I'm no fan of Windows myself, but I find this a fairly bad policy.<p>If nothing else - what's not used is not tested. And if you expect any real population of users to be using Windows machines with your products, you should have developers/PMs/QA/support interacting with your products using Windows machines.<p>I see this as: We're saving a bit of money and making ITs life easier, and in exchange users will get a worse product.<p>Realistically - that's a bad trade. It is almost never the right decision to prioritize IT quality of life over basically any other business need.
>> GitLab approves the use of Linux, and Apple's macOS. Microsoft Windows is prohibited for the following reasons:<p><pre><code> Due to Microsoft Windows' dominance in desktop operating systems, Windows is the platform most targetted by spyware, viruses, and ransomware.
macOS is preinstalled on Apple computers and Linux is available free of charge. To approve the use of Windows, GitLab would have to purchase Windows Professional licenses, as Windows Home Edition does not satisfy GitLab's security guidelines.
As many purchases of laptops have occurred with employees making the purchases and then being reimbursed by GitLab, a remote employee would typically be making a purchase of a laptop pre-loaded with Windows Home Edition.
Windows Home Edition is notoriously hard to secure.
</code></pre>
edit: after thinking about this for a bit, it occurs to me that their main competitor is github and that maybe they just aren't very excited to use MSFT products?
> Due to Microsoft Windows' dominance in desktop operating systems, Windows is the platform most targetted by spyware, viruses, and ransomware.<p>This is poor reasoning and a misunderstanding of how security works. Any org should be happy with any OS, as long as sufficient security controls for it exist. Anyone who oversees Windows estates, or works in desktop security, can tell you that they exist and are extensive, and are effective.<p>I suspect this is a policy that's been pushed out by a C-level who simply hates Windows but is being justified with >15 year old reasonings.<p>> macOS is preinstalled on Apple computers and Linux is available free of charge. To approve the use of Windows, GitLab would have to purchase Windows Professional licenses, as Windows Home Edition does not satisfy GitLab's security guidelines.<p>More tenuous reasoning - macOS is not 'free'. By their logic they should _only_ be allowing Linux. But I think that just tells us it isn't driven by logic.
I'll make sure to mark Gitlab off a company I apply at if I look for a new job. I'm totally blind and have been using Windows screen readers for the last 25 years. The switching cost to Mac or Linux appears to be incredibly high. I've attempted to use both and after brief usage was not able to get close to my productivity on Windows. Maybe that would change if they were my only option but I'm not going to risk poor productivity at a new job on that. I focus on back-end development and since WSL came out, I've not run into any situation where I can't do what I need using Windows, WSL, and VS Code.
This is pretty similar to the policy at my company: you get a Mac, unless you specifically request a Linux laptop. If you need Windows for testing, Microsoft makes VM images available with a browser pre-installed at <a href="https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/" rel="nofollow">https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/v...</a>
The pretext for banning Windows is comically bad. Paying extra for Mac hardware is perfectly fine (no, encouraged!), but paying $100 or so to upgrade Windows Home to Windows Professional is prohibitively expensive? That's such a joke.<p>I have no trouble with companies mandating one OS or the other. But when the justification for the policy is so bad it looks petty and ideological as opposed to the result of a level-headed cost/benefit analysis.
This is being posted just a day after this tweet: <a href="https://twitter.com/allenholub/status/1555324387087097856" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/allenholub/status/1555324387087097856</a><p>I really wonder what it's like inside Gitlab. The product ticks all the boxes you'd want it to, but the user experience just resonates with sadness and misery.
I'm a fan, I'd even ban mac/apple stuff if I could from my place of work.
It's clear corporations are seeking more and more intrusive control of our applications both business and personal.<p>A large and popular software vendor we have used for 7 years has approached us recently and wants to charge us a variable amount depending how integral their product is to our business.<p>Now management understands the threat, and we are shifting resources to convert things to FOSS, and build up the software community more.
