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GitHub Is Microsoft’s $7.5B Undo Button

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

#181

Post by TangoTrotFox »

mikekchar wrote: post #138
nradov wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 program…

I'm not entirely understanding your point. You state that Microsoft's fear has been that their next major competitor will be an independent/hobbyist, yet then go on to describe how they've made life great for these guys while simultaneously putting the squeeze on more established studios. And I generally agree with this, though I don't think it's particularly nefarious - it's the established studios that can afford to drop 4 figures a seat a year on licenses - by trying to charge that to independents, they mostly just push people potential customers away from their toolchain.

A really great example of this is the fact that they now give away Visual Studio Professional (rebranded to 'community') for free and even allow unrestricted commercial development/usage for independent studios. I don't recall their definition of independent precisely, but it's something like <= 4 developers, with gross revenue < $1 million/year - the exact definition is similarly fair.

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

#182

Post by gdegani »

gaius wrote: post #114
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…

Microsoft practically forced us to use Windows stack for anything and everything This is called “dogfooding” and all companies should do it. How can you sell to customers or understand customers if you’re not using the product yourself? One day I’d love to visit SAP and see how they do their own vacations and expenses. It can’t be with their own software.

SAP Is actually pretty good in eating their own dog food, usually the problem is that the customers are super slow in adopting the new stuff that SAP releases...I worked at SAP for 9 years.

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

#183

Post by romanovcode »

iaml wrote: post #93
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..…

>what are developers going to do when Google inevitably acquires GitLab? Fork it and move on with their day.

Not all of GitLab is open source, you know that, right?

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

#185

Post by quietbritishjim »

hobofan wrote: post #148
dragonwriter wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google acquiring Gitlab is very inevitable. From the rest of your post, I think you mean “...very much not inevitable.”

No. If the portfolio company wants to be acquired by Google, then taking the network they get via GV certainly makes that route easier for them. If the portfolio company decides if acquisition by another tech giant is the better route, they are free to do that and GV won't sabotage that deal. AFAIK there have been GV exits to all of the big Google competitiors.

> Google acquiring Gitlab is very inevitable

This means "Google is going to acquire GitLab".

> If the portfolio company decides if acquisition by another tech giant is the better route, they are free to do that and GV won't sabotage that deal.

To me, this reads as "Google might not acquire GitLab".

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

#186

Post by amelius »

sleepychu wrote: post #167
amelius wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You will not be able to easily move away from any dominant platform because it will be not just the code but the community you leave behind. I find it hard to believe that an audience of developers can't point their browser to a different url, or search for your project using Google.

Right but because they're otherwise decentralised it would take co-ordinated effort and ultimately it fragments the community. What we need, if we want to solve this issue, is a federated network of servers which provide the functionality of github today.

Then I'm curious what kind of data would be shared on the federated protocol. Why can't projects be independent?

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

#187

Post by Iv »

staticassertion wrote: post #71
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…

I kept reading, waiting for the insidious part. So what you're saying is that Microsoft has a company wide strategic vision to improve its relationship with developers? Did you leave some part out?

Because the implied part is a bit obvious to any programmer would had to go through the 90s under Wintel domination.

They want programmers to use their tools so they can exploit a dominant position and crush competition. They have been charged (and condemned) for abuse of monopolies as late as 2013.

I don't trust a company that used to be dominant and evil and suddenly as it becomes weaker tries to play nice.

The GAFA are problematic, but their ethos is nowhere as bad as what MS was when it was the dominant player of the software world.

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

#188

Post by garmaine »

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.

Health and fitness, and urgent notifications without bringing the phone out. It’s actua remarkably useful.

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

#189

Post by jlgaddis »

freeone3000 wrote: post #35
jlgaddis wrote: post #16

Since the announcement, I’ve been trying to figure out what the most evil uses of “telemetry” that could be incorporated into Github in order to invade user’s privacy are. I’ve had a few (small) ideas but I’m confident that Microsoft already has people much more evil^W^Wsmarter than me working on this very problem (if it wasn’t already figured out beforehand).

You're already uploading the big one. If you're going to trust Microsoft with your actual data, who cares about the metadata?

No, you're just uploading the source code (although, in many cases nowadays, that's the important stuff).

The "actual data" doesn't get uploaded to Github but Microsoft has been working on getting their hands on that too -- see Azure, Windows 10 telemetry, etc.

(I used to actually like Microsoft Windows -- having ran every consumer version from 3.0 up to 7 and every business version from WFWG 3.11 up to 2008 -- and even earned several Microsoft certifications. I even taught courses on Microsoft server operating systems at a .edu for a few years. But... I've probably only spent 5 minutes on a Windows 8.x machine (and it wasn't mine) and have never used Windows 10 (or 2012 or 2016). Unless something major happens, I will never again run any Microsoft operating system on anything I own. For the last several years, I have simply been unable to trust them as a company.)

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

#190

Post by [deleted] »

TangoTrotFox wrote: post #181
mikekchar wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 program…

I'm not entirely understanding your point. You state that Microsoft's fear has been that their next major competitor will be an independent/hobbyist, yet then go on to describe how they've made life great for these guys while simultaneously putting the squeeze on more established studios. And I generally agree with this, though I don't think it's particularly nefarious - it's the established studios that can afford t…

[deleted]
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