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A couple of years ago I wanted to put my open source projects on GitLab, as I was thinking... "why is the biggest open source hub not open source". Back then th

A couple of years ago I wanted to put my open source projects on GitLab, as I was thinking... "why is the biggest open source hub not open source". Back then the GitLab CI was much better compared to alternatives, and I had a couple of other features that I liked on GitLab. I tried for a couple of months, and gave up. I switched back to GitHub for a couple of reasons. - After some time, GitHub's CI became a thing, it became good enough for me (and other features improved, too). - Companies want to see your GitHub profile. Publishing your work on GitLab is not going to get you the same exposure as publishing on GitHub. - Open-source contributors are on GitHub. The majority is not going to create a GitLab account just to fix a bug or open an issue in my little library. If you want community, it's on GitHub. - Hosting open-source really didn't seem to be a priority for GitLab, so if they don't seem to care, why should I? - GitLab's quality started to decrease. More bloat (both in terms of UI and code size), slower and slower app whereas GitHub hit the sweet spot of keeping things simple while providing essential features that are fast.

jraph 4y ago
> Companies want to see your GitHub profile Yes, but see, this is exactly what we ought to fight. No? I don't want to be forced to host my open source projects at Microsoft. Or any place really. I don't think there should be any centralization for project hosting. GitLab.com is not perfect neither, it requires users to run reCAPTCHA. This is forced Google spying for any GitLab users and therefore potential contributors. I really want this fad that considers platforms hosting projects as social networks to end.
- JohnHaugeland 4y ago
  then set up a github account and put up a project that says "my stuff is hosted over here instead"
  - jraph 4y ago
    I should not have to open an account on GitHub. But okay, maybe-ish. However, my point is actually larger than this. There's a whole ecosystem where your project doesn't exist if it's not on GitHub. For example, Hackoberfest, where only projects on GitHub are eligible (not that it necessarily a bad thing actually, but still, it really puts in the head of people that open source = GitHub) (edit: I see that they accepted GitLab in 2021. It's less bad than just GitHub, but still problematic). There are studies / research on software / open source that don't bother with projects not on GitHub. Libraries are often evaluated on the number of stars / forks / issues they have on GitHub. These issues are all about the network effect.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Curious_Furious 4y ago
I've been a loyal gitlab user since before it turned into the absolute beast it is now. I even considered applying there because I like their values. Only problem is, I've never written a line of ruby. I really don't look forward to having to move to yet another platform. Will probably just host my own repo's if that time arrives.
mrighele 4y ago
> - Open-source contributors are on GitHub. The majority is not going to create a GitLab account just to fix a bug or open an issue in my little library. If you want community, it's on GitHub. This is a double-edged sword, because it means that your project will receive a lot of trivial issues/requests. I've seen more than one complaint that the having to handle the amount of requests in an open source project made it more than a daily job than a enjoyable activity Ideally you want to make it easy for people that care to contribute, but not too easy in order to avoid "spam".
sph 4y ago
> GitLab's quality started to decrease. More bloat (both in terms of UI and code size), slower and slower app whereas GitHub hit the sweet spot of keeping things simple while providing essential features that are fast. Honestly, this is why I switched my previous company and my personal repos to Github. GitLab has always felt slow as molasses, with unintuitive UI.
- ama5322 4y ago
  I'm using both, and in both cases for both work and personal projects. There are a few things which are better in GH, some are better in GL. Which one is which is really subject to taste (I prefer the review workflow in GL, I much prefer the simplified issues management in GH, but I got the exact opposite opinion from colleagues). GL used to have the upper hand with CI, but lately GH actions again improved enough that I don't mind it. For a professional setup though, GL CE offers an escape hatch and can be a _huge_ cost saving measure if you ever find yourself needing it. Managing GL in a container is almost painless in the last couple of years. By contract we're actually running on an older GH plan due to plan cost increases we don't find reasonable. On that basis alone, GL seems a no brainer. Both GH and GL online services princing plans can have questionable costs in several scenarios. GH can give your project wider visibility due to it's popularity, but I never had any any complaint from developers. I see issue reports coming in on GL even on obscure projects, and in most cases devs already have accounts on both platforms. I do see somewhat less random requests for generic help on GL (as in "what do I need to do to install this?" which is answered in the README), but it's really hard to quantify seriously.
arubania2 4y ago
> Companies want to see your GitHub profile Does it matter where you link to in your resume? I can't imagine someone open a URL only to realize it's not GitHub and close the page before checking out some repositories.
mdaniel 4y ago
> The majority is not going to create a GitLab account just to fix a bug or open an issue in my little library FWIW, GL supports a lot of social auth providers, including GitHub: https://gitlab.com/users/sign_in/ https://gitlab.com/users/sign_in/ (you may have to open that in an incognito window to see the login choices, but there are 5 of them currently) That's in contrast to https://github.com/login https://github.com/login which is "GitHub or GFYS"
lamontcg 4y ago
> The majority is not going to create a GitLab account just to fix a bug or open an issue in my little library. Honestly, that sounds like a selling point. Having a road bump so that people who show up in issues are motivated should cut down on the zero effort drive by bug reports.
- JohnHaugeland 4y ago
  "hey guys, if it's a valid bug they'll still come find it, right?" "we're not just cutting off the information we need, right?"
  - lamontcg 4y ago
    If you already know of more bugs than you have time to fix, then more bugs for the sake of more bugs aren't that valuable. And sifting through dozens of bug low effort bug reports, to try to find the one useful one isn't actually a productive use of time. And not every software project has the same concerns as every other one.
    - JohnHaugeland 4y ago
      > If you already know of more bugs than you have time to fix, then more bugs for the sake of more bugs aren't that valuable. We disagree quite strongly on this. In fact, I'm currently being burnt by an example. I'm currently interacting with one of the big delivery websites. Think similar to GrubHub or Instacart. Every so often the system auto-temp-bans me. I think maybe I'm falling afoul of scraper detection; it tends to happen when I am searching through stores because I need three obscure things and each store has two, looking for one that has all three. This happened again two days ago. I was trying to get all the flavors of one particular brand of chocolate chip. I had gotten a bag as a substitute, and it was much higher quality than expected, so I wanted to try the others. Problem is, the brand isn't common, and has 12 flavors, and the top-level search only shows 7 things. "Just open in tabs!" Nah, the system thinks you're a bot scraping prices, and blocks you for seven days in a way that looks like you're perm-banned. I'm sure they're drowning in tickets about their modest quality CSS and so on, but this ticket should still go in. Tickets aren't of uniform importance.
dghlsakjg 4y ago
Just a quick note. When I do hiring I will look at your any public code repo you put in your resume. I’m totally agnostic about where it is hosted.

