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With their business model, a constant stream of new features is the only thing that pays the bills. Their paid tiers get the new features, and almost all of the

With their business model, a constant stream of new features is the only thing that pays the bills. Their paid tiers get the new features, and almost all of them eventually wind up in the open product. With a healthy IPO they should be resourced enough to put some extra hands on the backlog. +1 for prioritizing old tickets!

sillysaurusx 5y ago
I don’t really think that IPOing is about acquiring more resources. The point is to get rich. The resources are the means to do that, and everything else is a happy side effect. Hopefully, yes, they will choose to do as you say. But the tickets didn’t language because they were resource constrained. They languished because they were worthless, in the monetary sense.
- crazy_horse 5y ago
  It'll get worse. This is a YC site so it's a dick thing to say but look at every YC company that got big. They might start out with nice ideas and bloviate a lot about bullshit (Reddit still has the tagline about staying for empathy - lol). But every single one of them gets worse after cashing out. They do not give a shit. It's always been about the money. If it weren't they'd have enough pride to make better software then they do and more than that enough pride to actually fix things instead of bloviating. Their business model ensures that they will continue to add features to a bloated and overmarketed project to people that don't know better. We better off? It's possible. But I know that watching their interactions here over the last past decade, when I had the chance, I made sure we didn't use Gitlab for some unis you've heard of and going forward I always will. I'll never get over their data loss incident. Not so much that it happened (though they should have had enough expertise around to make sure it never happened), but the reaction to it like it was just a funny mistake. I realized then that these guys haven't been in real small companies that could go bankrupt if they lose a chunk of data or they had and didn't realize how careless they were. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13542587 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13542587
  - klik99 5y ago
    I think it’s about being the dominant player or not, as a long time employee of a very very well known and large company once complained to me “We care about the user experience, but only when we’re not doing well”. Gitlab will continue to impress as long as GitHub exists - I’d start to worry if gitlab “wins”
    - tln 5y ago
      GitHub seems to care about user experience even though they're winning though.
      - leeoniya 5y ago
        i've opened multiple, detailed support tickets over the years about different UX wtfs they rolled out that removed vital functionality. not one of my complaints has ever been addressed. my last complaint was ghosted after i pointed out that they should actually read my lengthy analysis instead of giving a worthless canned response. still waiting for reply since Jan 4.
        atatatat 5y ago
        Are you a paid user?
        leeoniya 5y ago
        no, but i author and maintain some pretty popular projects and now work for a company that does pay, and also has a massive github and OSS footprint.
        webmaven 5y ago
        > no, but i author and maintain some pretty popular projects and now work for a company that does pay, and also has a massive github and OSS footprint. Would you say that you (and your projects) and employer are to some degree locked in now? Are either you or your employer likely to move away from hosting your projects on GitHub?
dreamcompiler 5y ago
What makes you think their new shareholders will tolerate bug fixing? It doesn't generate revenue and hence doesn't contribute to constant growth, which seems to be the only thing that matters to investors these days. And that's why we can't have nice things in for-profit software nowadays.
- josegonzalez 5y ago
  Bug fixing likely helps with retention, which shareholders _will_ be interested in.
  - pushrax 5y ago
    Especially for products with higher levels of network effect.
- mekster 5y ago
  Why would I want to use a bug ridden, poor performing tool? There are alternatives with less features if you don't need them all.
golergka 5y ago
Their paid users also switch to GitHub when they get annoyed by bugs. I did it once myself.

sillysaurusx 5y ago

I don’t really think that IPOing is about acquiring more resources. The point is to get rich. The resources are the means to do that, and everything else is a happy side effect. Hopefully, yes, they will choose to do as you say. But the tickets didn’t language because they were resource constrained. They languished because they were worthless, in the monetary sense.

crazy_horse 5y ago
It'll get worse. This is a YC site so it's a dick thing to say but look at every YC company that got big. They might start out with nice ideas and bloviate a lot about bullshit (Reddit still has the tagline about staying for empathy - lol). But every single one of them gets worse after cashing out. They do not give a shit. It's always been about the money. If it weren't they'd have enough pride to make better software then they do and more than that enough pride to actually fix things instead of bloviating. Their business model ensures that they will continue to add features to a bloated and overmarketed project to people that don't know better. We better off? It's possible. But I know that watching their interactions here over the last past decade, when I had the chance, I made sure we didn't use Gitlab for some unis you've heard of and going forward I always will. I'll never get over their data loss incident. Not so much that it happened (though they should have had enough expertise around to make sure it never happened), but the reaction to it like it was just a funny mistake. I realized then that these guys haven't been in real small companies that could go bankrupt if they lose a chunk of data or they had and didn't realize how careless they were. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13542587 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13542587
- klik99 5y ago
  I think it’s about being the dominant player or not, as a long time employee of a very very well known and large company once complained to me “We care about the user experience, but only when we’re not doing well”. Gitlab will continue to impress as long as GitHub exists - I’d start to worry if gitlab “wins”
  - tln 5y ago
    GitHub seems to care about user experience even though they're winning though.
    - leeoniya 5y ago
      i've opened multiple, detailed support tickets over the years about different UX wtfs they rolled out that removed vital functionality. not one of my complaints has ever been addressed. my last complaint was ghosted after i pointed out that they should actually read my lengthy analysis instead of giving a worthless canned response. still waiting for reply since Jan 4.
      - atatatat 5y ago
        Are you a paid user?
        leeoniya 5y ago
        no, but i author and maintain some pretty popular projects and now work for a company that does pay, and also has a massive github and OSS footprint.
        webmaven 5y ago
        > no, but i author and maintain some pretty popular projects and now work for a company that does pay, and also has a massive github and OSS footprint. Would you say that you (and your projects) and employer are to some degree locked in now? Are either you or your employer likely to move away from hosting your projects on GitHub?

dreamcompiler 5y ago

What makes you think their new shareholders will tolerate bug fixing? It doesn't generate revenue and hence doesn't contribute to constant growth, which seems to be the only thing that matters to investors these days. And that's why we can't have nice things in for-profit software nowadays.

josegonzalez 5y ago
Bug fixing likely helps with retention, which shareholders _will_ be interested in.
- pushrax 5y ago
  Especially for products with higher levels of network effect.
mekster 5y ago
Why would I want to use a bug ridden, poor performing tool? There are alternatives with less features if you don't need them all.

golergka 5y ago

Their paid users also switch to GitHub when they get annoyed by bugs. I did it once myself.