If valid criticism is rude, we're all doomed here on HN. The parents point is valid. If you don't like it, that's fine, but rude it was not. Google doesn't know anything more than DDG, so you're just plain old wrong on that argument.
This made me chuckle, since modern Python and Java styles are very, very similar, if not identical in places, to those of 10 years ago. Some of the libraries have changed, but many are the same as well. Shoot, I can still run Python code I wrote 10 years ago on the latest version (yep, that means something originally written for Python 2.3 can run fine on Python 3.6).
And no, that doesn't make Python and Java old hat or redundant.
You are correct, Google trends is pretty much irrelevant here. You would be surprised by Gitosis (and many others you've dismissed). It's pretty much in every company I've worked in over the last 7 years. It's never well liked, but it works just fine. Most companies don't need bells and whistles that come with GUI based git installs, so they don't waste the money switching away to them.
Bitrise seem to deal with a niche market (mobile development), so claiming their study shows a general trend in the self hosted git market is a stretch at best. I'd imagine boring old git itself and non-website backed things like gitosis are still a massive part of the overall install base. In any case, the claim that gitlab's on 2/3 market share just screams disingenuous marketing fluff to me and cheapens gitlab as a whole.
They've been promising to fix performance and the UI for years now, so I wouldn't hold out much hope. It's a shame, but there are better open source products so it's not like there are no other options for self hosted.
Looks like replacing the money isn't the issue, it's whether or not D-Cal have screwed over the agency. Over half of the KS pledges were made fraudulently by D-Cal themselves, meaning the money doesn't actually exist and their campaign was a failure. This puts the agency on the hook for any and all refunds if the people who actually put their money into pledges ask for a refund (the agency account is tied to the campaign now). D-Cal have apparently not come up with a proper solution to repay the money if this happens, so Woodshed are not happy about releasing the funds until this is resolved (on their accountants advice). I'd suggest that all D-Cal have to do is finish setting up an account that can be used on KS and the account could be switched and funds deposited. Either that or put enough cash to cover the agencies costs into some sort of escrow.