Post #2418852

2026-05-11 23:27 UTC

https://about.gitlab.com/blog/gitlab-act-2/ Gitlab started giving me bad vibes a few years back, and I abandoned my attempt to relocate my Github stuff over to it at that time. This press release makes me _extraordinarily_ glad that I dodged the metaphorical bullet. The news itself is depressing, but the things it reveals about the company&#39;s leadership are inexcusable.

Replies (11)

@owen@mastodon.transneptune.net 2026-05-11 23:29

I do not mean the mass terminations, though that is part of it. Whatever monumental fuckup lead to over-hiring by nearly 50% begins at the top, but it's the line employees who will be paying for it.

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@owen@mastodon.transneptune.net 2026-05-12 04:46

There's no great predictive trick here, by the way. First, I have bad feelings about a lot of things that turn out to be completely fine, or at least entirely missable. Second, it's very hard to go wrong if you assume that taking venture money means that a company is going to start doing things that are great for venture funds and terrible for early adopters, or the public. Venture funding is unavoidably toxic to the value systems I care about.

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@paulshryock@phpc.social 2026-05-12 00:07

@owen@mastodon.transneptune.net yikes

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@simon_w@cloudisland.nz 2026-05-12 00:39

@owen@mastodon.transneptune.net @ultranurd@tacobelllabs.net I've been waiting for something like this ever since they got VC funding. Then all the recent releases have been almost exclusive AI "features”. This timeline sucks.

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@silverwizard@convenient.email 2026-05-12 02:02

@owen@mastodon.transneptune.net GitHub - being maligned as AI Slop and a wave of people moving off of it Gitlab - "We should get in on that AI thing"

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@tsturm@famichiki.jp 2026-05-12 05:26

@owen@mastodon.transneptune.net OMG so much "agentic" bullshit. Like, how exactly will the remaining team review any of the code their fantastic new process produces? Also, great strategy: Faster, Better Quality, Cheaper. Yeah, that's pure genius.

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@noodle@aus.social 2026-05-12 07:29

@owen@mastodon.transneptune.net 'Act 2' I wonder how many acts this tragedy will have.

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@highvoltage@pleroma.debian.social 2026-05-12 08:31

@owen@mastodon.transneptune.net Wow. RIP GitLab.

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@jay@cathode.church 2026-05-12 08:37

boost with CN: "AI"

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@kdedude@kde.social 2026-05-12 08:39

@owen@mastodon.transneptune.net "Act 2" sounds like they looked at the steps of enshittification and decided that those were stage directions.

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@tootbrute@fedi.arkadi.one 2026-05-12 09:15

@owen@mastodon.transneptune.net Software will be built by machines, directed by people. barf!

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