is a much larger organization, and it does a lot of good. However, I like gitlab, they are engaged in the community, really love their users (thanks for the tshirts btw!) and they do things like this-- apologise for their mistakes and listen to their users. So yes, even though they both just copied open source software created by linus torvalds, the great innovation is building a community around that infrastructure, to which I think gitlab is doing a better job at present.

nodesocket 10y ago
Ok few things I'd like to address. "...developers asking for more features, control, consideration ect; and it github largely seemed to be ignoring these concerns." Users will always ask for more features, or a specific functionality that addresses their single pain point. Rushing to add these things causes technical debt and dilutes your product. Beautiful products should be simple. The right approach is to listen to users and figure out the root cause of their pains, and then perhaps decide if the need is big enough address it. "It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them." — Steve Jobs "So yes, even though they both just copied open source software created by linus torvalds..." Ok have to stop you here. The git protocol and cli indeed was written by Linus, but git never tackled how to bring it into a beautiful web interface. git never brought social interaction (issues, pull requests) into coding. GitHub created a lot of innovation in their product and technically.
- vonklaus 10y ago
  right, I was driving home the point that, even though github didn't build git, they didn't simply copy it. > git never brought social interaction (issues, pull requests) into coding. GitHub created a lot of innovation in their product. Many people feel like they stopped innovating here, and thus they choose gitlabs. As a startup, it has to answer the question you asked, and it has to work extremely hard to win developers, add features, and draw distinctions between github and gitlab. The steve jobs quote doesn't make sense. In your example, if numerous people switched to android right after they offered the features ignored by apple, it would be pretty obvious they were important. I don't dislike github. I actively like gitlab. You can choose whatever one you want. I personally am a gitlab user for the reasons above. These are subjective, but many seem to embrace them.
dustinmoris 10y ago
I couldn't disagree more. > A large group of popular open source contributors wrote an open letter to github and even then, there was not much change until gitlab responded What is a large group? Is large 10 people, 100? 1000? What is a popular open source contributor? Name me one that was on that list? What is not much change? Was there no change? Or was there not the change that YOU wanted? Also what exactly did you think will happen? Someone writes a letter today and tomorrow all the features will be implemented out of nowhere? Things take time and if you want to make them great, then maybe even longer. The fact that there WAS some change since then is evidence enough that GitHub did take it to heart what was in that letter. By the way... GitLab is fucking slow. They are so bloody slow that it is painful and as a developer my time is too valuable to waste it on badly implemented software that I have to use every day. The issue has been raised many times and GitLab still didn't do anything until today to speed up their bloody service. So if anything then GitLab hasn't done anything until today except being a bunch of cheap copy pasters. Lol

nodesocket 10y ago

Ok few things I'd like to address. "...developers asking for more features, control, consideration ect; and it github largely seemed to be ignoring these concerns." Users will always ask for more features, or a specific functionality that addresses their single pain point. Rushing to add these things causes technical debt and dilutes your product. Beautiful products should be simple. The right approach is to listen to users and figure out the root cause of their pains, and then perhaps decide if the need is big enough address it. "It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them." — Steve Jobs "So yes, even though they both just copied open source software created by linus torvalds..." Ok have to stop you here. The git protocol and cli indeed was written by Linus, but git never tackled how to bring it into a beautiful web interface. git never brought social interaction (issues, pull requests) into coding. GitHub created a lot of innovation in their product and technically.

vonklaus 10y ago
right, I was driving home the point that, even though github didn't build git, they didn't simply copy it. > git never brought social interaction (issues, pull requests) into coding. GitHub created a lot of innovation in their product. Many people feel like they stopped innovating here, and thus they choose gitlabs. As a startup, it has to answer the question you asked, and it has to work extremely hard to win developers, add features, and draw distinctions between github and gitlab. The steve jobs quote doesn't make sense. In your example, if numerous people switched to android right after they offered the features ignored by apple, it would be pretty obvious they were important. I don't dislike github. I actively like gitlab. You can choose whatever one you want. I personally am a gitlab user for the reasons above. These are subjective, but many seem to embrace them.

dustinmoris 10y ago

I couldn't disagree more. > A large group of popular open source contributors wrote an open letter to github and even then, there was not much change until gitlab responded What is a large group? Is large 10 people, 100? 1000? What is a popular open source contributor? Name me one that was on that list? What is not much change? Was there no change? Or was there not the change that YOU wanted? Also what exactly did you think will happen? Someone writes a letter today and tomorrow all the features will be implemented out of nowhere? Things take time and if you want to make them great, then maybe even longer. The fact that there WAS some change since then is evidence enough that GitHub did take it to heart what was in that letter. By the way... GitLab is fucking slow. They are so bloody slow that it is painful and as a developer my time is too valuable to waste it on badly implemented software that I have to use every day. The issue has been raised many times and GitLab still didn't do anything until today to speed up their bloody service. So if anything then GitLab hasn't done anything until today except being a bunch of cheap copy pasters. Lol