4 ms·

I just do not understand what they spend their time on. No ones giving out points for more checkmarks in a feature list, folks.

spydum 8y ago
Have you ever old software to an enterprise customer? Making your product look special by offering a bazillion features they will never use is surprisingly successful.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- jsgo 8y ago
  In our environment, a vendor would probably be better served to offer a no frills basics thing and then just sell customization support (or painless customization). You could probably check off every bulletpoint imaginable and then we would still have things that need customizing.
  - SteveNuts 8y ago
    That sounds like Atlassian's products to me. That can backfire after a few years of use when every page is customized to hell and back and no one knows how it works.
- simonturvey 8y ago
  Only if you actually then invest some time in selling it. I've had radio silence from their sales team when requesting to purchase an self-hosted licence. The one thing I know about Microsoft (GitHub) - they _get_ enterprise sales.
  - williamchia 8y ago
    Hi Simon, I work at GitLab. Sorry for the radio silence. I do know we prioritize follow up based on company size & order size. If a smaller company requests a few licenses it can slip through the cracks. I've tracked down your record in our CRM and am escalating to our sales team so that you get a response.
    - simonturvey 8y ago
      Thanks William. I look forward to hearing from them. We only have 10 days left on our trial.
1123581321 8y ago
It seems like an even mix of new features, enhancements to existing features, and maintenance.
WhatsName 8y ago
Same issue, it seems to have become an "eierlegende Wollmilchsau" (German for Swiss Army knife, but with a negative conotation). I recently move to gittea[1] for the very reason that I dont need 90%+ of Gitlabs features. Also Gitlab chews up RAM and IO, while gittea is barely noticeable even on a low end server. [1] https://gitea.io/ https://gitea.io/
- sytse 8y ago
  I agree that GitLab is using too much RAM. Stan Hu, all time MVP record holder, will start working to reduce this. Options are removing Ruby code in Gitaly 1.1 and using multi threading in the application server.
  - KaoruAoiShiho 8y ago
    What is all time MVP record holder? Is it a rails community competition or something else?
    - williamchia 8y ago
      For every release GitLab gives an MVP award to the community member who contributes in an impactful way to that release. Stan has earned it the most times: https://about.gitlab.com/mvp/ https://about.gitlab.com/mvp/
- CodingDutchy 8y ago
  I have to agree a bit on the "Eierlegende Wollmilchsau". Features are not everything, regressions and degraded core functionality impact current users, which will impact whether you are getting new users in the long run. For example, recently the number of characters before line-wraps in the MR diff view changed. Not sure if this was intentional or accidental. I know two companies using Gitlab, both based the max-line length in their style-guide on what fit the diff-viewer. I guess Gitlab became a worse tool for code-reviews for them with that change. "You need to optimize for the people not using your product yet because it is missing features." doesn't sound very fair to current users, and I don't think that will work long term.
tinus_hn 8y ago
No ones giving money for bugfixes, folks. People who pay money choose the product they are going to buy according to feature lists. Good enough quality is good enough.
- JosephRedfern 8y ago
  Perhaps not, but they stop paying money because of bugs.
  - Heliosmaster 8y ago
    It all depends on pro and cons. And if the gitlab people are doing this rather than fixing bug, is because they estimated that this is their best move right now.
merb 8y ago
some of their features are also pretty half-ass baked. like time tracking.
- victorwu 8y ago
  Is there any particular time tracking feature you are interested in?
  - merb 8y ago
    at least some kind of reports..
    - victorwu 8y ago
      In GitLab Starter, we have the export issues to CSV functionality, which includes two time tracking fields: time estimate and time spent. Is this the kind of reporting functionality you are looking for? https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues/csv_export.html https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues/csv_export.ht... Anything else that makes sense that we can log an issue for?
      - merb 8y ago
        if I need to write my own tool, than I probably don't need to pay EE for csv exports, since your api can export issue's as well.
    - sytse 8y ago
      Please see https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/25532 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/25532 that has links to open an source application to generate reports from GitLab data. And the tracking issue to add this to GitLab is https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/37605 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/37605
williamchia 8y ago
As a transparent company, our roadmap (what we spend time on) along with our strategy (why we spend it there) is public. https://about.gitlab.com/direction/ https://about.gitlab.com/direction/ https://about.gitlab.com/strategy/ https://about.gitlab.com/strategy/ The "breadth over depth" section might help to shed some understanding.
sytse 8y ago
The biggest picture thing we're spending our time on is creating a single application for the whole DevOps lifecycle. See https://about.gitlab.com/2017/10/11/from-dev-to-devops/ https://about.gitlab.com/2017/10/11/from-dev-to-devops/ for more context.