jraph 4y ago

> Companies want to see your GitHub profile Yes, but see, this is exactly what we ought to fight. No? I don't want to be forced to host my open source projects at Microsoft. Or any place really. I don't think there should be any centralization for project hosting. GitLab.com is not perfect neither, it requires users to run reCAPTCHA. This is forced Google spying for any GitLab users and therefore potential contributors. I really want this fad that considers platforms hosting projects as social networks to end.

JohnHaugeland 4y ago
then set up a github account and put up a project that says "my stuff is hosted over here instead"
- jraph 4y ago
  I should not have to open an account on GitHub. But okay, maybe-ish. However, my point is actually larger than this. There's a whole ecosystem where your project doesn't exist if it's not on GitHub. For example, Hackoberfest, where only projects on GitHub are eligible (not that it necessarily a bad thing actually, but still, it really puts in the head of people that open source = GitHub) (edit: I see that they accepted GitLab in 2021. It's less bad than just GitHub, but still problematic). There are studies / research on software / open source that don't bother with projects not on GitHub. Libraries are often evaluated on the number of stars / forks / issues they have on GitHub. These issues are all about the network effect.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Curious_Furious 4y ago

I've been a loyal gitlab user since before it turned into the absolute beast it is now. I even considered applying there because I like their values. Only problem is, I've never written a line of ruby. I really don't look forward to having to move to yet another platform. Will probably just host my own repo's if that time arrives.

