Microsoft Is Said to Have Agreed to Acquire GitHub • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft Is Said to Have Agreed to Acquire GitHub

#551

Post by jasonvorhe » Sun, Jun 03, 2018, 10:33 PM UTC

dz0ny wrote: post #121

The way GitHub is developed (remote) and culture, this is pretty much death of GitHub and if most developers leave it will become a mess quite quickly. GitLab just got big boost.

That's extremely doubtful. First, having to login to different Gitlab instances is terrible UX. Second, you cannot easily reference another instance's issues. Hosted Gitlab is also unreliable and slow and comes with no publicly mentioned SLO of any kind.

I'd be surprised to see any big projects going away from GitHub in the coming years, unless Microsoft actually manages to tarnish the GitHub brand in a meaningful way.

The typical tinfoil head probably never trusted GitHub anyways, whether they're owned by Microsoft or not.

Re: Microsoft Is Said to Have Agreed to Acquire GitHub

#552

Post by d3sandoval » Sun, Jun 03, 2018, 10:33 PM UTC

smolder wrote: post #239

zackya89 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the history of Microsoft is the reason why we all reacting this way. But encouraged by the move they made lately coming into Linux, even though other players have forced their hand

Yes, particularly because of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...

As far as I can tell, today's MS is very aware of the brand problem they created for themselves and have been working hard to fix it.

A recent changelog episode addresses this exact issue:https://changelog.com/podcast/298#transcript-78

Re: Microsoft Is Said to Have Agreed to Acquire GitHub

#553

Post by mips_avatar » Sun, Jun 03, 2018, 10:35 PM UTC

013a wrote: post #259

This is a completely smart purchase on Microsoft's part. I can't imagine more synergy between two companies: - Microsoft has always been the largest developer advocate of any of the major tech players (Google has been a great contender for this position since 2010). - Microsoft has moved most of their open source projects to Github. - Microsoft is a major contributor to Git, including massive infrastructure projects…

I think that the biggest loser is going to be IBM clearcase. Especially in government/defense work the developers want to use git, but can’t get it because of lack of security reviews. I can guarantee you that Microsoft sales people are already calling every software group manager at all the defense contractors.

Re: Microsoft Is Said to Have Agreed to Acquire GitHub

#554

Post by tajen » Sun, Jun 03, 2018, 10:36 PM UTC

Wait a minute. Microsoft owns LinkedIn, so it has prime access to recruitment. It now also owns GitHub, where it can run anything they want to find the best programmers. I don’t know what Microsoft plans to do, but those are good wats to find all kinds of talent.

Re: Microsoft Is Said to Have Agreed to Acquire GitHub

#555

Post by EnderMB » Sun, Jun 03, 2018, 10:37 PM UTC

closeparen wrote: post #371

EnderMB wrote: post #117

I spent eight years building software on .NET, so I have a lot of time for Microsoft, but I fully understand why a lot of people aren't happy with this news. It's been good to have a leader in open-source that is unaffiliated with anyone but the tech they chose to use (Ruby/Rails). For me, it doesn't matter who takes it over - it's just sad to see a neutral player disappear. With all that said, things have changed a…

This dovetails nicely with Windows Subsystem for Linux, VS Code, and Microsoft’s ongoing play to capture the Silicon Valley hipster development ecosystem that Apple is alienating.

This was largely my thought behind the move.

Given that GitHub is quite proudly built on Ruby, I can't see them wanting to switch things up from a tech perspective. GitHub is stable, and it's tech stack is capable of staying up despite some major DDoS attacks.

If anything, I think this is an opportunity for Microsoft to introduce themselves to the Ruby and Rails teams, and to finally resolve the issues that stop Windows from being a first-class citizen in the Ruby world. If they can do this through both Windows and the Windows Subsystem for Linux then I think they'll be on to a winner. It's a capture of a much-loved service, and an opportunity to bring a mature set of tools into their domain.

Re: Microsoft Is Said to Have Agreed to Acquire GitHub

#556

Post by bluepeter » Sun, Jun 03, 2018, 10:38 PM UTC

lucb1e wrote: post #265

genofon wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree with Skype, but what actually happened with LinkedIn? I remember in pre-Microsoft times they asked me for my google email and password.. right not to log-ing with google but the email and password! I understand it's more LinkedIn's fault than Microsoft merit, but I just wanted to say, IMO there were never "good times" for LinkedIn

> what actually happened with LinkedIn? It used to be that it would only nag you to sign up or log in when trying to view extended profile attributes. Now it just requires you to log in to even view someone's name and function. It shows up in the search results alright, some day I should find a UA changer to spoof Google and see if they do IP checking or just UA header checking, but generally, they made it completely…

And even worse MSFT/LinkedIn is suing a small company for spidering LinkedIn's data.

Re: Microsoft Is Said to Have Agreed to Acquire GitHub

#557

Post by alirobe » Sun, Jun 03, 2018, 10:39 PM UTC

QML wrote: post #412

013a wrote: post #259

This is a completely smart purchase on Microsoft's part. I can't imagine more synergy between two companies: - Microsoft has always been the largest developer advocate of any of the major tech players (Google has been a great contender for this position since 2010). - Microsoft has moved most of their open source projects to Github. - Microsoft is a major contributor to Git, including massive infrastructure projects…

How has the LinkedIn acquisition benefited LinkedIn users or Microsoft users?

Well, there haven't been any more password leaks...

Re: Microsoft Is Said to Have Agreed to Acquire GitHub

#558

Post by ealloc » Sun, Jun 03, 2018, 10:39 PM UTC

frutiger wrote: post #498

indigochill wrote: post #339

Heck, I already prefer Gitlab and/or Bitbucket because they let me run free (or at least self-hosted in Gitlab's case, not sure what their hosted option's like) private repos. Github's just got the mindshare going for it. But maybe now that'll change.

If you ever get something for free, remember something somewhere is subsidizing it. Whether that's the other paid accounts, which therefore must be uncompetitively priced, VC funding (which will eventually run out), or your data is sold.

I use a huge amount of open-source software which I do not believe is subsidized.

Some is, eg some linux/gnome devs are paid to contribute. But many smaller projects/components are volunteer-only.

Re: Microsoft Is Said to Have Agreed to Acquire GitHub

#559

Post by perculis » Sun, Jun 03, 2018, 10:39 PM UTC

Y7ZCQtNo39 wrote: post #149

LeanderK wrote: post #45

I am worried that a company as important to the open-source community as github is now owned by one of the major players. I think it really impacts the neutrality of github. If I would compete with microsoft in a certain space, I would really think twice about relying on github. Also, this monopolization is driving me mad.

I could see developers ditching GitHub with the acquisition for a perceived conflict of interest. It's really easy to change your remote. I see a potentially big market opportunity for anyone who wants to compete in the space now.

Agreed on both points. The shift will bring a lot of opportunity to build a more decentralized repo base. I think something like (Keybase)[http://keybase.io] might be interesting.

Re: Microsoft Is Said to Have Agreed to Acquire GitHub

#560

Post by EnderMB » Sun, Jun 03, 2018, 10:39 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #511

Microsoft was the second most frequent contributor on Github (to Google)[1]. [1] https://medium.freecodecamp.org/the-top-contributors-to-gith...

Absolutely, and this has been the case for many years. Microsoft has contributed to open source heavily for a long time, but it won't stop a lot of people that have been burned in the past from not trusting Microsoft.