Microsoft and GitHub have held acquisition talks • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft and GitHub have held acquisition talks

#481

Post by pcthrowaway » Sat, Jun 02, 2018, 9:55 AM UTC

ATsch wrote: post #167

Many people mention Microsoft's past history as reasons for worrying about this. However, I disagree. I don't think this would be bad because it's Microsoft. I think it would be bad because GitHub wouldn't be a generally independent entity, with no business interests besides making a product good enough that people will pay for it anymore. Currently, GitHub doesn't really have any incentive to care what tools and pla…

This is what I was thinking also (though you articulated it much better than I would have).

A large company doesn't make an acquisition like this without a business incentive. For them, it's driving people to their products. Maybe making the tooling in github for interacting with microsoft-y products a little bit better. Maybe adding whatever licenses microsoft likes to the front of the default licenses you can pick from when you create a new repo. Things generated by their editors going into your .gitignore by default.

I don't see any reason they'd acquire github and then entirely leave it alone.

Re: Microsoft and GitHub have held acquisition talks

#482

Post by kyberias » Sat, Jun 02, 2018, 9:57 AM UTC

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...

What extreme advertising? I've been using Win 10 from the beginning and haven't seen ONE add.

Re: Microsoft and GitHub have held acquisition talks

#483

Post by cube2222 » Sat, Jun 02, 2018, 10:05 AM UTC

morganvachon wrote: post #291

pmontra wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use Google without logging in and with one of those browser addons that delete cookies when leaving a site.

They still create a search bubble based on your IP address and browser fingerprinting.

Well not with GDPR, no.

Re: Microsoft and GitHub have held acquisition talks

#484

Post by btschaegg » Sat, Jun 02, 2018, 10:21 AM UTC

londondev45 wrote: post #51

Microsoft has embraced Github with it's recent .Net core development, they are one of the largest contributors with some incredible cross platform dev tooling. C# is a pleasure and visual studio code is an excellent, extensible coding tool. Go forth Microsoft, the standard bashing in these communities is unjust.

> Microsoft has embraced Github with it's recent .Net core development, they are one of the largest contributors with some incredible cross platform dev tooling.

Not going to deny this, but that's really the reason I'm not comfortable with the idea of a MS owned Github. Microsoft doing open source development is great. Microsoft trying to influence open source and FOSS development as a whole, not so much. Them aquiring a central hub of such development efforts doesn't signal good things to come: The users of Github have nothing to gain from this, whereas MS has, and there's a non-zero chance of them ruining the thing for everyone in the process.

Re: Microsoft and GitHub have held acquisition talks

#485

Post by btschaegg » Sat, Jun 02, 2018, 10:30 AM UTC

AgentK20 wrote: post #6

Really hope these talks fall through and nothing comes of it. Too many bad experiences with Microsoft buying something out, mismanaging it, and it goes down the drain. As much as I love GitHub, I won't be using a Microsoft-owned GitHub for any of my company's work.

That would've been my exact reaction while reading this. Good thing I have no large projects on Github.

Well, I guess Gitlab would be happy about the new customers. If they're clever, they'll work on some tools to easen the transition.

From this perspective, Git has made some fundamental things right: Because it only functions as a decentralized system, it strongly reduces lock-in. In the case of Github, you "only" had to port over issues and pull requests. Imagine how great it would be if there was a standard way to save issues in a git repo[1] that was supported by pretty much every provider.

[1]: Such as https://pythonhosted.org/pyditz/

Re: Microsoft and GitHub have held acquisition talks

#486

Post by btschaegg » Sat, Jun 02, 2018, 10:31 AM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #319

AgentK20 wrote: post #6

Really hope these talks fall through and nothing comes of it. Too many bad experiences with Microsoft buying something out, mismanaging it, and it goes down the drain. As much as I love GitHub, I won't be using a Microsoft-owned GitHub for any of my company's work.

It could be worse, Oracle or SalesForce could have been in talks...

OTOH it speaks to the direness of the situation if you had to mention those two for an even worse scenario.

Re: Microsoft and GitHub have held acquisition talks

#487

Post by kyberias » Sat, Jun 02, 2018, 10:43 AM UTC

lwhalen wrote: post #477

kyberias wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it matter to you so much who owns GitHub if it's a good tool? Sounds unnecessary vitriol.

Some of us are old enough to remember Microsoft of the 90's and early aughties. "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" was the name of the game then, many of us haven't forgiven Microsoft for that yet (and nor do we plan to).

Right, I know that, and that's just idiotic behavior. You should concentrate on what is happening today, not what happened decades ago and hold grudges. That attitude leads you into unhappy places.

Re: Microsoft and GitHub have held acquisition talks

#488

Post by srean » Sat, Jun 02, 2018, 11:02 AM UTC

kyberias wrote: post #487

lwhalen wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of us are old enough to remember Microsoft of the 90's and early aughties. "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" was the name of the game then, many of us haven't forgiven Microsoft for that yet (and nor do we plan to).

Right, I know that, and that's just idiotic behavior. You should concentrate on what is happening today, not what happened decades ago and hold grudges. That attitude leads you into unhappy places.

I doubt its about grudges. The mid level exec culture in a company does not change fast.

Re: Microsoft and GitHub have held acquisition talks

#489

Post by tomsiw » Sat, Jun 02, 2018, 11:07 AM UTC

AgentK20 wrote: post #6

Really hope these talks fall through and nothing comes of it. Too many bad experiences with Microsoft buying something out, mismanaging it, and it goes down the drain. As much as I love GitHub, I won't be using a Microsoft-owned GitHub for any of my company's work.

The list of key MS acquisitions isn't that long and out of several products only Nokia is a definite failure. Skype gotten worse but I wouldn't count it as failure just yet. Remaining big acquisitions (Forethought PowerPoint, Hotmail, Visio, Navision Dynamics, LinkedIn) where rather successful.

Re: Microsoft and GitHub have held acquisition talks

#490

Post by flud » Sat, Jun 02, 2018, 11:16 AM UTC

KyeRussell wrote: post #271

nkkollaw wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about Skype, though? People loved Skype so much, it was really a feat to make people hate it.

They undoubtedly did a bad job, but I think that Skype has a lot going against it from external factors anyway. Everyone I know is using FaceTime or Facebook Messenger. The only time I hear Skype anymore is people using it for podcasts. Obvious anecdata but it seems reasonable that services with better device integration (FaceTime) or social graph access (Facebook) would do better in the long run.

Yup, all these came after Skype started sucking, most probably because of it.