mrighele 4y ago

> - Open-source contributors are on GitHub. The majority is not going to create a GitLab account just to fix a bug or open an issue in my little library. If you want community, it's on GitHub. This is a double-edged sword, because it means that your project will receive a lot of trivial issues/requests. I've seen more than one complaint that the having to handle the amount of requests in an open source project made it more than a daily job than a enjoyable activity Ideally you want to make it easy for people that care to contribute, but not too easy in order to avoid "spam".

sph 4y ago

> GitLab's quality started to decrease. More bloat (both in terms of UI and code size), slower and slower app whereas GitHub hit the sweet spot of keeping things simple while providing essential features that are fast. Honestly, this is why I switched my previous company and my personal repos to Github. GitLab has always felt slow as molasses, with unintuitive UI.

ama5322 4y ago
I'm using both, and in both cases for both work and personal projects. There are a few things which are better in GH, some are better in GL. Which one is which is really subject to taste (I prefer the review workflow in GL, I much prefer the simplified issues management in GH, but I got the exact opposite opinion from colleagues). GL used to have the upper hand with CI, but lately GH actions again improved enough that I don't mind it. For a professional setup though, GL CE offers an escape hatch and can be a _huge_ cost saving measure if you ever find yourself needing it. Managing GL in a container is almost painless in the last couple of years. By contract we're actually running on an older GH plan due to plan cost increases we don't find reasonable. On that basis alone, GL seems a no brainer. Both GH and GL online services princing plans can have questionable costs in several scenarios. GH can give your project wider visibility due to it's popularity, but I never had any any complaint from developers. I see issue reports coming in on GL even on obscure projects, and in most cases devs already have accounts on both platforms. I do see somewhat less random requests for generic help on GL (as in "what do I need to do to install this?" which is answered in the README), but it's really hard to quantify seriously.

arubania2 4y ago

> Companies want to see your GitHub profile Does it matter where you link to in your resume? I can't imagine someone open a URL only to realize it's not GitHub and close the page before checking out some repositories.

mdaniel 4y ago

> The majority is not going to create a GitLab account just to fix a bug or open an issue in my little library FWIW, GL supports a lot of social auth providers, including GitHub: https://gitlab.com/users/sign_in/ https://gitlab.com/users/sign_in/ (you may have to open that in an incognito window to see the login choices, but there are 5 of them currently) That's in contrast to https://github.com/login https://github.com/login which is "GitHub or GFYS"

lamontcg 4y ago

> The majority is not going to create a GitLab account just to fix a bug or open an issue in my little library. Honestly, that sounds like a selling point. Having a road bump so that people who show up in issues are motivated should cut down on the zero effort drive by bug reports.

JohnHaugeland 4y ago
"hey guys, if it's a valid bug they'll still come find it, right?" "we're not just cutting off the information we need, right?"
- lamontcg 4y ago
  If you already know of more bugs than you have time to fix, then more bugs for the sake of more bugs aren't that valuable. And sifting through dozens of bug low effort bug reports, to try to find the one useful one isn't actually a productive use of time. And not every software project has the same concerns as every other one.
  - JohnHaugeland 4y ago
    > If you already know of more bugs than you have time to fix, then more bugs for the sake of more bugs aren't that valuable. We disagree quite strongly on this. In fact, I'm currently being burnt by an example. I'm currently interacting with one of the big delivery websites. Think similar to GrubHub or Instacart. Every so often the system auto-temp-bans me. I think maybe I'm falling afoul of scraper detection; it tends to happen when I am searching through stores because I need three obscure things and each store has two, looking for one that has all three. This happened again two days ago. I was trying to get all the flavors of one particular brand of chocolate chip. I had gotten a bag as a substitute, and it was much higher quality than expected, so I wanted to try the others. Problem is, the brand isn't common, and has 12 flavors, and the top-level search only shows 7 things. "Just open in tabs!" Nah, the system thinks you're a bot scraping prices, and blocks you for seven days in a way that looks like you're perm-banned. I'm sure they're drowning in tickets about their modest quality CSS and so on, but this ticket should still go in. Tickets aren't of uniform importance.

dghlsakjg 4y ago

Just a quick note. When I do hiring I will look at your any public code repo you put in your resume. I’m totally agnostic about where it is hosted.