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Hello, GitHub

natfriedman.github.io

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Re: Hello, GitHub

#281

Post by IncRnd »

foobaw wrote: post #148
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…

Google and Facebook have tons of private repositories hosted on GitHub. I'd imagine it would be illegal for Microsoft to look into them but Microsoft being such a huge company, this acquisition could easily make Google and Facebook nervous.

If Google and Facebook have critical code they don't want external companies to view, it is almost certain that code is hosted on-prem or somewhere not like github.

It will be interesting to see which companies strategically move out of github after this acquisition.

Re: Hello, GitHub

#282

Post by terwilliger »

Aissen wrote: post #24

I was in the room at the Paris Solutions Linux when Nat did one of the first demos of compiz and XGL. It was a weird feeling because it started as a demo of benign desktop features, and it slowly transitioned to the awesome window transitions we've all come to know. Like many technological advancements, its effect on the short term had been largely overestimated (the fancy animation, transparent windows and cube desk…

Those were some heady days in the Linux desktop world and I remember them fondly. I remember seeing those demos and being blown away, and then furiously trying to get it set up on my box to blow the minds of my buddies. I think we were all trying to be first!

Re: Hello, GitHub

#283

Post by sdesol »

fishywang wrote: post #225
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…

I agree that people are overreacting, but I think the overreacting is good for git in general. It helps smaller players (Gitlab, etc.) to break the monopoly of Github, and reverse the wrong conception a lot of new developers have that git == github. Remember git is supposed to be decentralized? In reality it's actually centralized on github, and github is becoming the single point of failure on the developer world, w…

> It helps smaller players (Gitlab, etc.) to break the monopoly of Github

Or do the opposite. If Microsoft decides to make private repos on GitHub free, I can see VERY big issues for other players. I suspect more people use GitHub alternatives for cost reasons, rather than ideological ones.

Re: Hello, GitHub

#284

Post by phillipcarter »

SiVal wrote: post #244
cobookman wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think public code will still live on github, but I See FAANG 100% avoiding any private github repos from now on.

Bigger tech companies not only do not host important private source code on Github but won't even host on outsourced physical servers. Where I've worked (incl. well-known names), information that we wanted spread to the world could be hosted on trusted external systems (trust still mattered to keep it from being "edited"), but non-public info was always hosted inside a physical building that we owned watched 24/7 by…

MS employee here:

Long before the acquisition, we've been hosting important stuff in private GitHub repositories. Including having strategic discussions in those private repositories.

We've also done a lot of that stuff in public too. Some might say a bit too much, given that we've had things leaked and/or misinterpreted w.r.t product direction in the past.

I still agree with your point, but I believe more of this sort of thing is happening. Lots of stuff that has no real reason to be private is just being open source by default.

Re: Hello, GitHub

#285

Post by Fnoord »

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…

> Nat Friedman, although I was not familiar with him prior to this, seems like an ideal candidate to run GitHub.

Nat Friedman is a legend in the open source community. He founded Ximian in '99 with Miguel de Icaza, who both meant a lot for the Gnome community (e.g. via products such as Ximian Evolution) and Mono (FOSS .NET for *NIX). They got bought by Novell where he also got a top position. Nat has been busy with FOSS for a long time, and he _believes_ in it.

Some verification on the above plus other details can be found here on Wikipedia [1]

As a final note, "I’m not asking for your trust, but I’m committed to earning it." is very humble, professional, and clever.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nat_Friedman

Re: Hello, GitHub

#286

Post by electronvolt »

hirsin wrote: post #279
SiVal wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bigger tech companies not only do not host important private source code on Github but won't even host on outsourced physical servers. Where I've worked (incl. well-known names), information that we wanted spread to the world could be hosted on trusted external systems (trust still mattered to keep it from being "edited"), but non-public info was always hosted inside a physical building that we owned watched 24/7 by…

Not entirely true. Microsoft puts (almost? Yet to find anything that isn't) all our code on VSTS which is accessible remotely, without VPN. I've checked in a (very very minor docs) fix to the Windows code base from my Android phone over LTE.

Yeah, which is hosted on Azure, a data center that Microsoft owns and employs guards for, and secured behind our standard corporate authentication. :) (Source: I work at Microsoft, near the VSTS team.)

Re: Hello, GitHub

#287

Post by notatoad »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #44
notatoad wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. Nat seems like a decent candidate for GitHub CEO, but i'm having trouble reconciling Microsoft's commitment to keeping GitHub an independent platform with their installing a new CEO. that's not re…

Github was actively looking for a new CEO. It's not like MS executed a coup here.

I'm not saying it was a coup, but it's definitely not just a coincidence either that the new CEO who takes over at the same time as the Microsoft acquisition is a Microsoft employee.

If Microsoft weren't acquiring GitHub, would they still pick Nat to be their new CEO?

Re: Hello, GitHub

#289

Post by JohnL4 »

BigChiefSmokem wrote: post #164
craftyguy wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of those are meaningful contributions to existing platforms/projects that MS does not own outright. They're throwing code of the wall. MS's contributions to git are very light. Edit: clarify my point.

https://www.linuxfoundation.org/membership/members/ Microsoft has had a vested interest in Git and Open-Source for a while now.

Is the Open Invention Network still a thing? MS still hasn't joined, and is still using patents as a weapon, apparently.

https://www.infoworld.com/article/3042699/open-source-tools/...

Re: Hello, GitHub

#290

Post by ben509 »

ljm wrote: post #264
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…

I've felt similar. There's been some impressive innovation from MS in the dev space recently: VS Code is a pleasure to use, Azure wasn't quite as intimidating as AWS can be (but who can blame them, AWS has a lot more legacy). Windows 10 was pleasant to work with, telemetry issues aside. Things are shifting. In fact, I think there's a strong 'once a criminal, always a criminal' mentality that takes a healthy skepticis…

> It's an unreasonable standard and if nothing else, it presents the self-fulfilling prophecy where you're only satisfied once you've found proof that Microsoft today hasn't changed at all.

That's a good general point; if you find you dislike someone's POV or behavior, and you're not simply being tribalistic, you should be thinking along the lines of, "what do I want this person / group to do differently?"

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