I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that gitlab is fully remote.<p>In an office where you have on-site IT staff, and a local corporate LAN, you can require every windows machine to be part of AD, have group security policies pushed out, and generally have tools available for central management.<p>But with gitlab, everyone is working in their own networks around the world. That sounds like a very hard environment in which to globally apply the types of security policies that are needed to keep Windows secure.
This is bad reasoning.<p>> Due to Microsoft Windows' dominance in desktop operating systems, Windows is the platform most targetted by spyware, viruses, and ransomware.<p>Being targeted less frequently != more secure. MacOS and Safari have had plenty of critical vulnerabilities in recent years.<p>> macOS is preinstalled on Apple computers and Linux is available free of charge. To approve the use of Windows, GitLab would have to purchase Windows Professional licenses, as Windows Home Edition does not satisfy GitLab's security guidelines.
> As many purchases of laptops have occurred with employees making the purchases and then being reimbursed by GitLab, a remote employee would typically be making a purchase of a laptop pre-loaded with Windows Home Edition.<p>Come on. A PC with Windows Pro is going to be way cheaper than a comparable mac. This is just disengenuous.<p>> Windows Home Edition is notoriously hard to secure.<p>Their last point was literally about how they would force users to get Pro, why does this matter?<p>I'd issue a counterpoint: there is far more expertise out there in securing fleets of Windows machines, and I'll guess most corporate Windows systems are more hardened to threats than the typical developer's macbook.<p>The real reason to use Macs is that you get a functional unix-like environment where you don't have to constantly jump through hoops in order to work with Rails. They don't have to fabricate security reasons.
This is not actually that unusual; in fact, if I'm not misremembering, Google also does not generally allow Windows, aside from some limited, less privileged stuff.
From the Gitlab approved hardware list, today I learned that Dell has some 15.6in screen laptops that <i>don't</i> have a numeric keypad:<p><a href="https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/laptops/new-15-5560-workstation/spd/precision-15-5560-laptop/xctop556015us_vp" rel="nofollow">https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/laptops/new-15-5560-wor...</a><p>Also supports ECC, nice!<p>I strongly dislike numeric keypads in general, and especially on a laptop. I want to be centered on the display, not shoved to the side. I only rarely use the numeric keypad.
<i>> As many purchases of laptops have occurred with employees making the purchases and then being reimbursed by GitLab, a remote employee would typically be making a purchase of a laptop pre-loaded with Windows Home Edition.<p>Windows Home Edition is notoriously hard to secure.</i><p>This is a totally valid point. Anyone who has worked for big companies know how companies secure systems using security policies which are not available on home edition and tough to setup on Profesional license bought by user.<p>If a user really wants to do something on windows then I am sure they can run it in VirtualBox or VMware on their system.
Same for me<p>How i use windows (when i REALLY need it, it's rare nowadays):<p>- in a VM, behind a firewall, with a linux host<p>I maintain a minimal image, and i copy it whenever i use it, and i throw it once i finish using the VM<p>And you can even play your favorite games using that technique, KVM/GPU passthrough to the rescue<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7SG7ccjn-g" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7SG7ccjn-g</a>
It's a fairly odd that that IT cultures are segregated into places that have nothing but Macs and other places that have nothing but Windows.<p>I think it's risky because a small computing monoculture can feel complete but commit a software business to failure at the very beginning by rejecting 90% of the potential market.
Reading further on the page, the "Laptop Repair" part is interesting :<p>>If your laptop is broken and needs to be repaired you can take it into an Apple repair store. You should ensure that you have a recent backup before doing so, and that your laptop is not your only registered device for iCloud two-factor authentication.<p>>If the repair is not going to be too expensive (more than $1000 dollars USD), go ahead and repair and expense. If the repair is going to take longer than a day then you need to make sure you have a back up laptop to work on that is non-Windows.<p>It seems like you need to have TWO Apple devices, to be on the safe side...
I mean, they use Rails, and Ruby/Rails are annoying to use on Windows. I imagine Windows is a massive headache not worth dealing with considering their stack...
> Due to Microsoft Windows' dominance in desktop operating systems, Windows is the platform most targetted by spyware, viruses, and ransomware.<p>Seriously? Microsoft is not sitting idle and let them create havoc.<p>>a remote employee would typically be making a purchase of a laptop pre-loaded with Windows Home Edition<p>How hard is it for them to mandate a Windows Pro edition?
