
GitHub’s new offer closely matches that from GitLab - samizdis
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/15/github_core_features_free_price_drop/
======
emilycook
GitLab community advocate here! I wanted to let everyone know about a
challenge we're holding right now. If you send us your review of GitLab vs
GitHub (whether positive/negative/neutral), we'll send you some swag. We know
competition is good for end-users, so now it's our turn to evaluate what we're
doing right and what we can improve upon.

[https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2020/04/14/github-free-for-
tea...](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2020/04/14/github-free-for-teams/)

~~~
7777fps
Looking through that comparison, I find it funny that "time tracking" is
touted as a feature.

My grand-boss might love the idea but the fact that GitHub is missing time
tracking is a blessing as a developer.

Making developers track their time is hostile. Development is not something
you should clock in and out of. A time-box in JIRA or GitHub shouldn't replace
management being aware of what their team(s) are working on and how their
progress is.

It too often turns into a stick to beat developers with.

There are all kinds of better metrics by which to hold developers accountable.
Tracking time just puts developers off from improving code or refactoring. If
you write bad code it's not your time that suffers, it's the next developer
who has to work on that section.

~~~
emilycook
That's interesting feedback, I'll pass it along to the product team, although
this is an angle they've probably thought about more than I have. The way we
use it isn't really as an accountability metric, more of an estimate that can
change dynamically when new problems arise so we can roughly plan out when a
feature is going to be released. Granted we don't have a boss who would beat
us over the head with that. Thank you for the feedback though I'll make sure
to pass it along.

~~~
kirubakaran
> Granted we don't have a boss who would beat us over the head with that.

For every boss that wouldn't, there are a hundred bosses that would, with very
little understanding of what is even being measured. Sure, the "guns don't
kill people, gun users kill people" argument applies, but maybe don't hand
people free guns with their milk purchase?

~~~
emilycook
Oh no I agree, that was just a comment recognizing that my experience is
different because I'm in a more ideal situation than other developers are
surely dealing with. I still passed along the feedback to our product team!

------
corecoder
The only one important (imho of course) feature that GitHub has and self-
hosted GitLab lacks is search across repositories [0]. Search inside a single
repository is done via git.

Of course you can self-host and configure your own Sourgraph installation, but
that's a bit more work.

[0] [https://forum.gitlab.com/t/search-code-across-all-
projects/2...](https://forum.gitlab.com/t/search-code-across-all-
projects/2263/18)

~~~
sytse
For self-hosted instances you can use Advanced Global Search
[https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/search/advanced_global_searc...](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/search/advanced_global_search.html)
to do this. Please note that this requires installation of Elastic Search. It
used to be a paid feature but I think we recently open sourced it.

------
nerdbaggy
I love the Gitlab CI. It’s so easy to create a new project, and the CI is
ready to go. No fumbling around, and the integration is great with the Gitlab
docker image store.

~~~
jazoom
It is great, except there STILL is no reasonable way of finding a particular
image in the registry. You can't order by date uploaded! Only by name. Which
means the order is out of whack as soon as you go from version 9 to version
10.

And to make it worse, paging is extremely slow, so it could take an hour of
paging into the middle of the list to find the name of the image you're
looking for. Even if the image was uploaded 1 minute ago it could be in the
middle page.

Thankfully I don't have to do this very often, but it's a horrible experience
when needed.

For similar reasons deleting unneeded images takes forever and is not
feasible.

~~~
nerdbaggy
Hmm good point about that. I’ve never really had maybe more than 5 so it
hasn’t been an issue. The auto pruning is a pain too.

------
BoorishBears
It's weird how the article looks at the true reason right there and then just
chooses ignores it.

Microsoft bought Github in part to get developer mindshare, just like VSCode,
and WSL, and a ton of other great efforts have.

They literally quote Nadella saying this on an earnings call!

If Occam's razor _and_ the money line up, why does this have to be some secret
attempt to beat Gitlab?

~~~
DeathArrow
Open source .NET, SQL server running on Linux, VS Code, Github, NPM, WSL, tons
of opensource on Azure.

I think you are right, and Microsoft is after winning developers, not fighting
with Gitlab.

I think this is a winning strategy and we will see even more moves in this
direction. Probably more acquisitions, more open sourcing products, more free
stuff, more cross platform tools targeted at developers.

A developer by himself doesn't have much decision power, but if more
developers prefer something, companies will follow and use Microsoft's
products.

------
brenden2
Turns out competition is good for end users.

~~~
johannes1234321
As long as VCs fuel GL to stay alive against Microsoft's pockets (Microsoft
benefits from it in multiple ways even if GitHub isn't profitable, GitLab has
no other revenue stream)

------
cdurth
My small org will be moving back to GitHub. While GitLab is a fantastic
product, we have been looking for a low cost global search ability, and well,
you can't argue with _free_.

~~~
marceloabsousa
Interesting that you'll risk moving your dev ops workflow because of a single
feature that GitHub doesn't even do well.

~~~
cdurth
we utilize other systems for this (not great, but works). for the type of work
we do, global search is a huge win over other potential trade offs.

------
db579
The blog post mentions that you recently open sourced 18 features that were
previously paid. I assume that refers to this announcement:
[https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2020/03/30/new-features-to-
cor...](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2020/03/30/new-features-to-core).

It seems those are proposals (or at best commitments) for things to be open
sourced in future versions rather than things that actually are available as
open source already? Could you clarify please?

~~~
boleary-gl
GitLab Developer Evangelist here.

They are commitments. Each feature has its own issue for the engineering
effort behind moving it to Core with various milestones based on team capacity
and complexity of the move.

