[jacques_chester]

> We believe that the company plowing ahead of other contributors is more valuable in the long run. It encourages others to contribute to the polish while we validate a future direction.

I feel like this is a non sequitur. There's no reason why breadth would increase outside contributions other than sheer surface area, but that relationship isn't very linear, especially if the surface area is being created by Gitlab rather than others.

Meanwhile, "polish" is often the unglamorous work which people typically don't want to do for free.

Try to imagine an exchange at Torvald's Bazaar and Emporium. Gitlabbers offer to work on the fun stuff and get paid for it. In exchange they ask everyone else to work on the boring stuff without being paid.

For some mysterious reason, this exchange fails to happen.