7 ms·

Somebody at GitLab thought it was a bright idea to add telemetry to their cloud AND self-hosted enterprise versions. Needless to say, it's not about to go over

Somebody at GitLab thought it was a bright idea to add telemetry to their cloud AND self-hosted enterprise versions. Needless to say, it's not about to go over well. I currently use GitLab where I work; we chose it because our data is sensitive and a cloud service was not an option. This telemetry means that I won't be updating until this blows over. Frankly, whoever thought this was a good idea is a moron that doesn't seem to understand that users like my company chose GitLab because we didn't want this shit.

chris11 7y ago
Fortunately they've updated the announcement and are holding back on the telemetry updates. But yeah, DNT is not an acceptable option for privacy. `In order to service the needs of GitLab.com and GitLab Self-Managed users who do not want to be tracked, both GitLab.com and GitLab Self-Managed will honor the Do Not Track (DNT) mechanism in web browsers` Hopefully the update includes a promise to enable deployments without telemetry code. https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitaly/issues/2113 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitaly/issues/2113 https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2019/10/10/update-free-software-and-telemetry/ https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2019/10/10/update-free-softwar...
- vpEfljFL 7y ago
  Just to point out if you care about privacy it's not recommended to turn on this feature becase close to none services support it and it's awesome fingerprinting feature for your browser as well. There is no way for Safari users to opt-out from this because Apple has decided to ditch "Do Not Track" because of privacy concerns.
  - GrayShade 7y ago
    I keep it enabled for sites that do respect it, like firefox.com and friends. By removing support from Safari, Apple took this choice away from their users, but I suppose that's not something surprising.
caseyf7 7y ago
Engineers tried to resist, CFO insisted... https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/merge_requests/14182#note_203849107 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/merge_requests/14182#no...
- seabird 7y ago
  >I don’t understand. This should not be an opt in or an opt out. It is a condition of using our product. There is an acceptance of terms and the use of this data should be included in that.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  Sounds to me as if the CFO is carrying water for investors. Which points to where the problem might lie. Why the CFO is calling the shots on critical architectural issues is a whole 'nother question.
  - hinkley 7y ago
    Most parents learn this, and some dog owners. If you want to talk to your spouse about the possibility of taking the kids to get ice cream or whether the dog has had a treat today you have to speak in code that the short mammals can't understand, otherwise you've all but promised it to them and have to deal with the consequences. The problem is that for salespeople and business devs, the consequences of putting a bad idea in front of impressionable ears are too abstract and so they never learn. So they put an idea in front of a customer or the board about how they can make a shitload of money and the imaginary check has been cashed even before they've stopped for air. Without some tough love these problems will be with us forever. Oh, you're going to have to walk back something you said? You'll be embarrased? Too fucking bad. Maybe next time you'll think before you promise someone $500k of work for $250k minus your bonus. Twist in the wind like you deserve. So someone has sold an idea of making millions and once the engineers or just plain human beings get ahold of it that looks like $200k and a giant pain in everyone's ass. And everyone jumps straight from denial to bargaining with a little detour to anger to yell at the messengers for breaking your shiny dream... that you are not and were never entitled to.
  - 7y ago
notyourday 7y ago
The problem with Gitlab is that in the current state it is a dead product walking. Its existence is entirely based on VC FOMO. It has no enterprise growth to justify company valuation. And it won't have real enterprise growth either. Github had to be acquired my MSFT because it had no path for real enterprise growth if it could not lean on an organization that already sold a pile of services and products in similar or complimentary space. MSFT was the only strategic buyer of Git hosting company. MSFT is the only circus that could use that monkey to fill the gap in its product line up. Of course it picked Github rather than Gitlab. Which is why Github would be incredibly successful, which in turn means that Gitlab in its current state won't be. Hence they would have to massively change the product to justify valuations. It would be interesting to watch. SourceHut is in the exact position Gitlab was before VC FOMO. It can provide decent service that people and companies will pay for but they would never get a billion dollar value. As long as it works for them, it will work out just fine. I wish them well.
- gbear605 7y ago
  Sourcehut intentionally is not going to accept VC money and they know they won’t get a billion dollar value.
- dijit 7y ago
  Sorry, this is painfully deluded. Gitlab is the _only_ choice when your company prefers on-prem (which is the overwhelming majority of >10k employee companies) -- I work at a company with more than 15k employees and we hold an enterprise (plus) license for 8k seats. We are definitely not alone, companies like EA/IBM/Goldman Sachs have _large_ internal deployments of gitlab. They certainly have developer mindshare in large companies, but github is the facebook of sourcecode repositories, it will always be more popular outside (or in smaller, less self-hosty orgs).
  - notyourday 7y ago
    Gitlab is a single product company with no sales force behind it. It already sold to all the customers that it could easily sell to. In order to sell to the rest they would need to have staffed regional offices to do really really really long term sales cycles. It is an unsolvable problem in a current state. Microsoft is a hundred if not thousand product company with gigantic sales force and sales channels that are beyond the level of imagination of companies who say "remote only" is their differentiator. Github Enterprise exists. I know it because we used it. Github will be sold as a part of the rest of the Microsoft product portfolio, which is how they would end up in those coveted enterprises.

