Now that my book has been published I have more time to think. It crossed my mind today that my earliest encounter with GitLab was in 2014, when we needed an on-premise git server, and preferably open-source. GitHub was already very popular back then. I remember how smoothly the install was using the Omnibus installer. We were with only 4 developers, and we did not even use issue management or any kind of CI for that matter.

Years later, when I worked at ING with GitLab, it was still the same smooth Omnibus install.. but in a totally different environment. Banks and other big organizations operate in a context and are scrutinized, and compliancy is valued highly.

Some people (especially in the startup world), are horrified by prospect of having to install and maintain a software product in such an enterprise. Or have no idea what they are getting into…

I have a number of examples to show the both the startup globalists and the enterprise machiavallists ultimately share a lot of similarities.