
GitLab Partners with DigitalOcean to make CI more affordable - fweespee_ch
https://about.gitlab.com/2016/04/19/gitlab-partners-with-digitalocean-to-make-continuous-integration-faster-safer-and-more-affordable/
======
spdustin
I have a (perhaps) more incendiary take on this kind of thing. I have no
problem with promo codes for new customers. Zero. None. As a business owner, I
know damn well there are some products or services that need a little "taster"
offered to a potential customer to get them even modestly interested.

Existing paying customers? Why would you spend money to acquire customers that
you've already acquired. You had your reasons for signing up for DO, and
apparently, the lack of a $10 credit wasn't one of them. And we all know this
is a flimsy firewall to breech anyway - a different e-mail address that - if
you're really feeling saucy - you could have delivered to an SMTP daemon on
your existing droplet.

Promotions are by definition a form of publicity or advertisement, and if
you're already a customer, you're already a customer, know what I mean? Why
advertise "hey, check us out" if you've already checked them out and signed on
the dotted line.

If you feel really, really, really burned by this, do what other cost-
conscious consumers do, and whenever you see a box "promo code" on a signup
form, Google "example.com promo code" (substituting the actual domain name,
obviously) and see what you can find.

I do not understand, even a little bit, the amount of outrage over the fact
that you want a company to spend advertising money (that's what a promotion is
budgeted to) to advertise to an existing customer. Not unless you feel that DO
isn't worth it already, that is, and in that case, what the hell is $10 going
to do to change your mind?

~~~
choward
> Promotions are by definition a form of publicity or advertisement

There it is. People are pissed off that an ad is being disguised as normal
Hacker News post.

~~~
Trundle
Everything announced by a company on their website, every feature list, every
display video, every write up by the press, every review, is promotional
activity. Anyone that is pissed at this particular instance because it's
disguised as "normal" when it's actually dirty "marketing" should have a good
hard think about how they believe the incentives behind information sharing
work.

------
phillc73
> *Note: Promotion code available for new DigitalOcean customers only.

This type of promotion really aggravates me. I'm not just saying this only
about the announced GitLab/DigitialOcean partnership, but rather as a general
comment as I see this customer acquisition ruse quite a lot elsewhere too.

I spend money with DigitalOcean. I don't feel particularly rewarded for my
loyalty when I can't enjoy the same promotion as some new customer, who may
never spend another cent with DO.

~~~
BoppreH
Two years ago the GitHub Student Developer Pack gave me $100, which I have
been using to maintain a tiny droplet (literally changed my life, thank you).
Last month Digital Ocean sent me this message:

    
    
        We’re truly sorry if this came as a surprise. 
        As of March 2015, we revised our Terms of Service
        announcing that we’re no longer able to offer credits
        that do not expire, and any unused credit added to your
        account more than 12 months ago will expire.
    

I still have over $80 of credit left, expiring this month. I understand why
they are doing this, but it left a bad taste because of the small values
involved, retroactive action and lack of communication (I didn't get this
March 2015 email or any reminders since).

This also creates a perverse incentive to burn the credits in a blaze of
glory. I'm restraining myself, but I can only image the headache this will
create across all users.

~~~
kuschku
I got the mail in early april, and it, in fact, even violates German law
(promotional coupons and promotional credit, if not otherwise specified, is
valid for 3 years, and can not be revoked via ToS changes).

But I do not wish to sue, as it would just cause me a lot of trouble, and I’d
rather spend the money on a hoster I can actually trust. Instead of a hoster
violating laws and frauding customers out of their legal credit.

~~~
hrrsn
DO are not bound by German laws.

~~~
Matt3o12_
If they have German customers, they are bound to German laws because they are
doing business in Germany. Sure it will not apply to American DO customers,
but if they to have German customers, they are bound by their local laws and
those laws apply to protect citizens of that nation.

~~~
the_ancient
>If they have German customers, they are bound to German laws because they are
doing business in Germany.

that is simply not true... Now for DO it might be because they have EU
possibly even German Data centers but simply because a Citizen of Germany
visits a web site and signs up for a online service does not automatically
make german laws apply to that business.

Now it possible you could sue in Germany, the American business would ignore
you, and any judgment you got from a German Court would likely be
unenforceable in the US

~~~
true_religion
> DO it might be because they have EU possibly even German Data centers but
> simply because a Citizen of Germany visits a web site and signs up for a
> online service does not automatically make german laws apply to that
> business.

