231–240 of 366 posts
if it's about developer love, then next acquisition target for Microsoft should be StackOverflow.
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??
Question: is it possible to build basic pull request and comment information storage into the git repository itself? This way, sites like Github are merely interfaces with no data import export requirements.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
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…
I'd say, rather, simply, "it's corporate in its application of strategy". Which is to say, Microsoft is a business.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Chrome is absolutely the new IE... it’s just in the heyday stage instead of the “ancient barely supported monster” stage that IE was in when developers began to hate it. The need for greater variety in the spread of popular rendering engines is dire and real. Browser monoculture is dangerous and I refuse to use any browser that’s Chromium/Blink as my daily driver for this reason. I seek alternatives for sites that ob…
I disagree that Chrome it will become stagnated like IE. Microsoft had no desire to improve IE and make the web a more desirable platform than Windows. (I'd suggest it still doesn't) Google, however, directly benefit from the web being a better place, and they know first hand that a dominant browser can be toppled. And the competition is fierce, with MS back to bundling and it's so easy to switch browsers now that th…
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…
> Microsoft doesn't care about the developers. It cares about having the dominant platform. "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." (Adam Smith.) I don't trust benevolent people. I trust self-interest. I don't need to offer my undying allegiance to Microsoft - I can like them as long as they do things that benefi…
github wanted to make money from their paid services to create a profit. microsoft couldn't care less about the money paid github accounts make (as long as it's not hemorrhaging too much), it's unlikely they'll get a ROI from paid accounts in anyones lifetime.
they need github to increase their earnings elsewhere, e.g. by getting developers to develop for the microsoft store or for their cloud services. so my guess is they'll at least start advertising their tech heavily on github and add features integrating their own tech while omitting the same for rivaling corporations.
the old github didn't have an interest in limiting integration with other platform providers, as this would decrease their usefulness for potentially paying developers.
Microsoft kills everything it touches. Look at Skype.
Additionally -- unlike GitHub or LinkedIn -- Skype was acquired for its technology. Microsoft used Skype to replace both Windows Live Messenger and Lync. They integrated it into Windows and extended it with various features to fit their use cases.
They already announced they will keep GitHub independent much like they did with LinkedIn. We will likely see some minor integrations like deploying to Azure or maybe GitHub Enterprise with Office 365. But this isn't anything like Skype where Microsoft pretty much bought the company to scrap its technology for parts.
EDIT: Also when criticizing MS don't make the mistake of mixing up complaints about MS with general complaints about acquisitions. GitHub was going to be acquired by someone. It's difficult imagine GitHub having a better fate after being acquired by Facebook, Apple or Google. The only other alternative I can think of would have been Amazon, who would likely have integrated GitHub fully with AWS much like they did with Cloud9 IDE.
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..…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Microsoft is forcing employees to use Microsoft tools when there are better ones to solve the problem. Read that again and think about the culture they have at Microsoft, then think about the open source culture if it's the same. Do Microsoft embrace open source?
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…
> Microsoft doesn't care about the developers. It cares about having the dominant platform. "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." (Adam Smith.) I don't trust benevolent people. I trust self-interest. I don't need to offer my undying allegiance to Microsoft - I can like them as long as they do things that benefi…
Since MicroSoft is a _platform_, their interest is to _limit_ your options to MicroSoft so that you aren't developing and enriching competing platforms.
GP, if I am understanding correctly, is implying that their purchase of Github will either go to waste (Github can continue, but with no new resources from MS, and will slowly dry out) or MS will leverage it to push their own tools while limiting how developers can interact with it for non-MS code bases.
Trusting self interest is fine, but trust doesn't always mean _trust in the good_. Trust means we can visibly see what their intentions are. The butcher depends on our money, therefor we can trust that they will provide us with a good service so that we return. MS depends on us using their platform, therefor we can trust that they will limit our options of which platforms we develop for.
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…
> Microsoft doesn't care about the developers. It cares about having the dominant platform. "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." (Adam Smith.) I don't trust benevolent people. I trust self-interest. I don't need to offer my undying allegiance to Microsoft - I can like them as long as they do things that benefi…
Especially not in my butcher, brewer, or baker. Pure self interest gets you McDonalds, Bud Light, and Debi cakes. I consume exactly none of those things and have no desire to consume any of those things. They taste terrible, are bad for me, and the companies themselves are generally bad for their communities and the world.
A good butcher, brewer, or baker is driven by craft first - care for their product, care for their customers, and care for the environment. They devote themselves to their craft. Not out of self interest ("I'll make more money if I do it this way.") but out of sheer joy of craftsmanship and doing good.
I have known few producers who's products I would rate trust worthy who weren't driven first by craftsmanship, care for their customers, and care for doing good in the world. Self interest (of the "I need to make a living" form, not the "I want to be rich" form) in these situations is consistently a secondary interest. For these crafts people, if they can't meet their self interest, they simply stop crafting rather than pollute their product.
That's who I trust. Never the behemoth driven by fiduciary duty and self interest.
Adam Smith's philosophy is nearly 250 years old and predates the modern industrial revolution. It's time we stop putting it on a pedestal. We've learned so much about the way people, markets, society and people in markets and society function that he simply had no way to know.