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

Microsoft Is Said to Have Agreed to Acquire GitHub

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

801–810 of 1001 posts

Re: Microsoft Is Said to Have Agreed to Acquire GitHub

#801

Post by scarface74 »

flatline wrote: post #571
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…

I also spent years working with Microsoft’s proprietary technologies. The reality of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish was still alive and well as late as 2011 when I mostly stopped dealing with them. Since that time they have definitely taken a new direction, with increasing adoption of Linux in particular, but I have trouble belieiving the corporate DNA has been so thoroughly overwritten in the last few years that this d…

Their "corporate DNA" was established when the desktop was supreme and they could steer the direction of the industry based on thier Windows dominance.

Times are different, mobile is more important, cloud hosting is a real thing and technology changes. They had to evolve or die. Saying you can't trust MS in 2018 based on the way the world was years ago is like saying that Netflix could only ship DVDs to people's houses, Amazon can't be trusted to do cloud hosting because they only sell books, and that a minor niche computer maker should never be trusted to sell phones.

Re: Microsoft Is Said to Have Agreed to Acquire GitHub

#802

Post by AlexCoventry »

Fice wrote: post #705
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can easily migrate your repo to a different service, so having lots of developers rely on GitHub isn't really a big deal. Many large projects have GitHub mirrors. I'd say the biggest issue is that Git doesn't include better built-in support for issues, wikis, PRs / code reviews, and releases. Compare that to Fossil [0], which lets you bundle up everything into a single file. If there was better built-in support y…

I'm glad to see Fossil mentioned here. Yet the real problem is not in the technical aspects and possibilities of project hosting migration, it's the dependence of the majority of open-source developers on GitHub's centralized social network.

What social network? The stars and follows? Does anyone actually care about them? Why? I've never seen the point.

Re: Microsoft Is Said to Have Agreed to Acquire GitHub

#803

Post by meesterdude »

skellera wrote: post #500

So much parroting going on in here. Microsoft has been doing amazing things recently for devs. Wait to see what their plans actually are before you start to freak out.

What Microsoft acquisition has been a "success"? Because there are quite a lot that got worse under MS. They have a long track record and it'l take years before they can begin to counter all the stuff they've done.

Would have rather seen an investment or partnership in github than a purchase. Recognizing the desire for github to stay neutral but supporting it to continue would have been a much better received move and done far more to build up reputation.

Re: Microsoft Is Said to Have Agreed to Acquire GitHub

#804

Post by naikrovek »

mips_avatar wrote: post #553
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.

Well, clearcase is a horrible monster and it would benefit just about everyone on Earth if it dies.

How many drivers on the road would be less likely to cut someone off or road rage if they didn't have to deal with ClearCase again? I'm sure that number is greater than zero.

I'm only being partially facetious. ClearCase truly is the worst.

Re: Microsoft Is Said to Have Agreed to Acquire GitHub

#805

Post by meesterdude »

Ros2 wrote: post #242
pesfandiar wrote: post #165

I hope they keep GitHub Pages, even if it's not free anymore. It's so convenient to host small static sites there.

Netlify does this for free along with a path to hosting larger sites as well. I found them via HN and have seen them recommended here many times.

Netlify is great! I also found them via HN at some point and use them for a couple customer projects. Totally moving my personal stuff to them too now.

Re: Microsoft Is Said to Have Agreed to Acquire GitHub

#806

Post by marricks »

archagon wrote: post #772
marricks wrote: post #234

Can anything exist anymore without A) Getting acquired by a multinational B) Becoming one Sure, MS visual code is open but as a few players get more and more power we all become subject to their whims and not them to ours. MS is pushing their ads within their own OS more and more, will GitHub get the same treatment, or will it’s data be useful to MS for those ads? What sort of integrations can we expect to see with o…

Probably a direct consequence of VC funding.

Definitely, investors don't give you money just for kicks, they want a payday. It shapes the community... people who take that money get a head start, crowd out competition. Everyone needs to grow huge, get bought, or die.

What could change this? People refusing money? Some encouragement to stay mid sized? Wonder if that will ever happen...

Re: Microsoft Is Said to Have Agreed to Acquire GitHub

#807

Post by harshgupta »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #771
mickronome wrote: post #757

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure they'll try to 'Microsoft' it. They could never keep their hands off any UI in any product, no matter if it works or not, and especially lately, leaving a rather spectacular trail of destruction in their wake.

LinkedIn still feels like it's old self to me. Not that that really matters one way another to me.

Just after acquisition, Linkedin started systematically shutting down available API resources, and removing CRM support. Microsoft reigns in eventually. source:https://www.fullcontact.com/blog/linkedin-state-of-crm-2014/

redacted: i mistook the acquisition date

Re: Microsoft Is Said to Have Agreed to Acquire GitHub

#808

Post by naikrovek »

ebbv wrote: post #612
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…

What? Microsoft is the biggest developer advocate? Apple gives X Code away for free and made Swift an open source, platform agnostic product among many other things.

> gives X Code away for free

Free with the purchase of Apple hardware. Not exactly "free," is it?

VS Code works on Mac, Linux, and Windows.

Re: Microsoft Is Said to Have Agreed to Acquire GitHub

#809

Post by telltruth »

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.

Your dream of “neutral” VCS is misfounded. Websites like GitHub are massive bandwidth and storage hogs and needs huge cash burn just for dev ops. Unfortunately they can’t be reasonably profitable as well because revenue sources are rather tiny. This means every vcs company out there offering free for all plan is bound to be sold or go bankrupt.

For GitHub I would have wished Google bought them because there is huge synergy both ways. With Microsoft, eventually some CVP there will realize that there is no profitability and they will leave it to rot.

Re: Microsoft Is Said to Have Agreed to Acquire GitHub

#810

Post by justinclift »

kworker wrote: post #89
nicoburns wrote: post #44

I worry about github too. BUT, at least with github most of the data is open. And they have a worthy competitor in Gitlab. Might be a bit of disruption if MS mess things up, but not a disaster.

Why not self-hosting?

For us (sqlitebrowser.org), self hosting the code, comments, and similar should be achievable with something like Gitea (Open Source GitHub clone).

Hosting our downloads though... hmmm... that could be more tricky.

Our releases generally have ~180k downloads a month, with each being (very) roughly 15MB in size.

That's only 2.5TB/mo, but the downloads aren't evenly spaced throughout the day.

We'd probably need a small cluster of servers with unmetered bandwidth or something. Scaleway might suit.

Post reply on HN