Are you saying this because you are extrapolating from American law regarding
whether a company has a 'nexus' within a given state, or perhaps thinking
about taxation?

In those specific cases, what you are saying is true, but in general national-
level governments do not care that foreign companies are not actually
headquartered within their borders. They demand (arrogantly one might say)
that all companies doing business with their citizens follow X,Y,Z rules or
else they'll try to sanction the company.

Granted if a company is truly foreign then any sanction would be pretty
limited in scope.

However, easy sanction is to stop credit card processors and banking agencies
from dealing with a foreign company thus stopping your citizens from easily
giving them money.

~~~
the_ancient
I am not extrapolating from American tax law at all

I as an American citizen am in no way bound by German law

For example If I put a website selling digital Nazi Merchandise, and a german
citizen buys it, I am in no way violating the German ban on those things
because I am not bound by german law, any attempt to enforce germen law upon
me would quickly be squashed by American Courts as a violation of my free
speech

Now Germany can forbid it citzens from going to my site, it can attempt to
have that site blocked from Germany, it can even prevent other german
businesses from doing being with me (including credit card company as your
example) but it can never compel me directly as I am not under their authority
at all

------
rohanprabhu
Kind of off-topic, but the work GitLab is putting in and the things they come
up with every other day is crazily impressive. We moved from Github to GitLab
sometime ago and we believed that to be a trade-off for moving to our own
infrastructure. It always seemed like GitLab wasn't "quite there". Today,
however it is a whole different story. We pretty much cannot go back to Github
at all because of how well-integrated, stable and beautiful this product is.

~~~
jobvandervoort
Thanks. That's really great to hear!

Although we still have ways to go, we recently made large strides in terms of
performance and UX. Two areas we know we were lacking in, in the past.

I'd love to hear what we can improve further.

~~~
asimuvPR
This is super nice. After the "Dear Github" letter I moved to gitlab and have
not looked back. Its great to see this project grow in a manner that respect
the community that adopts it.

~~~
sytse
Thanks asimuvPR! BTW For our 'Dear Open Source Maintainers' letter please see
[https://about.gitlab.com/2016/01/15/making-gitlab-better-
for...](https://about.gitlab.com/2016/01/15/making-gitlab-better-for-large-
open-source-projects/)

~~~
asimuvPR
I'm very aware of it. :)

Do you mind if I email you?

~~~
sytse
Of course not, [http://sytse.com/](http://sytse.com/) has my personal email.

------
sytse
For more information about the autoscaling see
[https://about.gitlab.com/2016/03/29/gitlab-
runner-1-1-releas...](https://about.gitlab.com/2016/03/29/gitlab-
runner-1-1-released/) Questions about anything GitLab are very welcome.

~~~
sfilipov
I have a question regarding the difference between the "concurrent" and
"limit" parameters seen here [1].

I understand that if I'm running a managing runner in machine mode with
limit=10 then it can start a maximum of 10 machines. What does "concurrent"
affect in this context. I don't want the managing runner to do any builds
locally -- just to send to runners managed by machine.

[1] [https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ci-multi-
runner/blob/ma...](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ci-multi-
runner/blob/master/docs/configuration/autoscale.md#runner-global-options)

Edit:

Ignore me. I found the answer on the same page [2]:

[2] [https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ci-multi-
runner/blob/ma...](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ci-multi-
runner/blob/master/docs/configuration/autoscale.md#how-current-limit-and-
idlecount-generate-the-upper-limit-of-running-machines)

~~~
sytse
Glad you found the answer in our docs, thanks for updating your comment.