You can track each with the table in the post that relates the feature to
“GitLab issue” that represents the move.

~~~
db579
Fair enough. Don't get me wrong I'm very excited about the announcement and
think it'll be great to have some of these features in the open source core, I
just thought it was a little misleadingly worded in this blog post. Seemed to
imply the work had already been done.

------
kyboren
I used GitLab for years. That changed a few months ago. I deleted my account
and now use GitHub. I advocate everywhere I can to choose GitHub over GitLab,
or to migrate away from GitLab if it's already in use. These changes just make
me more convinced that GitLab is on a path to oblivion.

I put up with GitLab's slow interface, relatively poor UX, and relative lack
of community because I wanted a trustworthy product that respected the privacy
and security of my critical tooling and to support a company with a benign
business model.

After the tracking debacle a few months ago, it became clear to me that GitLab
isn't trustworthy. They're looking for an acquisition, maybe an IPO, and
exploiting users (and even on-prem customers!) is clearly going to be part of
that game plan.

So why stick with the crappier alternative? If I'm getting sold out either
way, I might as well use the superior product.

Maybe I could be convinced to switch back, though. @sytse did you fire Paul
Machle yet? If not, then obviously Paul was merely taking the heat for doing
what you want, and there is just no way I can ever trust GitLab.

EDIT: Nope, looks like that goober is still the CFO:
[https://gitlab.com/pmachle](https://gitlab.com/pmachle) . Oh well, bye bye
GitLab! I hope you die and make some more room for SourceHut. :)

~~~
pdubs1
>They're looking for an acquisition, maybe an IPO, and exploiting users (and
even on-prem customers!) is clearly going to be part of that game plan.

Could you elaborate?

In what way are you aware that Gitlab is:

\- seeking acquisition (makes sense that they would, I am just seeking some
evidence to confirm the suspicion). To be fair, a large part of why I use
GitLab is because it is not owned by Microsoft. Hence I am interested in
whether or not GitLab will stay independent or "sell out". Certainly I'd lean
on the latter, but again, seeking evidence of any planning on their part to
seek acquisition.

\- exploiting users (or how it would be part of the "game plan" \-- I can see
exploiting user data they've gathered while users use their free service...
but that's capitalism. Is there any other way they currently or might in the
future exploit users?)

~~~
kyboren
I have no hard evidence that they are actually actively seeking a buyout/IPO,
but they did complete a Series E last year[0] led by Goldman Sachs and IONIQ
Capital. Presumably their numerous investors will be looking for a solid
return, either through an acquisition or IPO.

WRT how they might exploit users, it's not really so much that there are
specific ways I worry they will exploit users--well, I guess I am specifically
worried they will once again hold private repos for ransom until you agree to
some abusive new terms. It's perhaps best summarized with an infamous quote
about user tracking from GitLab CFO Paul Machle:

> I don’t understand. This should not be an opt in or an opt out. It is a
> condition of using our product. There is an acceptance of terms and the use
> of this data should be included in that.

In other words, "Fuck the users, it's our product. Hold their repos for ransom
until they agree." Which they in fact did for a short time until the PR
blowback became unbearable. This was supposed to apply to self-hosted GitLab
EE, too, BTW.

The fact that Paul survived that very public middle finger to users and the
security of the product and remains CFO shows that Sytse agrees with his
philosophy, even if he isn't as brazen about it. The kind of money Sytse
presumably has made and especially stands to make in a successful exit tends
to have a peculiar effect on people, so perhaps it's not surprising...

If you continue to use GitLab, be prepared: Make sure you have a replica of
all the content (including issues etc.) you might need in the future. You just
don't know how or when they're going to screw you over next, but you can be
sure it'll happen.

[0]: [https://www.crunchbase.com/funding_round/gitlab-com-
series-e...](https://www.crunchbase.com/funding_round/gitlab-com-series-e--
da5548fa)

~~~
pdubs1
Good to know. Thanks for sharing.

Well, this definitely makes me think that it's best if I self-host my git
repos starting at some point in the near future.

------
atrilumen
Is anyone working on an alternative to NPM?

~~~
boleary-gl
GitLab Developer Evangelist here.

You can host NPM registries in your GitLab projects.
[https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/packages/npm_registry/](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/packages/npm_registry/)

Moving to Core (free AND open source) soon along with 17 other features:
[https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2020/03/30/new-features-to-
cor...](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2020/03/30/new-features-to-core/)

------
tester89
_People celebrate as monopoly abuses power to further dominate the market_

------
philliphaydon
Altho it's still in preview, is Jetbrains Spaces essentially the same thing as
GitLab?

~~~
skofgar
It definitely looks like to be a competitor

------
romanovcode
GitHub was better even without these features than GitLab tho. GitLab UI is
slow and un-intuitive.

~~~
danShumway
I do not understand this kind of brand loyalty.

Even if you're not interested in using Gitlab yourself, the competition and
user migrations are clearly turning Github into a better service. You benefit
from Microsoft's need to court those users, even if you never touch Gitlab.

Just take the newly reduced prices and free features in your favorite service
and be happy.

~~~
chrisseaton
> I do not understand this kind of brand loyalty.

What are you on about? They didn't mention any loyalty to a brand. They said
qualitatively what they preferred about one product to another.

------
anticensor
sytse (GitLab CEO) and natfriedman (GitHub CEO) are curiously missing from the
thread.

~~~
remram
The thread is 1 hour old.

~~~
kthejoker2
Well since GitLab and GitHub clearly have a long running PR war on HN (ie
these posts are planned and scheduled), this doesn't seem like much of an
answer ...

~~~
Normal_gaussian
This article is published by a third party, and posted by a different third
party.

