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Microsoft bought out Github - Page 2
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Microsoft bought out Github

245

Comments

  • JanevskiJanevski Member
    edited June 2018

    Microsoft is going to make Github all proprietary now.

    There'll be only one single index.html page saying which bad things are going to happen to you if you dare typing git clone.

    image

  • marcin.mmarcin.m Member
    edited June 2018

    God forbid anyone should try to earn a living...

    The community got a great place to freely develop projects for awhile and they got GitLab forever. So what's next? Run your own GitHub with GitLab on a..... _VPS

  • deankdeank Member, Troll

    I don't even need to say what I like to say, right?

    Thanked by 1Janevski
  • jackbjackb Member, Host Rep
    edited June 2018

    Embrace, extend, extinguish?

    github vsts vc

  • WebProjectWebProject Host Rep, Veteran

    @Yura said:
    How do you feel about it?

    Terrible news, as Microsoft mess up only, example: Skype used to be great not anymore as been bought by Microsoft and code completely messed up.

  • rm_rm_ IPv6 Advocate, Veteran

    marcin.m said: God forbid anyone should try to earn a living...

    Raking in 7.5 billion is... earning a "living"? Fuck you.

    Thanked by 2Claverhouse Ole_Juul
  • blackjack4494blackjack4494 Member
    edited June 2018

    Meanwhile gitlab homepage is loading slow af. I just hope for the very best that Microsoft won't change a damn thing about Github in a negative manner.#Pray4Github

  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    Microsoft has been getting much more FOSS/Linux-friendly in recent years. Remember this is a company that 15 years ago was trying to sue Linux out of existence. Now they...

    • have bash running on Windows
    • have SQL Server running on Linux
    • host Linux VMs in Azure

    TriJetScud said: From a business perspective, it made total sense for Microsoft to acquire Github. A large majority of their Open Source projects, namely CoreCLR along with ASP.NET and EntityFramework is being developed on and hosted on Github.

    Not sure about total sense - I doubt Github was profitable or was on the cusp of being profitable - but it's typical. "Oh crap, another of our products (CodePlex) didn't work in the marketplace...let's go buy some credibility."

  • raindog308 said: Microsoft has been getting much more FOSS/Linux-friendly in recent years. Remember this is a company that 15 years ago was trying to sue Linux out of existence. Now they...

    Indeed. Not that I follow the industry all that closely but have been aware of changes the past 25 years or so.

    I find some older users will retain their gripe forever while others just think it's cool to slander Micro$oft.

    There'll always be proprietary software and knowledge, else the daft cunts moaning about microsoft would soon realise they have no job.

  • deankdeank Member, Troll

    To be fair, MS of 15 years ago and MS of now are pretty much two different entities.

    Besides, eliminating unix is not possible at the moment. Might as well support them somewhat instead of blatantly blocking them.

    Thanked by 2Aidan vimalware
  • blackblack Member

    I don't see a problem if all you used github for was public repos. If you have some private ones I can understand why you want to move them but microsoft lately has been moving towards more open code with the current CEO.

    Thanked by 1sayem314
  • rumi4rumi4 Member

    GitLab will replace github?

  • joepie91joepie91 Member, Patron Provider

    raindog308 said: Microsoft has been getting much more FOSS/Linux-friendly in recent years. Remember this is a company that 15 years ago was trying to sue Linux out of existence.

    Some of us haven't forgotten that "getting chummy with the open community" was also the point of entry for their Embrace, Extend, Extinguish strategy.

    So, here's the thing. Microsoft is, for such a large company, exceptionally good at getting ahead of the curve, and preserving their business by moving along with the market. Much better than other giants. But this also means that their business decisions can look like altruism.

    Microsoft has increasingly been moving towards being a service provider rather than a software company - not because somebody internally decided that they could make a difference that way, but because that is where the market was moving.

    With the increasing use of and reliance on open-source code, software has become nearly value-less. This means that to keep up, Microsoft has had to deemphasize their software, and increase their investment into services - an area where open-source can't eat their lunch. This is what got us things like Azure and Office 365.

    Also in recent years, formerly Windows-only developers have been getting increasingly annoyed with Microsoft's lack of support for other platforms. Not because their user-facing software necessarily had to run on other platforms, but because software is becoming increasingly internet-connected, and the infrastructure that companies run usually doesn't run on Windows.

    That has created a situation where many teams suddenly had to maintain two distinct stacks; eg. a .NET stack for user-facing software, and something entirely different for their (usually Linux-based) network infrastructure. This gets annoying fast, and it's led to the Microsoft-exclusive developer base slowly bleeding out, and moving towards cross-platform solutions (Python, Ruby, JS, Go, etc.).

