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

GitHub Is Microsoft’s $7.5B Undo Button

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 366 posts

Re: GitHub Is Microsoft’s $7.5B Undo Button

#41

Post by TeMPOraL »

meddlepal wrote: post #36
Razengan wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple Watch is apparently the best selling watch (not just best selling smartwatch) in the world [0], with millions of users, and many copycats. Why shouldn’t it matter? Of course, there’s only so much you can do and make on such a small screen, and it is an accessory rather than a “primary” device, but that is another issue altogether, if one. I think it may even function as a motion control input for the rumored VR…

Best selling watch is believable, but who the heck buys and wears a watch for anything besides fashion these days? It's a totally niche market IMO.

I would guess that watches are number one fashion item for men? A watch and a wedding ring are the two wearables that are acceptable for men even in the most conservative communities.

Re: GitHub Is Microsoft’s $7.5B Undo Button

#42

Post by beefsack »

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #40
meddlepal wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best selling watch is believable, but who the heck buys and wears a watch for anything besides fashion these days? It's a totally niche market IMO.

My Apple Watch is surprisingly useful: I can figure out which conference room my next meeting is in with a single tap of the home screen, control music, etc. It honestly surprised me how much value I got out of it.

I actually had exactly the same experience with my Pebble. I got it out of casual nerdy interest and was sure I'd use it for a couple of months and then pack it away.

Having notifications and basic functionality on your wrist is surprisingly useful though, and I used that watch until it broke (after Pebble went under unfortunately).

I've got a Ticwatch E on it's way as a replacement.

Re: GitHub Is Microsoft’s $7.5B Undo Button

#43

Post by TeMPOraL »

chris_wot wrote: post #27
jlgaddis wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And when they still didn’t “get it”? It’s a great read (and good for a few laughs) for “nerds”, sure, but it still doesn’t explain to non-techies what Github is (besides “some thing that programmers use instead of e-mail”) — or, more importantly, why it’s worth $7.5B.

It does explain it. He wrote that “Git keeps track of changes in sets of files.”

Ironically, this explanation is shorter than the article's URL.

Re: GitHub Is Microsoft’s $7.5B Undo Button

#44

Post by Rapzid »

2bitencryption wrote: post #22
yurishimo wrote: post #7

I think the author nailed it. This is Microsoft's chance to reach out to developers and prove that they've had a change of heart regarding open source. We've seen this over the years with previous code hosting platforms. If the platforms betrays it's users, developers are not scared to mass migrate to something else. The onus is now on Microsoft to keep developers happy or risk losing their $7.5B investment.

even chunks of Azure are open source. https://github.com/Azure

Azure used to bill themselves as the "open cloud". That's kinda gone from their marketing, but they are WAY more open than AWS.

Re: GitHub Is Microsoft’s $7.5B Undo Button

#45

Post by unethical_ban »

meddlepal wrote: post #36
Razengan wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple Watch is apparently the best selling watch (not just best selling smartwatch) in the world [0], with millions of users, and many copycats. Why shouldn’t it matter? Of course, there’s only so much you can do and make on such a small screen, and it is an accessory rather than a “primary” device, but that is another issue altogether, if one. I think it may even function as a motion control input for the rumored VR…

Best selling watch is believable, but who the heck buys and wears a watch for anything besides fashion these days? It's a totally niche market IMO.

I like having time easily accessible.

Though I have some philosophical and design issues with Apple, the biggest thing, the #1 requirement of any smartphone for me, is a notification LED for messages. I like seeing at a glance who or what is notifying me. Why is an LED so important? Because I want to identify a message quickly, without my phone always in my pocket (e.g. it's on my desk or next to the bed). With a watch accessory, for many, that need would go away.

Re: GitHub Is Microsoft’s $7.5B Undo Button

#46

Post by bad_user »

kumarvvr wrote: post #29

I am a developer, use git, but don't use too much GitHub. I am genuinely curious, are the users of GitHub really that tied in to the site? Is the cost of moving to another platform, really that difficult??

> I am genuinely curious, are the users of GitHub really that tied in to the site?

For open source projects of multiple contributors, yes, because that's where the community is, along with all relevant traces, e.g. issues, comments, PRs, all linked to their user's accounts.

I've seen people here suggest that GitLab's import tool is pretty good in importing the history of issues. It's also a copyright lawsuit waiting to happen, but beyond the import, the problem is that the community isn't there.

Not to mention that many projects have been uninspired enough to use GitHub as their homepage, which means that the web is littered with links to GitHub that aren't replaceable.

I've seen people here downplay the difficulty of moving off GitHub. Such people do not maintain popular or multi-contributor open source projects.

Re: GitHub Is Microsoft’s $7.5B Undo Button

#47

Post by taakd »

Zyst wrote: post #31
yurishimo wrote: post #7

I think the author nailed it. This is Microsoft's chance to reach out to developers and prove that they've had a change of heart regarding open source. We've seen this over the years with previous code hosting platforms. If the platforms betrays it's users, developers are not scared to mass migrate to something else. The onus is now on Microsoft to keep developers happy or risk losing their $7.5B investment.

I wouldn't say that, as siblings echo. I genuinely think that, for instance, Microsoft is genuinely doing a better job of doing open source than Google right now (With Facebook at the top, MSFT #2, Goog #3 from FAANG). That might be because I'm deeper into web development though, and both TypeScript, and VS Code are great contributions. Maybe I'd feel different if I worked in ML, and used Tensorflow daily.

Microsoft might be doing a better job wrt contributing to and creating open source software, but the trust of Microsoft is not there.

My SO migrated everything off Github back on Sunday when rumors broke, deleting the account & repos that had commits and contribs going back years.

Consistently, one of the first questions I ask friends and acquaintences who go to work across the lake to work for MS in Bellevue or Redmond is whether they are on an Embrace or Extend team. Most are on Embrace/Rewrite our own version but "better" teams.

Microsoft has changed, but they're no Red Hat or Suse.

Re: GitHub Is Microsoft’s $7.5B Undo Button

#48

Post by redial »

Razengan wrote: post #23
redial wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It matters for Apple, for developers? not so much. Millions of users and not a single third party "killer" app.

Which developer wants to miss out on serving potentially millions of users? What kind of “killer” app do you envision for a watch? Being able to check messages, calls, Uber, flights, etc. right on my wrist are all killer applications for me, along with the fitness features of course. I suspect the upcoming walkie-talkie will be fun too (something that should’ve been there from the start.)

Any potential the Watch has is clearly not enough for a strong app market to develop.

> Which developer wants to miss out on serving potentially millions of users?

You are forgetting that most developers already have millions of potential users on the iPhone with a market at least 30x bigger than the Watch's, and iOS has none of the limitations the Watch has.

Right now a Watch app requires an iPhone app, is hard to monetize, it cannot be sold on its own, it's slow and frustrate your users, etc. The only upsides are for Apple. It might sell really well because the core functionality provides enough value, but developers need to see a clear return for their efforts and right now is not there.

Re: GitHub Is Microsoft’s $7.5B Undo Button

#50

Post by lostapathy »

redial wrote: post #19
Razengan wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple Watch is apparently the best selling watch (not just best selling smartwatch) in the world [0], with millions of users, and many copycats. Why shouldn’t it matter? Of course, there’s only so much you can do and make on such a small screen, and it is an accessory rather than a “primary” device, but that is another issue altogether, if one. I think it may even function as a motion control input for the rumored VR…

It matters for Apple, for developers? not so much. Millions of users and not a single third party "killer" app.

The health and fitness stuff is the killer app there, imo. Once you get hooked on that you are hooked.
Post reply on HN