spydum 8y ago

Have you ever old software to an enterprise customer? Making your product look special by offering a bazillion features they will never use is surprisingly successful.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
jsgo 8y ago
In our environment, a vendor would probably be better served to offer a no frills basics thing and then just sell customization support (or painless customization). You could probably check off every bulletpoint imaginable and then we would still have things that need customizing.
- SteveNuts 8y ago
  That sounds like Atlassian's products to me. That can backfire after a few years of use when every page is customized to hell and back and no one knows how it works.
simonturvey 8y ago
Only if you actually then invest some time in selling it. I've had radio silence from their sales team when requesting to purchase an self-hosted licence. The one thing I know about Microsoft (GitHub) - they _get_ enterprise sales.
- williamchia 8y ago
  Hi Simon, I work at GitLab. Sorry for the radio silence. I do know we prioritize follow up based on company size & order size. If a smaller company requests a few licenses it can slip through the cracks. I've tracked down your record in our CRM and am escalating to our sales team so that you get a response.
  - simonturvey 8y ago
    Thanks William. I look forward to hearing from them. We only have 10 days left on our trial.

1123581321 8y ago

It seems like an even mix of new features, enhancements to existing features, and maintenance.

WhatsName 8y ago

Same issue, it seems to have become an "eierlegende Wollmilchsau" (German for Swiss Army knife, but with a negative conotation). I recently move to gittea[1] for the very reason that I dont need 90%+ of Gitlabs features. Also Gitlab chews up RAM and IO, while gittea is barely noticeable even on a low end server. [1] https://gitea.io/ https://gitea.io/

sytse 8y ago
I agree that GitLab is using too much RAM. Stan Hu, all time MVP record holder, will start working to reduce this. Options are removing Ruby code in Gitaly 1.1 and using multi threading in the application server.
- KaoruAoiShiho 8y ago
  What is all time MVP record holder? Is it a rails community competition or something else?
  - williamchia 8y ago
    For every release GitLab gives an MVP award to the community member who contributes in an impactful way to that release. Stan has earned it the most times: https://about.gitlab.com/mvp/ https://about.gitlab.com/mvp/
CodingDutchy 8y ago
I have to agree a bit on the "Eierlegende Wollmilchsau". Features are not everything, regressions and degraded core functionality impact current users, which will impact whether you are getting new users in the long run. For example, recently the number of characters before line-wraps in the MR diff view changed. Not sure if this was intentional or accidental. I know two companies using Gitlab, both based the max-line length in their style-guide on what fit the diff-viewer. I guess Gitlab became a worse tool for code-reviews for them with that change. "You need to optimize for the people not using your product yet because it is missing features." doesn't sound very fair to current users, and I don't think that will work long term.

tinus_hn 8y ago

No ones giving money for bugfixes, folks. People who pay money choose the product they are going to buy according to feature lists. Good enough quality is good enough.

JosephRedfern 8y ago
Perhaps not, but they stop paying money because of bugs.
- Heliosmaster 8y ago
  It all depends on pro and cons. And if the gitlab people are doing this rather than fixing bug, is because they estimated that this is their best move right now.

merb 8y ago

some of their features are also pretty half-ass baked. like time tracking.

victorwu 8y ago
Is there any particular time tracking feature you are interested in?
- merb 8y ago
  at least some kind of reports..
  - victorwu 8y ago
    In GitLab Starter, we have the export issues to CSV functionality, which includes two time tracking fields: time estimate and time spent. Is this the kind of reporting functionality you are looking for? https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues/csv_export.html https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues/csv_export.ht... Anything else that makes sense that we can log an issue for?
    - merb 8y ago
      if I need to write my own tool, than I probably don't need to pay EE for csv exports, since your api can export issue's as well.
  - sytse 8y ago
    Please see https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/25532 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/25532 that has links to open an source application to generate reports from GitLab data. And the tracking issue to add this to GitLab is https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/37605 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/37605

williamchia 8y ago

As a transparent company, our roadmap (what we spend time on) along with our strategy (why we spend it there) is public. https://about.gitlab.com/direction/ https://about.gitlab.com/direction/ https://about.gitlab.com/strategy/ https://about.gitlab.com/strategy/ The "breadth over depth" section might help to shed some understanding.

sytse 8y ago

The biggest picture thing we're spending our time on is creating a single application for the whole DevOps lifecycle. See https://about.gitlab.com/2017/10/11/from-dev-to-devops/ https://about.gitlab.com/2017/10/11/from-dev-to-devops/ for more context.