    As a result, Microsoft has tried to make their software increasingly more cross-platform to bridge this gap. SQL Server and .NET Core now run on Linux, so that you can use Microsoft products end-to-end for your software. WSL allows Windows-using developers to use the same development tools as eg. web developers, who often use Linux or OS X because it's just too frustrating on Windows.

    The key takeaway here is this: None of this is altruism. None of this is "embracing the open-source world". All of this has had a very clear identifiable business case, and following the market has kept Microsoft competitive. This makes sense from the perspective of running a company, but it's important to recognize that Microsoft does what it does to benefit itself.

    Right now, Microsoft's incentives align with those of the OSS community; in no small part thanks to said OSS community forcing Microsoft's hand. The problem is that this is no guarantee for the future - if at any point the circumstances change, Microsoft will just follow the lead of the market, even if that's at the expense of the OSS community.

    What it all comes down to, is that Microsoft could never be trusted, and that it can still not be trusted. Right now it has incentives to act in ways that are beneficial to OSS. There is absolutely zero guarantee that this will be true in 5 or 10 years. Microsoft is a company that is out to make money and keep itself running at any cost, not a charity.

  • MichaelCeeMichaelCee Barred
    edited June 2018

    The problem with this is that Microsoft "does what it does to benefit itself". GitHub quotes "GitHub brings teams together to work through problems, move ideas forward, and learn from each other along the way." and also "Collaboration makes perfect". For such a community driven and collaborative platform, that lack of guarantee in the future just seems like a big ol' poop. Plus, we all know what happened to Skype.

  • joepie91joepie91 Member, Patron Provider

    @Hoost said:
    The problem with this is that Microsoft "does what it does to benefit itself". GitHub quotes "GitHub brings teams together to work through problems, move ideas forward, and learn from each other along the way." and also "Collaboration makes perfect". For such a community driven and collaborative platform, that lack of guarantee in the future just seems like a big ol' poop. Plus, we all know what happened to Skype.

    You won't find me disagreeing there. That having been said, GitHub itself was never a particularly good open-source citizen, so in that sense not much has changed; I suspect that the only reason OSS-on-GitHub hasn't been fucked around with too much, is that GitHub would literally cease to exist if they weren't widely used by OSS projects.

    GitHub has always been a centralized silo that benefited off its walled garden. The core difference after this acquisition is that Microsoft can afford to fuck over OSS projects, and the platform would still have value to them; because unlike independent GitHub, their primary income source isn't "enterprise usage of the platform".

    Thanked by 1MichaelCee
  • Not sure why people use github over gitlab. I mean why do you have to pay for your repo to be private when gitlab offers that option as built-in? I personally use gitlab over github since it has ever existed.

  • jcalebjcaleb Member

    Any chance Microsoft will leave GitHub run independently? Like how Warren Buffet treats his subsidiaries.

  • YuraYura Member
    edited June 2018

    @jcaleb said:
    Any chance Microsoft will leave GitHub run independently? Like how Warren Buffet treats his subsidiaries.

    No one can feel independent with a 12 inches black ribbed strap-on up their backend.

    Thanked by 1DewlanceVPS
  • joepie91joepie91 Member, Patron Provider

    @jcaleb said:
    Any chance Microsoft will leave GitHub run independently? Like how Warren Buffet treats his subsidiaries.

    Very unlikely. GitHub is currently having profitability issues, so evidently the current model isn't quite working. Microsoft isn't in the business of bankrolling unprofitable ventures, so they'll try to fix that somehow.

  • @Yura said:

    @jcaleb said:
    Any chance Microsoft will leave GitHub run independently? Like how Warren Buffet treats his subsidiaries.

    No one can feel independent with a 12 inches black ribbed strap-on up their backend.

    With superglue.

  • jcalebjcaleb Member

    joepie91 said: Microsoft isn't in the business of bankrolling unprofitable ventures

    But Bill Gates is into charity nowadays right?

  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    jezznar said: Not sure why people use github over gitlab. I mean why do you have to pay for your repo to be private when gitlab offers that option as built-in? I personally use gitlab over github since it has ever existed.

    I hadn't noticed that Gitlab offers private repos even on their hosted version. Nice.

  • @jcaleb said:

    joepie91 said: Microsoft isn't in the business of bankrolling unprofitable ventures

    But Bill Gates is into charity nowadays right?

    But they certainly can use the losses on Github to as a tax write-off. A company that size would definitely like to have a venture such as this to use as a tax writeoff. It gives the company publicity too, so it's like free advertising for them.

  • jcalebjcaleb Member

    But gitlab is written in ruby on rails, right?

  • LeviLevi Member

    jcaleb said: But gitlab is written in ruby on rails, right?

    Ruby / RoR.

  • bapbap Member

    @KnownHostChrisM said:
    How long before they make it Windows only? Or just abandon it all together.

