I was actually about to make a comment to this effect. They took a legitimate disaster and handled it perfectly; as the old saying goes: "No publicity is bad publicity." They've taken the time over the past few weeks to constantly release relevant blog posts, which is good for two reasons: 1.) they reassure customers that they're taking steps to prevent the problem in the future, and 2.) they're capitalizing off natural curiosity to boost brand awareness. (Although maybe a bit too much, according the minor grumbling in this comment section. ;) )
I've been a bit wishy-washy on GitLab for awhile, but honestly, I'm thinking I might give them a shot sometime soon.
I actually appreciate their attitude towards errors by employees.
Unfortunately, the appearance this spectacle creates is that the same sort of attitude should apply to them as a company, i. e. "Don't fire Gitlab! You've just invested 200MB of data into their education"
It's a very smart method to protect not just team-member-1, but also employee-1.