GitLab plans to delete dormant projects from free accounts:
The initial story:
[...] GitLab plans to automatically delete projects if they've been inactive for a year and are owned by users of its free tier.
The Register has learned that such projects account for up to a quarter of GitLab's hosting costs, and that the auto-deletion of projects could save the cloudy coding collaboration service up to $1 million a year. The policy has therefore been suggested to help GitLab's finances remain sustainable.
People with knowledge of the situation, who requested anonymity as they are not authorized to discuss it with the media, told The Register the policy is scheduled to come into force in September 2022.
GitLab is aware of the potential for angry opposition to the plan, and will therefore give users weeks or months of warning before deleting their work. A single comment, commit, or new issue posted to a project during a 12-month period will be sufficient to keep the project alive.
The Register understands some in the wider GitLab community worry that the policy could see projects disappear before users have the chance to archive code on which they rely. As many open-source projects are widely used, it is feared that the decision could have considerable negative impact.
Updated story:
GitLab U-turns on deleting dormant projects after backlash:
Updated GitLab has reversed its decision to automatically delete projects that are inactive for more than a year and belong to its free-tier users.
As revealed exclusively yesterday by The Register, GitLab planned to introduce the policy in late September. The biz hoped the move would save it up to $1 million a year and help make its SaaS business sustainable.
[...] One of our sources told us this afternoon that it was online pressure, led by The Register's reporting, that forced a dramatic rethink at the GitHub rival. Word of the deletion policy as a money-saving exercise sparked fury on Twitter and Reddit.
El Reg understands GitLab's plan to delete inactive projects saw The Internet Archive and code preservation organisation Software Heritage begin planning to preserve the GitLab trove.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by gawdonblue on Tuesday August 09 2022, @07:46AM (4 children)
It's a free service that costs Gitlab to provide. If the repo is not being used then archive it after a suitable warning period.
Sounds reasonable.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by coolgopher on Tuesday August 09 2022, @07:50AM (3 children)
Define used. A small, mature open source project may not see any activity other than downloads for that amount of time. Its value is in being available, not by being constantly modified.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2022, @07:59AM
More than that: software that is not being modified is the most valuable kind - it is stable, hence reliable - and no one is going to fuck with the UI.
--
Panic now, before its too late!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Tuesday August 09 2022, @10:49PM (1 child)
Exactly this. For some reason many assume that software that isn't constantly churning is dead. In fact, it is often complete and well debugged, the best kind of code.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Wednesday August 10 2022, @02:43AM
Thankfully not everyone follows the Mozilla approach of "if it ain't broke, break it"...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2022, @08:22AM (4 children)
If the storage space is that critical, they should lower the default to a sustainable level. "Inactive" repos are just cold storage that just take some disk space for finished products.
I myself have "inactive" projects for things that I'm done with editing. They're just for me, and I don't think I'll ever see any comments, bug reports, or new commits(the activity they want to see). However, I keep using them all the time, but I don't need to change anything. Most of them are tiny, less than 1 MB. They just sit there with the occasional repo clone to a new VM. You want to lose customers' good will, go ahead and delete the repos. Watch the implosion. The geeks will avoid your paid products and actively warn people to stay away from anything you touch.
Thankfully, they've already reversed course. The strange part is, why couldn't they figure this out before the idea got past the first boardroom meeting? This seems like "no brainer" territory for a company that's built around git.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Tuesday August 09 2022, @08:29AM (1 child)
The decision almost certainly was done by MBA managers without asking the tech people.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by WeekendMonkey on Tuesday August 09 2022, @12:13PM
They probably did ask the tech folk, but didn't like the answer they received.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday August 09 2022, @08:31AM
Very likely, some executive wanted a bigger Xmas bonus. Because, ya know, inflation and such.
He wasn't very bright, tho, going for the lowest hanging fruit; probably made the actual solution (earn more) a bit harder until the potential on-the-fence customers would forget the scare.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Tuesday August 09 2022, @12:30PM
I think the/some damage might already be done. I don't know about you, but I'm considering moving the few repos I have on gitlab over to github instead. Which is funny, since I initially got my gitlab account in case I needed to get away from github after MS acquired it.
(Score: 5, Touché) by rigrig on Tuesday August 09 2022, @12:38PM
But to me it seems an awfully conveniently timed bunch of free publicity just after the whole Give Up Github [soylentnews.org] thing.
Note how all the uproar is about "leaked" plans, but GitLab's only official announcement [twitter.com] ended up saying
Now, how much attention would that have gotten?
No one remembers the singer.