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Open Core Development Philosophy

Open Core Development Philosophy

5
posts
2019–2022

GitLab is evolving its open core development philosophy by open-sourcing eighteen features across various stages of the DevOps lifecycle. This move aims to empower the community, align the business model more accurately with the buyer-based open core model, and make it easier for individual contributors to access a wider range of functionalities. The open-sourced features span Plan, Create, Verify, Package, Release, Configure, and Protect stages, including functionalities like related issues, ex

2022

Open core is worse than plugins... and that’s why it’s better

7/14/2022

This post articulates and defends GitLab's 'open core' development strategy, drawing parallels to Richard P. Gabriel's 'Worse is Better' concept. It highlights the advantages of direct code access for faster iteration and feedback, contrasting it with the complexities and slower feedback loops of traditional plugin architectures. The post emphasizes that while strict API boundaries are absent, the 'low fences' of pull request reviews and a solid architectural foundation (like Ruby on Rails) ensure quality and integration.

2020

18 GitLab features are moving to open source

3/30/2020

This post announces the open-sourcing of eighteen GitLab features across seven DevOps lifecycle stages. It details the rationale behind this decision, which is to align with the buyer-based open core model and empower the community. Specific features being open-sourced are listed with links to corresponding GitLab issues for their migration. The post emphasizes the company's commitment to open source and invites community contributions to accelerate the process.

2019

OpenCores come to GitLab

12/3/2019

This post announces the integration of OpenCores, a large Gateware development community, into GitLab. It highlights the potential for GitLab's CI/CD and source control features to accelerate gateware development using Hardware Description Languages (HDLs). The post discusses the concept of gateware, the role of IP cores, and the importance of Continuous Verification (CV) in assessing the quality of gateware. It also mentions the collaboration with CERN and the European Space Agency as drivers for adopting DevOps practices in digital design.

4 Examples of the power of open source analytics

4/15/2019

This post highlights how GitLab's Data Team has embraced an open-source philosophy by making their primary code repository public and MIT licensed. It details a specific instance where an external contributor enhanced the codebase by converting PostgreSQL-specific SQL to Snowflake-compatible format for date metadata generation, which was then merged and is now relied upon. The post also discusses the benefits of this transparency for community engagement and driving industry forward, emphasizing that the analytics code itself is not the competitive advantage, but rather the data and the decisions made from it.

5 Ways to resist the threat of service-wrapping with buyer-based open core

4/3/2019

This post details GitLab's strategy for resisting commoditization of its commercial open source software (COSS) business model. It introduces the concept of 'buyer-based open core' and outlines five key methods for avoiding commoditization: inserting proprietary functionality in a majority of use cases, offering many proprietary features, catering to price-insensitive buyers, offering interaction through a user interface rather than APIs, and attracting users who rarely contribute to open source. The post references a presentation by CEO Sid Sijbrandij and links to GitLab's pricing tiers.