------
abpavel
I love both GitLab and DigitalOcean, but why do I feel so devalued by IT
deflation? The longer I'm part of something and the more effort I put into
promoting a platform, the less perks I get. Why? I understand the importance
of new customers, but why do you alienate the loyal user-base that made you
what you are today? Are we rewarding ignorance now?

~~~
sytse
At GitLab we try to cherish our contributors. Every month we celebrate a most
valuable contributor
[https://about.gitlab.com/mvp/](https://about.gitlab.com/mvp/)

We try to ship great new features in our open source version every month that
you can use for free on your server and on GitLab.com

EDIT I can't comment for DigitalOcean, what follows is my personal opinion.

I think it is great that DigitalOcean is willing to both sponsor the Runners
for GitLab.com and offer promotion codes. Although I understand with your wish
for promotion codes for existing customers I also understand their decision to
only apply this to new customers in order to make this cost effective.

I hope that as an existing DigitalOcean customer you enjoy the benefits of
their cost-effective servers, quick boot time, great UX, and the templates and
tutorials that they keep updating.

~~~
d33
The thing is that I would enjoy it as well if I just signed up. I actually
feel offended by that.

~~~
sytse
I'm sorry to hear that. I edited my answer to make clear it was my opinion as
GitLab CEO, I'm not speaking for DigitalOcean.

------
explosion
In the shared runner settings, I see this:

"GitLab Runners do not offer secure isolation between projects that they do
builds for. You are TRUSTING all GitLab users who can push code to project A,
B or C to run shell scripts on the machine hosting runner X."

Seems like a very strong reason to use one's own paid DigitalOcean instances
for runners instead of using the free shared runners, at least for commercial
projects. I was wondering if anyone from GitLab could expand further on this?

~~~
sytse
This warning is outdated for the shared runners on GitLab.com since we do not
reuse runners there at all. All runners are destroyed after a since build.
Please see [https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-
ce/issues/14732](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/14732) for
more background and our effort to update this message.

~~~
explosion
That's great to hear. Thanks.

------
shade23
Speaking on a more meta level here,this is an interesting phase of Product
offerings.

We have a single giant whose products are used by the
masses(Google/Uber/Github-in this sense) which had customer-focussed /domain-
oriented paths but seem to have lost it midway, and then we have
smaller/modular companies who are more focused to the domain improvement in
itself (DDG,Lyft,Gitlab) who partner up with other specialised
companies(Yandex/Didi Kaudi/DO) to remain customer-focussed /domain-oriented.

In the meantime the consumers get to choose between what the world chose and
what could be a more sensible decision.

------
fweespee_ch
> GitLab partnered with DigitalOcean to provide free Runners to all projects
> on GitLab.com

Wow, I hope that doesn't get abused and taken away.

~~~
sfilipov
They should probably rate limit in a sensible way.

~~~
sytse
Good suggestion, if this gets abused we'll look at ways to prevent this,
limiting the number of runner hours per user account is one of the ways we're
thinking about.

~~~
fweespee_ch
If you implement that, would you consider:

> If you purchase GitLab.com Bronze Support you can email support directly for
> timely, personal and private answers. This costs $9.99 per user per year for
> next-business-day response time and is available in packs of 20 users.

Reducing the pack size to 10 and improving the rate limit for paid accounts?

I don't mind paying for GitLab.com, I just don't want to pay $200/year for it.
;)

~~~
sytse
In case we start rate limiting it makes sense to me to offer a smaller user
pack than 20. I'm not sure if it will be part of the bronze pack or a separate
offering. I'm also not sure about the price, it might have to be based on
activity (pay per hour) or a price higher than $200 per year. For now we'll
first wait how the situation develops and what will cause the biggest
problems.

One possible business model is charging for speciality machines with OSX or
Windows on them.

------
kawsper
The thing that made CI more affordable for us was to rent our own Hetzner
servers, and switch to [https://buildkite.com](https://buildkite.com)

Prior to this we were with CircleCI, and before that Travis CI.

~~~
sytse
BuildKit looks nice and their documentation is really nicely structured. Is
there anything they have that you're missing in GitLab?

~~~
kawsper
BuildKite is really nice, they also support pipelining and are acting as glue
between CI and Github.

I can't answer your question about GitLab since I haven't used your product. A
plus for us was also that they are willing to support Gogs if we need it.

