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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 l

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?
        leeoniya 5y ago
        my employer uses a lot of paid github features, while my projects use none, so moving away would be simple for me, but difficult for them. the real lock-in is no different than any other social media platform: network effects. most people who follow you on X rarely bother also having an account on Y. unless you're Taylor Swift, moving away means diminished visibility/reach, and dilution of any reputation accumulated e.g. over a decade of activity, interactions, etc.
  - paulryanrogers 5y ago
    GitHub SAAS consumer experience. It doesn't go as far for users who would like to run their own GH instance as open source. And in some areas GitLab has done better, such as CI.
    - CameronNemo 5y ago
      GitHub enterprise on prem is an offering I thought? Sure it is not open source, or even source available. But they are still trying to compete against GitLab in that space.
      - paulryanrogers 5y ago
        Right, but I doubt GH let's on prem users modify the source to suit their needs.
sillysaurusx 5y ago
As a counterpoint, the data loss incident made me a fan. They didn't treat it as a funny mistake, I don't think -- I remember one comment from one of the Gitlab engineers of "everyone is very sad, but we're trying." Something in that spirit. Anyone who's ever worked with production systems knows how absurdly easy it is to ruin them. Yes, it was careless, but they responded with class: they didn't fire the engineer that made the mistake. That would have turned me into a gitlab enemy. Recognizing that a process is dysfunctional is one of the hardest things for any company to do. There's an incredible amount of corporate inertia preventing such recognitions from taking hold. Are you sure it wasn't worth applauding? There's also nothing wrong with getting big, or getting worse. The trick is to get worse in the ways that matter the least.
gm3dmo 5y ago
Ensuring there are regular backups of the organizations data is the responsibility of the organization and not the responsibility of GitLab. Disaster recovery did not go away with the advent of cloud providers. It morphed from having a plan to recover when fire takes out a data centre to having a plan to recover when provider X whose free plan we base our business on no longer has our data.

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?
        leeoniya 5y ago
        my employer uses a lot of paid github features, while my projects use none, so moving away would be simple for me, but difficult for them. the real lock-in is no different than any other social media platform: network effects. most people who follow you on X rarely bother also having an account on Y. unless you're Taylor Swift, moving away means diminished visibility/reach, and dilution of any reputation accumulated e.g. over a decade of activity, interactions, etc.
- paulryanrogers 5y ago
  GitHub SAAS consumer experience. It doesn't go as far for users who would like to run their own GH instance as open source. And in some areas GitLab has done better, such as CI.
  - CameronNemo 5y ago
    GitHub enterprise on prem is an offering I thought? Sure it is not open source, or even source available. But they are still trying to compete against GitLab in that space.
    - paulryanrogers 5y ago
      Right, but I doubt GH let's on prem users modify the source to suit their needs.

sillysaurusx 5y ago

As a counterpoint, the data loss incident made me a fan. They didn't treat it as a funny mistake, I don't think -- I remember one comment from one of the Gitlab engineers of "everyone is very sad, but we're trying." Something in that spirit. Anyone who's ever worked with production systems knows how absurdly easy it is to ruin them. Yes, it was careless, but they responded with class: they didn't fire the engineer that made the mistake. That would have turned me into a gitlab enemy. Recognizing that a process is dysfunctional is one of the hardest things for any company to do. There's an incredible amount of corporate inertia preventing such recognitions from taking hold. Are you sure it wasn't worth applauding? There's also nothing wrong with getting big, or getting worse. The trick is to get worse in the ways that matter the least.

gm3dmo 5y ago

Ensuring there are regular backups of the organizations data is the responsibility of the organization and not the responsibility of GitLab. Disaster recovery did not go away with the advent of cloud providers. It morphed from having a plan to recover when fire takes out a data centre to having a plan to recover when provider X whose free plan we base our business on no longer has our data.