chris11 7y ago

Fortunately they've updated the announcement and are holding back on the telemetry updates. But yeah, DNT is not an acceptable option for privacy. `In order to service the needs of GitLab.com and GitLab Self-Managed users who do not want to be tracked, both GitLab.com and GitLab Self-Managed will honor the Do Not Track (DNT) mechanism in web browsers` Hopefully the update includes a promise to enable deployments without telemetry code. https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitaly/issues/2113 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitaly/issues/2113 https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2019/10/10/update-free-software-and-telemetry/ https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2019/10/10/update-free-softwar...

vpEfljFL 7y ago
Just to point out if you care about privacy it's not recommended to turn on this feature becase close to none services support it and it's awesome fingerprinting feature for your browser as well. There is no way for Safari users to opt-out from this because Apple has decided to ditch "Do Not Track" because of privacy concerns.
- GrayShade 7y ago
  I keep it enabled for sites that do respect it, like firefox.com and friends. By removing support from Safari, Apple took this choice away from their users, but I suppose that's not something surprising.

caseyf7 7y ago

Engineers tried to resist, CFO insisted... https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/merge_requests/14182#note_203849107 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/merge_requests/14182#no...

seabird 7y ago
>I don’t understand. This should not be an opt in or an opt out. It is a condition of using our product. There is an acceptance of terms and the use of this data should be included in that.
dredmorbius 7y ago
Sounds to me as if the CFO is carrying water for investors. Which points to where the problem might lie. Why the CFO is calling the shots on critical architectural issues is a whole 'nother question.
- hinkley 7y ago
  Most parents learn this, and some dog owners. If you want to talk to your spouse about the possibility of taking the kids to get ice cream or whether the dog has had a treat today you have to speak in code that the short mammals can't understand, otherwise you've all but promised it to them and have to deal with the consequences. The problem is that for salespeople and business devs, the consequences of putting a bad idea in front of impressionable ears are too abstract and so they never learn. So they put an idea in front of a customer or the board about how they can make a shitload of money and the imaginary check has been cashed even before they've stopped for air. Without some tough love these problems will be with us forever. Oh, you're going to have to walk back something you said? You'll be embarrased? Too fucking bad. Maybe next time you'll think before you promise someone $500k of work for $250k minus your bonus. Twist in the wind like you deserve. So someone has sold an idea of making millions and once the engineers or just plain human beings get ahold of it that looks like $200k and a giant pain in everyone's ass. And everyone jumps straight from denial to bargaining with a little detour to anger to yell at the messengers for breaking your shiny dream... that you are not and were never entitled to.
- 7y ago

notyourday 7y ago

The problem with Gitlab is that in the current state it is a dead product walking. Its existence is entirely based on VC FOMO. It has no enterprise growth to justify company valuation. And it won't have real enterprise growth either. Github had to be acquired my MSFT because it had no path for real enterprise growth if it could not lean on an organization that already sold a pile of services and products in similar or complimentary space. MSFT was the only strategic buyer of Git hosting company. MSFT is the only circus that could use that monkey to fill the gap in its product line up. Of course it picked Github rather than Gitlab. Which is why Github would be incredibly successful, which in turn means that Gitlab in its current state won't be. Hence they would have to massively change the product to justify valuations. It would be interesting to watch. SourceHut is in the exact position Gitlab was before VC FOMO. It can provide decent service that people and companies will pay for but they would never get a billion dollar value. As long as it works for them, it will work out just fine. I wish them well.

gbear605 7y ago
Sourcehut intentionally is not going to accept VC money and they know they won’t get a billion dollar value.
dijit 7y ago
Sorry, this is painfully deluded. Gitlab is the _only_ choice when your company prefers on-prem (which is the overwhelming majority of >10k employee companies) -- I work at a company with more than 15k employees and we hold an enterprise (plus) license for 8k seats. We are definitely not alone, companies like EA/IBM/Goldman Sachs have _large_ internal deployments of gitlab. They certainly have developer mindshare in large companies, but github is the facebook of sourcecode repositories, it will always be more popular outside (or in smaller, less self-hosty orgs).
- notyourday 7y ago
  Gitlab is a single product company with no sales force behind it. It already sold to all the customers that it could easily sell to. In order to sell to the rest they would need to have staffed regional offices to do really really really long term sales cycles. It is an unsolvable problem in a current state. Microsoft is a hundred if not thousand product company with gigantic sales force and sales channels that are beyond the level of imagination of companies who say "remote only" is their differentiator. Github Enterprise exists. I know it because we used it. Github will be sold as a part of the rest of the Microsoft product portfolio, which is how they would end up in those coveted enterprises.