I believe:<p>1) The reasons shown as to why Windows is prohibited are essentially parallel construction.<p>2) The real reason is because someone has an agenda against Windows and Microsoft.<p>3) This is quite alright. It might be a net loss in the short term for everyone, but a net win in the long term for everyone. Microsoft has a lot of bad stuff coming their way, for good reason.
> Due to Microsoft Windows' dominance in desktop operating systems, Windows is the platform most targetted by spyware, viruses, and ransomware.<p>What a stupid reason is that?! It really sounds like the Head of IT at Gitlab just doesn't like Windows and is doing what he can to find excuses.
Doesn’t seem unreasonable. My work is entirely windows cause workload is primarily MS office<p>Whatever works. There isn’t some sort of diversity and inclusion requirement for OSs
In this instance, I suspect "prohibited" == "we can still use Windows, but you'd better have a really really REALLY good reason"
> Due to Microsoft Windows' dominance in desktop operating systems, Windows is the platform most targetted by spyware, viruses, and ransomware.<p>Consider linux dominance on end-users devices through android and embedded systems like smart tv's. There are more instances of linux running and being used right now by end-users than windows. UNIX legacy and a long maturation process on HPC and servers probably has to do with how linux systems evolved to be so secure today compared to windows; also because of "bad-habits" windows historically brings.<p>It may sound cheesy and although I'd like to see linux more used on the desktop, I'm pretty happy with the current situation.
This seems in phase with their anti-Microsoft wave riding, which brought many (speculating here) new customers.<p>Interestingly, my employer too uses GitLab, and we too prefer Linux among employees ... so i think targeting is on point
A company forbidding the use of Windows (and more broadly Microsoft products/services) would be a huge green flag to me. I don't even care why. I would miss VS Code though.
Avoiding Windows operating would be an ethical choice going forward, in my opinion. Windows has become a bloatware; it's a memory hog - no amount of RAM is enough. And to top if off, with every update, your hardware becomes obsolete because it lacks a fancy chip.<p>With Office products being increasingly accessible via the web browser, I think corporations should really start thinking about weaning themselves off Windows.
Google did this 15+ years ago, and while the transition took a couple of years, they never looked back. Productivity shot up for all the usual reasons.
Using a fork to eat your soup is prohibited at Soups Only (tm)<p>HN: While I agree that eating a soup with a fork is bad, I think the employees should be able to try.
I run docker desktop on my windows machine which I have setup for k8s and have gitlab running as a helm deployment. What's wrong with having windows but using WSL for dev work. That's how most of my flow works, I installed gitlab this way because I want to learn its cicd stuff without having to rely on the work instance or gitlab.com. I prefer selfhosting.
Given Microsoft’s history of severe vulnerabilities, I welcome this news for any company. Apple and Ubuntu have enough popularity and support options making this policy completely supportable. If not Ubuntu, IBM Red Hat seems to be a great alternative as well. At this point it is clear that Microsoft’s monopoly is over.
I am curious about the M1 max for the top performing configuration, wonder if there is a business need for it over an M1 pro with the same storage and memory. Especially since they are mentioning the few hundred dollars a windows pro licence would cost as a reason not to get windows laptops.
Having to use a Windows laptop for work is the main reason I rejected working for Microsoft. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great OS, but not for me and I just couldn’t bring myself to using it. I get their logic to have engineers use this, but it was a great dealbreaker for me.
"macOS is preinstalled on Apple computers and Linux is available free of charge. To approve the use of Windows, GitLab would have to purchase Windows Professional licenses, as Windows Home Edition does not satisfy GitLab's security guidelines."
Gitlab OpenSource is one of those software that I wish would go the way of LibreOffice/MariaDB: I wish that some foundation took the good open-source part and forked it to implement a real, full, no strings attached open source application.
Most x86 hardware comes with Windows license already. If build your own, I bought a Windows 11 Pro license last week for $13. Cost shouldn't be an issue.