Microsoft acquires Github • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft acquires Github

#301

Post by mshenfield » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 2:40 PM UTC

My two cents are they'll leverage the acquisition and get free marketing by moving Github to Azure. I'm less worried about them doing some 90's Microsoft chicanery (they've shown a real willingness to invest in dev goodwill in the past 5 years) than inadvertently letting Github fall into disrepair, by understaffing and shifting focus even more to the Enterprise offering.

I'm going to let things play out before judging. They might ramp up investment in the main Github platform, or open source Github because they're not relying on it as a cash cow.

Re: Microsoft acquires Github

#302

Post by notheguyouthink » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 2:40 PM UTC

Totoradio wrote: post #23

codetrotter wrote: post #15

> And Microsoft is all-in on open source. We have been on a journey with open source, and today we are active in the open source ecosystem, we contribute to open source projects, and some of our most vibrant developer tools and frameworks are open source. When it comes to our commitment to open source, judge us by the actions we have taken in the recent past, our actions today, and in the future. It’s a fair point bu…

I can understand those concerns, but what can they do to convince you they have changed?

He consistent and have a good track record for years.

It feels just like yesterday that Microsoft was spying on windows boxes. In my mind, everyone has a "Days since last accident" counter in their head, and Microsoft's number is quite low.

Re: Microsoft acquires Github

#303

Post by mehrdadn » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 2:40 PM UTC

I guess this is why they just shut down CodePlex?

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/bharry/2017/03/31/shutting-...

Re: Microsoft acquires Github

#304

Post by pizza234 » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 2:41 PM UTC

0xFFC wrote: post #268

mudetroit wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft has always been a headache. Recently its been a tiny bit better, but they still are a for-profit company that needs to continue to make a profit. Just want to point out that Github was also a "for-profit" company.

Exactly. It seems people around here are brainwashed. They are incapable of thinking objectively. You are so naive if you think Apple or Google or Facebook are not for profit! Look at how much data Google has on every single one of us. MSFT is going through a cultural change right now. It was the case for Google, to make money the had to be an advocate of open source. They didn't do that because they are good-hearted…

The expression "for profit" is indeed inappropriate.

However, with the understanding of what the poster meant, it does make sense. We're talking about the company whose racket produces 10$ avg for each Android phone sold.

I'm talking especially about those FAT patents, which are against the spirit of patenting (independently of being in favour or against patents).

I understand that big companies are big and internally conflicting, however, I see a radical conflict of interest between their newfounded open source responsibility and their ruthless business attitude.

Re: Microsoft acquires Github

#305

Post by strogonoff » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 2:42 PM UTC

Seeing GitHub acquired, I can’t help but imagine that Gitlab would go that route sooner or later. Their free offering is even more extensive than GitHub’s, and I don’t think there’s visibility into whether their revenue from paid plans is enough to offset that.

Since becoming backed by a major player is both a blessing (cash reserves to fuel the free offering!) and a curse (drive to increase shareholder value could go against longer-term community interests), I have mixed feelings about this trend.

Slightly tangentially, Gitlab has nearly caught up with GitHub and is arguably ahead in some ways feature-wise. I’m happy having built my small agency’s workflow around it.

I enjoy being able to drop a dotfile into repository root and have the product tested and deployed by CI to (in my case) AWS S3 or EC2, or get an email report if something prevented that from happening, after subsequent commit. On my roadmap is Terraform integration and having the automation provision all resources, but even in its current state I don’t think I can overstate the difference it makes, especially with a smaller team of engineers.

Some features of Gitlab at the moment are objectively inferior to GitHub’s implementation (simpler protected branch model with no way to mandate signed commits comes to mind), but many others appear stronger (issue tracker & boards, milestones, merge requests, the above-mentioned CI).

Feel free to give me a shout if you’re considering moving your business to Gitlab and I’ll share my experience.

Re: Microsoft acquires Github

#306

Post by peff » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 2:42 PM UTC

I'm a GitHub employee and spend most of my time contributing to the Git project.

I've always been very happy about how GitHub supported my participation in the community. Sometimes what I do is directly useful to GitHub, and sometimes it's a matter of keeping the project healthy for everyone. It's always been about contributing, and not trying to control.

Microsoft started contributing to Git about 2 years ago, and in the last six months, we've seen them increase their contributions. From what I've seen they've taken the same approach: give developers the resources and freedom to figure out what the project needs and improve it. I'm excited about some of the performance work they've been doing (e.g., fsmonitor integration, graph optimizations).

So I'm optimistic about this with respect to Git. I think it will mean continued support for the project. And I do feel like Microsoft "gets" open source in a way that most people never would have believed 5 or 10 years ago.

Re: Microsoft acquires Github

#307

Post by DoofusOfDeath » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 2:42 PM UTC

atonse wrote: post #159

TheCondor wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So a new CEO and the established culture just automatically changes? It’s not just that MSFT did what they did, but they established a culture that was cool with it and even came up with the ideas. How do we know they are no longer doing that? It’s not like they openly admitted to what they did in the 1990s...

They’ve open sourced so many of their Crown Jewels, put SQL server on Linux. I mean this stuff gets at the core and soul of what was Microsoft. The burden of proof is in the accusers that claim they haven’t changed a bit. Where’s the proof that they’re the same Microsoft?

> The burden of proof

I don't think that concept is relevant to this format of discussion.

Re: Microsoft acquires Github

#308

Post by wilsonnb » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 2:42 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #83

scarface74 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So which company would you rather buy Github? GitHub wasn't profitable. Would you rather it just disappear?

Interesting, where are the financials for GitHub available? What sort of deficit were they running? I think the answer would be 'a company without a history of ruining things one loved' -- my recent experience of Microsoft is very negative too (though I've seen some awesome tech demos of their's). GitHub being unprofitable makes the situation worse because one knows then MS intend to make major changes: either to des…

> GitHub being unprofitable makes the situation worse because one knows then MS intend to make major changes: either to destroy it, or squeeze money from it.

GitHub no longer needs to directly turn a profit now that it is owned by Microsoft. They just need to use GitHub to increase their profits from Azure (or any of Microsoft's other money makers). I don't think they need to make drastic changes to GitHub for that to happen.

Re: Microsoft acquires Github

#309

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 2:43 PM UTC

squarefoot wrote: post #256

mandeepj wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This was to make Microsoft money, nothing to 'help programmers'. This is not mutually exclusive. You need money to keep lights and servers ON

As with every other big corporation, including Apple, Google etc. the problem isn't making money, which is perfectly legit and fine, the problem is the "western" economy system which requires, or even encourages, any rogue behavior aimed at maximizing profits at any cost. A company expecting returns for its investment is a thing, but one who buys startups only to destroy them to stop the development of competing prod…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft acquires Github

#310

Post by fjsolwmv » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 2:43 PM UTC

squarefoot wrote: post #256

mandeepj wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This was to make Microsoft money, nothing to 'help programmers'. This is not mutually exclusive. You need money to keep lights and servers ON

As with every other big corporation, including Apple, Google etc. the problem isn't making money, which is perfectly legit and fine, the problem is the "western" economy system which requires, or even encourages, any rogue behavior aimed at maximizing profits at any cost. A company expecting returns for its investment is a thing, but one who buys startups only to destroy them to stop the development of competing prod…

What does "Western" have to do with anything of this? Should we be "Eastern" like Chinese sweatshops that choke the air with smog? "Middle Eastern" like Qatari slaveowners?