    First, youll need live mail account..

    Thanked by 1ChrisMiller
  • mkshmksh Member

    Imo most important question is if they will rename it to Github 365.

  • rm_ said: Raking in 7.5 billion is... earning a "living"? Fuck you.

    No - Fuck You, comrade.

    GitHub, by all accounts, was burning cash. To stay online, they needed to either 1) raise more cash from investors, 2) implement a profitable business model or 3) sell.

    $7.5bn is not being divvied up by the founders. It's certainly not even all cash - but rather some cash + restricted stock options for key people that is ultimately calculated at $7.5bn for the news headlines.

    First, any debts incurred (including salaries) will be paid. Second, investors who have been footing the cloud services bill will get a return on capital. I don't know what the founders' stake was - but it's certainly heavily diluted. But they earned it. Congrats to them.

    Ironically, had they stayed independent by choosing option 1 or 2, there would probably be more complaints because GitHub would inevitably had to start charging users or enter into some marketing agreement(s) to sell B.S. over their platform.

    @joepie91 said:

    @jcaleb said:
    Any chance Microsoft will leave GitHub run independently? Like how Warren Buffet treats his subsidiaries.

    Very unlikely. GitHub is currently having profitability issues, so evidently the current model isn't quite working. Microsoft isn't in the business of bankrolling unprofitable ventures, so they'll try to fix that somehow.

    According to the rumors, GitHub was initially discussing a $35m "marketing agreement" with Microsoft and that turned into an outright sale.

    It makes 0 sense and cents for Microsoft to make GitHub unattractive to developers. The obvious thing is to market Azure on top of it, possibly by making it quicker & easier for developers to deploy commits to Azure.

    They can run GitHub on Azure at practically negligible cost, so then operating GitHub is not so expensive anymore. The $7.5bn buys advertising right in front of developers.

  • jsgjsg Member, Resident Benchmarker
    edited June 2018

    @raindog308 said:

    jaypeesmith said: It looks like the folks behind GitHub are about to be $7.5 billion richer.

    I find it hilarious that the author of git, Linus Torvalds, is not a penny richer as a result of this transaction

    Well we don't know that. We just assume it based on our very limited knowledge about Linus Thorvalds account.

    I "picked out" your probably correct remark for another reason: Isn't there lots and lots of talk or even "advice" in the open source universe about many other ways to earn money with open source? Well, looking at the reality incl. the git/Linus case all that talk seems to be largely politically or even "religiously" motivated bla bla. Based on what I see even in the not so many cases where open source people really earn some money with their project it's usually not the developers but some others.

    Regarding the Microsoft buys github issue I'll wait a bit before coming to a conclusion. Microsoft 2018 != Microsoft 1998 and github must have some business value too to be bought for billions of $. Translation: github isn't all open source happiness flow flow paradise but a business operation. Plus I'm quite sure that Microsoft didn't buy github to get their hands on all that source (yada yada shocked look). In fact Microsoft themselves have become a MAJOR contributor to software.

    Personally I'm not concerned at all. I always look with mistrust at github and didn't need or like it but prefer fossil. But then I'm an old style guy and not a politicised FOSS groupie. Sometimes I do a small private project (like vps benchmark) and sometimes my client and I decide to open source parts of my/our work typically libraries. Just like in the 90ies without lots of hype and politics.

    Funny sidenote: When I published vpsbench I noted that it seems quite hard to find some free "here's the software and source, have fun" hosting nowadays. Big fat foss project hosting with heaps of features (and quite some conditions and small print ...) no problem but a simple "here it is. grab it" 10 MB hosting seemed to be tricky to find.

    Edit: Sorry, I meant "banking account" in the first paragraph. My bad.

  • angstromangstrom Moderator

    @raindog308 said:

    jaypeesmith said: It looks like the folks behind GitHub are about to be $7.5 billion richer.

    I find it hilarious that the author of git, Linus Torvalds, is not a penny richer as a result of this transaction

    Probably not, but it doesn't matter.

    By all accounts, Torvalds is a multimillionaire, so nothing to worry about. Already back in 2007, he said in an interview (ITB = itbusiness.ca, LT = Linus Torvalds):

    ITB: Lots of researchers made millions with new computer technologies, but you preferred to keep developing Linux. Don’t you feel you missed the chance of a lifetime by not creating a proprietary Linux?

    LT: No, really. First off, I’m actually perfectly well off. I live in a good-sized house, with a nice yard, with deer occasionally showing up and eating the roses (my wife likes the roses more, I like the deer more, so we don’t really mind). I’ve got three kids, and I know I can pay for their education. What more do I need?

    (From https://www.itbusiness.ca/news/torvalds-talks/10886 .)

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