And then I see stuff like this that makes me scratch my head: https://about.gitlab.com/product/service-desk/
If anyone at Gitlab is reading this ... please, please slow down on chasing new markets + features and just make the stuff you already have work properly, and fill in the missing pieces. Example: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/63880
I really agree with this. I was working at a company where we were exploring switching from Github enterprise to Gitlab for the K8s integrations, the docker registry, and the CI features.
Following the helm chart installation instructions was a nightmare because we were on-prem w/ a custom cluster. There were a lot of assumptions we had to find workarounds for (e.g. we used an f5 integration to manage our ingresses and performed SSL termination elsewhere so the nginx thing was awful).
The other terrifying bit was the number of services / pods that got brought up with the installation. If I have to monitor my team's services, I really don't want to monitor the health of: NGINX, Postgres, Redis, Minio, Registry, GitLab/sidekiq, GitLab/gitlab-shell, GitLab/gitaly, GitLab/unicorn, and GitLab/migrations.
When it comes to on-prem or self-hosted software I actually prefer running a monolithic application that worst-case I can just bounce or reboot the server.
Slow down, simplify things, and improve the user experience. Gitlab already has enough features to be competitive for a while with the Github + marketplace model.
So why not just skip the helm chart and install the omnibus package on a dedicated server? If you want you can even disable stuff like the omnibus Postgres/Redis/etc and manage those yourself elsewhere.
That's what I do - run the omnibus package sans fancy helm chart - and it works out pretty well. Granted it does require a fair bit of RAM to run smoothly.
> Slow down, simplify things, and improve the user experience. Gitlab already has enough features to be competitive for a while with the Github + marketplace model.
Completely agree with this and what the parent said - I think this is part of why running Gitlab seems to require an ever increasing amount of compute resources :(
As open-source software we want everyone to contribute to the ongoing improvement of GitLab.
Gitlab is a SaaS company who also provides an open source set of software. If you don't want to invest in supporting up time - then don't sell paid SaaS services.
I feel like this is a non sequitur. There's no reason why breadth would increase outside contributions other than sheer surface area, but that relationship isn't very linear, especially if the surface area is being created by Gitlab rather than others.
Meanwhile, "polish" is often the unglamorous work which people typically don't want to do for free.
Try to imagine an exchange at Torvald's Bazaar and Emporium. Gitlabbers offer to work on the fun stuff and get paid for it. In exchange they ask everyone else to work on the boring stuff without being paid.
For some mysterious reason, this exchange fails to happen.
Thanks, I am now convinced that I'll never do business with GitLab.
I keep separate CI and a separate wiki, so i can upgrade them independently and not have the entire software development process grind to a halt whenever I need to patch.
Status page: https://status.gitlab.com/
Issue: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/gl-infra/production/issues/928
A live, in-depth view of who is doing what, any new leads on the issue, multiple teams chiming in with various diagnostic stats, honestly it's really awesome.
I know this can't be expected from most businesses, especially non-open sourced ones, but it's so refreshing to see this instead of the typical "We're working on a potential service disruption" that we normally get.
If you give each update a few weeks/month and pay attention to the comments on each release blog you'll save yourself quite a bit of headaches.
However, the services run noticeably slower when the US awakes (I'm located in Germany), which is in the afternoon and evening around here. I have no stats, but it feels like builds and the site run smoother in the morning.
