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

131–140 of 366 posts

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

#131

Post by rahoulb »

Razengan wrote: post #15
jack9 wrote: post #2

> The WWDC, sacred nerd summit of Appledom, is where they announce things like a new “night mode” for the operating system and try to convince programmers that Apple Watch matters. Bloomberg got an honest laugh out of me.

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…

I use my Apple Watch (LTE) as a minimal smartphone.

I take the dog for a walk at lunchtime, or take an afternoon off. I can listen to music (Apple Music is crap) and receive texts. Clients can call me.

But I don’t get the normal smartphone distractions. And going places with just your keys, headphones and watch is really nice on my pockets too.

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

#132

Post by kuberstone »

arthurfm wrote: post #90

With Google recently investing $20 million in GitLab [1] and helping them migrate from Azure to Google Cloud Platform [2][3], what are developers going to do when Google inevitably acquires GitLab? Move their repositories back to GitHub, switch to BitBucket or something else entirely? [1] https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/09/gitlab-raises-20m-series-c... [2] https://venturebeat.com/2018/04/06/why-and-how-gitlab-abando..…

I think Gitlab will be bought by Google soon

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

#133

Post by Razengan »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #60
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…

I can believe that it is the best selling watch in the world. People don't buy many watches, because they last a long time. Last time I bought a watch was 7 years ago, and it still works fine. It's probably got another 3 years before I need to change the battery. I think the last time my old man bought a watch was some time in the 80's or 90's.

Yes, I’m still using the Series 2 I bought two years ago, and have no desire or need for the newer series.

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

#134

Post by hobofan »

arthurfm wrote: post #90

With Google recently investing $20 million in GitLab [1] and helping them migrate from Azure to Google Cloud Platform [2][3], what are developers going to do when Google inevitably acquires GitLab? Move their repositories back to GitHub, switch to BitBucket or something else entirely? [1] https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/09/gitlab-raises-20m-series-c... [2] https://venturebeat.com/2018/04/06/why-and-how-gitlab-abando..…

Google acquiring Gitlab is very inevitable. GV (which is a Alphabet and not Google subsidiary) always stated that their priority is to be a VC that is as neutral as possible, and should a Google competitor be interested in acquiring a portfolio company they are open to that.

Of course if you have them as an investor they will obviously try to help you with their network which can definately steer a company to a more Google friendly path.

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

#136

Post by redial »

Razengan wrote: post #110
redial wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

As others have said, think of your Apple Watch app as an extension to your iOS app's UI: it enhances your iOS app vs. the competition that doesn't offer the wrist UI. I've seen users requesting a Watch version in reviews for iOS apps. Even I have chosen some apps in the past over others specifically because they offered a Watch app, like navigation apps and flight checkers etc. As a user though, I must say that if "m…

That is all well and good, but that is not the point. The point is the App Store is bleeding watch apps every day, and Apple needs to convince developers that the watch is worth it. Even you admit that the only reason for a developer to have a watch app is as a defensive move, and that is what needs to change.

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

#137

Post by dragonwriter »

hobofan wrote: post #134
arthurfm wrote: post #90

With Google recently investing $20 million in GitLab [1] and helping them migrate from Azure to Google Cloud Platform [2][3], what are developers going to do when Google inevitably acquires GitLab? Move their repositories back to GitHub, switch to BitBucket or something else entirely? [1] https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/09/gitlab-raises-20m-series-c... [2] https://venturebeat.com/2018/04/06/why-and-how-gitlab-abando..…

Google acquiring Gitlab is very inevitable. GV (which is a Alphabet and not Google subsidiary) always stated that their priority is to be a VC that is as neutral as possible, and should a Google competitor be interested in acquiring a portfolio company they are open to that. Of course if you have them as an investor they will obviously try to help you with their network which can definately steer a company to a more…

> Google acquiring Gitlab is very inevitable.

From the rest of your post, I think you mean “...very much not inevitable.”

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

#138

Post by mikekchar »

nradov wrote: post #119
notveryrational wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing where they are going to gas all the developers or something. Nope. It's more about priorities and intentions. Microsoft doesn't care about the developers. It cares about having the dominant platform. It recognizes that its image makes that difficult. The GitHub acquisition: Microsoft didn't suddenly get more beautiful. It put on a mask. It will kill GitHub - or at least let it flounder - if that's what's best…

As someone with no real stake in this deal, why should anyone care whether Microsoft kills Github or not? There are multiple alternative Git hosting competitors and switching costs are low.

I don't care if they kill Github. It's the reverse. I'm worried that they will be successful.

My main concern (having spent about a decade working in MS shops) is that they will try to create a divide between "professional" developers and "hobbyist" developers. Microsoft's fear has always been that their next major competitor will be someone who comes out of their garage. They have always tried to control the programmers so that these programmers will be dependent upon Microsoft. I was literally forced to use Visual Source Safe on more than one occasion because the company I was working for had a contract with MS which prevented us from using any other source code repository (in exchange for discounts on other MS development tools). At the same time, Microsoft did not use VSS internally, because it was horrible. Similarly, we were always playing catch up with APIs. MS would be using them for 18 months or so before any of the rest of use would get any documentation for them (Ha ha! Source code??? Ha ha!)

So my feeling is that this is the embrace part of embrace, extend, extinguish. If I see an effort to rewrite libgit2, or something similar with extensions, then I will be very worried. The reason I can imagine "Don't worry, it will support the git protocol and any hobbyists will be able to make contributions, but if you want a professional interface to Github it is available on reasonable terms (prick your thumb and sign here)" is because I've seen it many times before.

It's not that MS is the only company that pulls this nonsense. Apple is consummately skilled at it: join our fold and have a privileged place in the walled garden.

Free software is intended to level the playing field. As much as MS has improved, I do not believe for an instant that they wish the playing field to be levelled. GitHub, though proprietary originally had no position where it would make sense for them to try to control developer. Now they do.

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

#139

Post by rorykoehler »

notveryrational wrote: post #66

Microsoft can not buy goodwill with me, personally. I worked at the company and was privy to "strategic conversations" whereby they were looking to regain trust with developers to get them back from Android and Google to Windows stack. Microsoft practically forced us to use Windows stack for anything and everything, even when there were much better tools. Under Satya, it was better, but the emphasis is still very muc…

It's pretty obvious that the only reason they pretend to give a shit is because they have no other alternative.

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

#140

Post by tallanvor »

gear54rus wrote: post #120
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.

To get the developers to help write obnoxious garbage like win10 which forces users into all sorts of things they don't want? They want an undo button? It's right under their nose: stop with the bullshit auto-update that re-enables itself, document all telemetry and make a big button to disable it. But they don't do that, do they? Any idea why? Spoiler: it's all fake bs again, take one flashy but insignificant step f…

Updates are lose-lose. Either you get complaints from people about how they're being forced on them, or you get complaints that Microsoft isn't doing more to protect people from exploits because they've all shut off updates.

I'm not a fan of the telemetry either, but they do have it all documented now, which is more than, for example, most phone manufacturers: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy/basic-level....

And I'm not sure what Windows is supposed to force users into things they don't want. I haven't had an issue with turning off functionality and having it be switched back on during updates - I guess it must happen based on the complaints, but it's not something I've experienced.

Post reply on HN