~~~
sytse
Thanks for your response. We already have stages (pipelines) as part of the
.gitlab-ci.yml definition
[http://doc.gitlab.com/ee/ci/yaml/README.html#stages](http://doc.gitlab.com/ee/ci/yaml/README.html#stages)

In the upcoming release (this Friday is the 22nd!) we'll likely ship a
pipeline view in the UI [https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-
ce/issues/3743](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/3743)

GitLab CI is part of GitLab itself and won't support other systems. If you
want you can mirror repositories on GitLab EE/.com with
[http://doc.gitlab.com/ee/workflow/repository_mirroring.html](http://doc.gitlab.com/ee/workflow/repository_mirroring.html)

------
awinter-py
I use self-hosted gitlab as my primary CI and love it. Setting up CI runners
is still too complicated (maybe because I use the gitlab docker image and
there's no compose support). drone.io seems to have better support for
deploying & cleaning up images, but I'm sure gitlab will get there.

~~~
jobvandervoort
Great to hear.

We're working on making deploy [0] and working with Docker images [1] easier.
That should also include cleanup in time.

I owe you a reply regarding Docker Compose support.

[0]: [https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-
ce/issues/3286](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/3286)

[1]: [https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-
ce/issues/634274](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/634274)

~~~
awinter-py
Thanks -- didn't realize they added an artifacts key to the CI yaml.

~~~
sytse
You're welcome. To read more about build artifacts please see
[http://doc.gitlab.com/ce/ci/build_artifacts/README.html](http://doc.gitlab.com/ce/ci/build_artifacts/README.html)

~~~
awinter-py
I'm sure you hear this a lot, but thanks & keep up the good work. I'm grateful
for all the great open source tools I use, but you guys are in the upper
echelon for making consistent forward strides without breaking too much.

~~~
sytse
Thanks! Comments like yours are an inspiration to us, I'll share with the team
(now 70+ people!).

------
brokenwren
More affordable than free? Not sure I get this. Is CI really so hard that we
need to pay someone else to do this? I have a perfectly good server doing
nothing and I installed TeamCity on that. Works great and is essentially free.

~~~
icebraining
You're only paying for the server time, Gitlab CI is free. Many companies
don't have nor want to have servers lying around, they'd rather outsource it.

------
ausjke
As of today DO remains to be my experimental playground for testing new ideas,
linode is my official site, it seems DO keeps its innovative momentum and I
begin to wonder when or should I switch over fully, Gitlab adds one more point
on DO side certainly.

------
deckar01
Install `gitlab-ci-multi-runner` on your existing droplet and enjoy
(relatively) free CI with high priority. GitLab already made it incredibly
simple to setup.

~~~
sytse
Thanks! If people are looking for the docs please see
[https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ci-multi-
runner#install...](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ci-multi-
runner#install-gitlab-runner)

------
neom
Great news, awesome partnership. Nice work team! :clap:

~~~
sytse
Thanks neom!

------
abpavel
Came here to post it, but too late! Good job @fweespee_ch! The importance of
this announcement is that DigitalOcean is all over Fortune 500, and GitLab
partnership means that Git is not only mainstream - it's THE stream.

~~~
olalonde
> DigitalOcean is all over Fortune 500

Do you have any reference for that? I was under the impression that
DigitalOcean was mostly used by developers and startups. I was also under the
impression that Git became the mainstream VCS a while ago...

~~~
abpavel
What do you mean by "reference"? I was talking about corporate environment of
dozens or so F500 where I participated in various projects personally, and saw
myriads of archaic in-house development tools that would embarrass even
prehistoric. DO was used in a couple of cases, not too widespread, but I had a
feel it's one of the places it could really make a difference. And introducing
Git to that would just make the whole deal so much better. Consider that an
average Global 2000 enterprise has over 10,000 in-house apps, and a lot of
them are being developed in a dedicated environment.

~~~
brianwawok
I have not yet worked for a fortune 2000 enterprise that would allow a VPS to
be used that did not offer actual private networking. Which ones have you seen
that used DO?

