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

Hello, GitHub

natfriedman.github.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 671 posts

Re: Hello, GitHub

#231

Post by earenndil »

xfer wrote: post #223
earenndil wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems more an attack specifically on 'viral' licenses like the gpl than on oss in general.

viral how? You think it's morally ok to just use others work without contributing back any improvements/disclosing it to make money?

I wasn't expressing my own opinion on such licenses; 'viral' is accepted terminology for licenses like the gpl that require derivative works to use the same license.

However, if you would like an argument, then yes. Or, rather, I think it's morally ok for people to make software under any license they choose, including licenses that allow big companies to use their work. Personally, I use bsd-3 for most of what I write, and I support other people who do the same. I also bear no ill-will to people who use gpl or apache or mpl or what-have-you.

Re: Hello, GitHub

#232

Post by baldfat »

wpietri wrote: post #203
zulrah wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you tell that people trust private company which was loosing money since the creation better than Microsoft with all of its reputation at stake?

Yes. 100% yes. Microsoft didn't care about their reputation for a long time. They currently do, at least a little, but that could change back. Github was losing money, but that's pretty typical for SaaS businesses. I have no reason to think they couldn't have gotten to break-even. And if the can't get to break even, I have no reason to think Microsoft will subsidize them indefinitely.

I still think Microsoft had the lion share of the programmers mind with Virtual Studio? I am guessing it really has more to do with emotional response to the name MS then anything MS has done in the past 5 years.

I use Bit Bucket because I knew they were making money and were solvent and I knew GitHub was just waiting for a big pay day. BOY was I wrong with the timing and the amount.

> And if the can't get to break even, I have no reason to think Microsoft will subsidize them indefinitely.

This fits perfectly with their developer system with Virtual Studio, VS Code and Azure. I can't see how this isn't a great buy for them and their ecco-system.

Re: Hello, GitHub

#233

Post by politician »

rmason wrote: post #207
Klathmon wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, my biggest concerns are: 1. What is happening to Atom? I have tried VS code and don't really like it due to the difference in how the 2 systems are designed to work (Atom being more "plugins are king", VSCode being more "kitchen sink included by first-party"). I'd hate to see my favorite editor lose it's major backing. If MS makes a commitment to continue to develop Atom, or they work with someone else to "t…

Obviously Microsoft doesn't want or need two open source editors. I think the smart move would be what I call the Adobe strategy. Github should announce that Atom has become an Apache foundation project. Github then says it will provide x number of developers for an initial three year period. Probably won't make everyone happy but it should defuse most of the angst.

Ah yes, Apache Foundation, the place where ambitious but under-resourced projects go to die. /s

Re: Hello, GitHub

#234

Post by marssaxman »

teh_klev wrote: post #88
BigChiefSmokem wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People should get to know who Microsoft Cloud + AI Group Executive Vice President [Scott Guthrie] is. GitHub will be under his watch and all these years he has done nothing but wonders for the developers and the brand.

Folks tend to forget about Scott Guthrie (and Scott Hanselman, Rob Conery, Scott Galloway and a few other unsung heros) and the change he seeded within MS's DevDiv about moving to a more open culture back around 2005/6.

Don't know about that; I worked for DevDiv in 2008-2009 and it was the most spectacularly dysfunctional island of not-invented-here inefficiency I have ever seen at any point in my career. They imagined the tech world to consist of Microsoft at the center, where all the smart people were, surrounded by an ecosystem of ISVs, all of whom wished they could work for Microsoft instead if only they were a little bit smarter, and then, out on the fringes, the barbarian wastelands of pain and misery, where incompetent nobodies struggled with trivial legacy projects involving esolangs like COBOL or Python or Ruby. A more self-absorbed computing culture I have never seen, utterly incapable of recognizing, much less learning from, any "innovation" generated outside its own walls.

Perhaps they've improved since I left, but the number of dev-hours I saw being squandered on a daily basis just fighting with utterly stupid limitations which only existed inside DevDiv's idiosyncratic tooling would have funded a good hundred startups full-time if they could have been put to some practical use.

