
GitLab is open core, GitHub is closed source - sytse
https://about.gitlab.com/2016/07/20/gitlab-is-open-core-github-is-closed-source/?
======
Spivak
This feels like a really weird situation for you guys. You want the selling
point for your software to be that you're more open than proprietary platforms
like GitHub but you're unwilling to actually commit to that and have to hide
behind terms like 'open core' and 'source available'.

> When we mention that GitLab is available in an open source edition people
> frequently ask "Isn't GitHub open source?""'?

* I think _even more_ people are surprised to find out that everything except Gitlab CE is closed source. If someone were choosing between hosting with GitHub or Gitlab.com then you're only competing only on features and community since they're both equivalent in terms of openness.

* And I hate nitpick on word choice but you don't get to so shamelessly hide behind your brand. There is no such thing as Gitlab; Gitlab Inc. releases a product called Gitlab CE with a similar but more limited feature set to Gitlab EE under an open source license. If Mercedes released a $10,000 car by stripping out features and using a cheap Volvo engine I know their marketing campaign, "Mercedes is now available for an affordable price" would leave a bad taste in your mouth.

I know you've been getting a lot of negative feedback recently on HN, at it
seems, at least for me, that there is a huge demand for a truly Free-with-a-
capital-F alternative to GitHub and you're falling short. A thousand Gitlab CE
instances hosting a few OSS projects is nothing compared to your potential if
you really embrace openness.

~~~
sytse
What do you mean with everything except GitLab CE? We have EE options that are
also closed source but for example GitLab Runner [https://gitlab.com/gitlab-
org/gitlab-ci-multi-runner](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ci-multi-
runner) is open source.

I'm open to changing it to GitLab Inc. in the blog post. Where would you like
to see that?

I think the feedback on HN has been largely positive, for example see most of
the top comments on
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12128546](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12128546)
In that comment section people rightly called us out for calling ourselves an
open source company, hence this blog post.

On of the most widely known Free-with-a-capital-F alternatives to GitHub was
Gitorious. They couldn't make the business model work and had to sell the
company or close it. We ended up acquiring them for the name recognition
[https://about.gitlab.com/2015/03/03/gitlab-acquires-
gitoriou...](https://about.gitlab.com/2015/03/03/gitlab-acquires-gitorious/)

It is very hard to make 100% open source work. We tried donations, consulting,
and paid feature development but neither worked. That is why we introduced the
Enterprise Edition. Since we introduced that we've been able to make the open
source edition a lot better.

GitLab CE is Free-with-a-capital-F but if you prefer to use something that
doesn't also have a proprietary edition consider using Gogs. Because of our
Enterprise Edition income we're paying the only full time developer on Gogs.

------
sytse
I see this was marked as a dupe, but I think it is different content. For
example I don't think the encoder thing is widely known
[https://twitter.com/_JohnathanLyman/status/75585063275445452...](https://twitter.com/_JohnathanLyman/status/755850632754454529)

~~~
dang
I realize that it seems different to you but that's (understandably) because
you're so close to the story. To the typical HN reader this is the same topic
as
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12128546](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12128546).
It isn't in HN's interest to have two articles about that on the front page;
nor is it in your interest, because readers will get ornery about it.

The thing to do instead is post a link in the original thread to let
interested readers know that you put up a follow-up post. You can use the HN
link if you want; the discussion will remain open even though we've marked the
item as a dupe.

~~~
sytse
Thanks for the explanation Dang! Keep up the good work. I've posted a link to
the blog post in the other thread.

------
eevilspock
The true core of GitHub (and GitLab) is Git itself. So both are open core
where it really matters. Because both GitHub's and GitLab's essential
operations are all done over the Git core, neither code and code history
hosted on either system are locked in.

Where GitHub has slightly more lock-in and is less open than GitLab is its
Issues system; One can only extract the data (via API) for import into an
alternative system, whereas with GitLab you could run your own copy of the
open source code (but you'd still have to do the data export-import as far as
I can tell).

~~~
sytse
You indeed have to do the data export-import but we tried to make this more
convenient with the project import/export
[https://gitlab.com/help/user/project/settings/import_export....](https://gitlab.com/help/user/project/settings/import_export.md)

