Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft and GitHub have held acquisition talks

businessinsider.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 567 posts

Re: Microsoft and GitHub have held acquisition talks

#31

Post by ocdtrekkie »

pasbesoin wrote: post #22

E3 -- Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. Stems from at least the 1990's. The MS behavior as opposed to the term can be argued to pre-date that decade. I'll just remind people who may think I'm being old, crotchety, and living in the past, that this has been a repeated pattern of theirs that has resurfaced so often and reliably as to become considered by many to be a core component of MS culture. Repeated including in the f…

Almost nobody who even worked at Microsoft in 1996 still actually works at Microsoft. You are bringing up something said in one meeting from when floppy disks were still pretty important to the computing world.

I can't fathom a single statement from 1996 about a computer company that is still accurate today, and EEE falls into that category as well.

Re: Microsoft and GitHub have held acquisition talks

#34

Post by drenvuk »

The one thing that I like about Github is that everything is public by default and you have to pay to keep your code private. I feel like a positive consequence of that business choice was the opening up of way more software. Gitlab, while being very awesome doesn't have that same rule and neither does Bitbucket. It's my assumption that this is the biggest reason there's so much open source code flowing right now.

It makes me wonder whether I'll be able to find as many random interesting projects just by searching for things anymore.

I'm a bit sad about this.

Re: Microsoft and GitHub have held acquisition talks

#35

Post by api_or_ipa »

I can't help but be insanely sceptical. Microsoft has a massive legacy of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish and I don't want the GitHub ecosystem to suffer from the same reoccurring pattern. Call me jaded by Microsoft's past behaviour, but I just cannot forget the numerous times Microsoft has absolutely ruined thriving ecosystems by using the same tricks.

Re: Microsoft and GitHub have held acquisition talks

#37

Post by aphextron »

the_duke wrote: post #33
falcon620 wrote: post #29

Hopefully it's just a negotiation tactic to get Google to buy them for more than their first offer.

Google is notorious for killing products too, though. For me, much of the same rationale would apply

>Google is notorious for killing products too, though. For me, much of the same rationale would apply

Agreed. The best possible solution for making GitHub long term sustainable would be following the Mozilla model.

Re: Microsoft and GitHub have held acquisition talks

#38

Post by bearcobra »

PaulHoule wrote: post #2

Oh shit. I run Windows. I have respect for Microsoft. A lot of people do not, however, and the sense that Microsoft is ritually unclean will drive many of them away from github. It's the best thing that's happened to BitBucket and Altassian ever. If I have a choice between MS tools and Altassian tools I will usually take MS. (Visual Source Safe really did suck, but Visual Studio is not that bad...) Also, Microsoft ac…

I'd be interested to learn why there's the perspective that the LinkedIn acquisition hasn't gone well. I feel like most of the stories I've read about it have been pretty positive.

Re: Microsoft and GitHub have held acquisition talks

#39

Post by WorldMaker »

parvenu74 wrote: post #20
thosakwe wrote: post #5

Something makes me feel like Microsoft acquiring Github will do away with Github's current, open nature. If the extreme advertising in Windows 10 is any sign...

> will do away with GitHub's current, open nature. Apparently the Gnome folks concluded that GitHub was already too closed to even consider them in the competition for the question "Where will the Gnome project live in the future?" GitLab won that competition, btw, and icrosoft wasn't even part of that calculus.

With current trends in Microsoft's Developer Division, it's possible that GitHub could end up way more open if Microsoft acquired them. GitHub's core business is GitHub and they need that to stay closed to stay competitive. GitHub under Microsoft could have less financial pressure to keep closed.

Is it likely? I don't know. It is an interesting possibility though, that would certainly change the game.

Re: Microsoft and GitHub have held acquisition talks

#40

Post by falcon620 »

akerro wrote: post #36
falcon620 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like "gah, we're going to have to self-host git, aren't we"?

Or you know... just use gitlab.com...

I don't trust them to be compent at operating a large scale service after their insane meltdown february last year.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/01/gitlab_data_loss/

Post reply on HN