GitLab Escrow Functionality...

I want to suggest offering a type of service that would be very useful to developers publishing code (especially under a "timed-release open source license"...)

You should be able to buy a hosting subscription for 6 months or more that does the following:

You do not allow deletes of specially designated projects/repos (nor may the entire project be deleted...); but you set a date for the repo to AUTOMATICALLY become public. When you visit that project before that date, it shows its release date. THE DATE CANNOT BE CHANGED.

The idea is that you could then act as a lightweight software escrow/publication service on projects...