Our company today disallowed the use of GitKraken to all developers. Reason? They wanted to save money. When I told them that software is free, they responded with , “No, not in any way! All developers can use GitHub Actions instead”.

I don’t think they know what GitKraken nor GitHub Actions is, nor that GitKraken is free.

Not that I like GitKraken, but I don’t want to limit other developers use of it if they like it.

Meanwhile, we have been running no less than four kubernetes clusters, of which only one is in use…

You should send a detailed email with screenshots and explanations of the difference between the two, as well as pricing, to them and cc the whole Dev team, operations team and your management.

Someone needs to wake up that their employee has way too much power to be incompetent.

gitkraken isn't free for company use!? 🤨

@heyheni yeah, technically, you are right. It is more how this is done, and communicated. I think it is absurd to disallow the use of GitKraken. If developer are using it, I don’t really see the harm to the company.

Note that the company is not telling us to use product x for git-things at all, it is simply not allowed GitKraken, even though some devs are using it.

Good, or sad, to read other companies make the same bonehead decisions to 'save money'. Company disallowed Xml Spy because Altova increased the price (moron mgr took the price times the total number of devs, instead of the two devs actually using the software). Not even allowed to have the previous version (directed our network admins to remove it from our machines). Little did the mgr know you can re-install that had been previously removed. Yes, he had no clue.

That said, if you continued to use GitKraken, how would they know?

If a dev paid for their own commercial licence, would they be allowed to use it? I understand a company not letting devs used software without the appropriate licences, as they’d be on the hook from an audit.

@PaperTrail wow, that is just silly!

Yeah, sure, they wouldn’t know. I’m guessing they just don’t want developers getting used to having commercial software.

Perhaps I should tell them that developers don’t REALLY need JetBrains editors either, as there are free editors/IDEs out there, just to rattle the cage?

As a senior architect, I’m often asked if we can use product “X” and I have to consider multiple factors.

- What benefit does it offer?
- What does it cost…. And how is it licensed (especially for open source products where our liability is on the line )
- Are there free alternatives … that are just as good?
- Are there cheaper paid alternatives that are just as good
- Is there a knowledge gap in the team? Why do we need a fancy GUI for common git workflows?
- Is there a process problem? Why are basic git workflows from the command line not working here?
- What is the company’s reputation that makes the product…. And what is our relationship with that company? Do they compete with us? If this is open source, is it backed by a company that competes with us?

I’d encourage you to dig into why your company said “no”, it’s might be more complex than just “we’re cheap”. If that is their sole answer, I’d encourage you to find alternate employment.

@devphobe officially, I dont even work there any more. I started at another company this Christmas, but I am still doing some work for them.

There has been quite a few disagreements since I quit, so I only hear things from other devs in the company.

But your writeup is great , if it was before Christmas I would try to dig more into it, but at this point I try to pick my battles.