Re: Hello, GitHub

#235

Post by pritambaral »

maxbrunsfeld wrote: post #173
freedomben wrote: post #78

I recognize this isn't an opinion that will resonate with many, but I find it offensive that Github praises and benefits so much from open source, yet is not open source itself. This has bothered me for many years. Now this post from Nat, talking about how open source literally changed his life and made all things possible (which I agree with), bothers me even more. How can you say such things when your actions are s…

GitHub has helped to maintain git itself for years, in addition to creating and open-sourcing libgit2, a massive engineering effort, which ironically, GitLab is built on.

> a massive engineering effort, which ironically, GitLab is built on.

Perfectly normal use of FOSS; I'd say, not ironic. If GitHub wanted, they could have kept the work to themselves and avoided others benefiting from it.

FOSS is like people coming together with their own bricks and building a cathedral for everyone. There's little point in participating if you either don't want others to pitch in or don't want others to benefit from it.

Re: Hello, GitHub

#236

Post by mseebach »

superflyguy wrote: post #198
johannes1234321 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Will Facebook/Google/Apple start pulling their code from GitHub? For these companies who owned GitHub hardly plays a role. They want to attract developers and go wherever the crowds go. If there is mass migration to mercurial-superhost.com they will follow. It's just an outlet. The question is more relevant for companies and communities who built their infrastructure on it and might worry for good or not so good re…

"For these companies who owned GitHub hardly plays a role. They want to attract developers and go wherever the crowds go. If there is mass migration to mercurial-superhost.com they will follow. It's just an outlet. No-one's going to join a company because of which front end to git they use. It's more a question "do Apple/facebook etc want Microsoft to have all of their private source code to look for exploits/rip off…

First, as pointed out elsewhere, the Apple/Facebooks of the world already aren't putting their private repos on any external service (perhaps they rent iron on a cloud, but certainly not SaaS).

Second, this is the same business model as Office 365, and I'm not aware of that raising any particular eyebrows outside of the fairly limited crowd that can't trust anyone. If you're cool with entrusting your email to Microsoft, your source code is not a great leap.

Re: Hello, GitHub

#237

Post by flud »

zulrah wrote: post #123
dorfsmay wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because people with closed source, the paying customers, now have to trust their potential biggest competitor with their source code ‽

So you tell that people trust private company which was loosing money since the creation better than Microsoft with all of its reputation at stake?

În a word, YES. Profitability quality.

I would argue that the case here is quite the opposite.

Github is loved for a variety of reasons, small & large decisions that are influenced by how profit-oriented the company is. And how willing they are to annoy their users to squeeze some more "profit" and/or data out of them.

Re: Hello, GitHub

#238

Post by exelius »

some_account wrote: post #224
ericabiz wrote: post #7

I’m going to be a bit contrarian to “the sky is falling” posts on HN and say: I think Microsoft is handling this really well. 1) They’ve acknowledged the skepticism around the acquisition. 2) They’ve expressed their commitment to keep GitHub an independent platform (like they did with LinkedIn.) 3) Nat Friedman, although I was not familiar with him prior to this, seems like an ideal candidate to run GitHub. This, ove…

They will do what they say until they don't have to anymore,l. Until they have killed the alternatives and there is only their choice left. This is Microsoft. I cannot understand why people trust this company. Actually trust their PR messages. It's amazing.

All it took was a few companies LESS trustworthy (Google, Facebook, Uber, et al) to come into the public conversation. Microsoft has been downright benevolent in comparison to some of these companies.

Re: Hello, GitHub

#239

Post by themusicgod1 »

jpeg_hero wrote: post #140
bitL wrote: post #52

"Hey everyone, I am Nat. I joined the dark side, now I am being rewarded for it as a future CEO, woohoo! I hope you are as happy as I am! See ya later!" Many of us were given a choice to join MS but didn't.

I like that there are still hardline cold warriors out there from the '90's. I was there too, but the war is over. Come in from the cold.

The war is definitely not over. This is just the latest of the fronts to fight over, there will be more where that came from.

Re: Hello, GitHub

#240

Post by CodeCube »

TuringNYC wrote: post #155
zulrah wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you tell that people trust private company which was loosing money since the creation better than Microsoft with all of its reputation at stake?

Is it unfair that I keep thinking of the SCO–Linux dispute at the moment? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO%E2%80%93Linux_disputes#Mic...

yes :)
Post reply on HN