Microsoft’s purchase of GitHub leaves some scientists uneasy
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Re: Microsoft’s purchase of GitHub leaves some scientists uneasy
#2"During the 2014–16 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, for example, researchers used the platform to share and cross-check daily patient counts." Pretty sure this is referring to the lab I used to work in.
Honestly, I'm not particularly worried about the buyout - pretty sure the chances of them just scrapping the whole service are slim, and "GitHub disappears" seems equally as likely burning through VC cash as it does owned by Microsoft.
Re: Microsoft’s purchase of GitHub leaves some scientists uneasy
#3"During the 2014–16 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, for example, researchers used the platform to share and cross-check daily patient counts." Pretty sure this is referring to the lab I used to work in. Honestly, I'm not particularly worried about the buyout - pretty sure the chances of them just scrapping the whole service are slim, and "GitHub disappears" seems equally as likely burning through VC cash as it does ow…
For the current regime, mmaybe. But don't underestimate next regime's ability to flip tables.
Re: Microsoft’s purchase of GitHub leaves some scientists uneasy
#4I don’t really understand why it matters that these are scientists. It seems that the scientist title is added only to give this article more weight.
Re: Microsoft’s purchase of GitHub leaves some scientists uneasy
#5"During the 2014–16 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, for example, researchers used the platform to share and cross-check daily patient counts." Pretty sure this is referring to the lab I used to work in. Honestly, I'm not particularly worried about the buyout - pretty sure the chances of them just scrapping the whole service are slim, and "GitHub disappears" seems equally as likely burning through VC cash as it does ow…
For the current regime, mmaybe. But don't underestimate next regime's ability to flip tables.
That is the main worry, I would say. Less likely Github is going to flip and die than Microsoft becoming anti-opensource again (they are anti-foss/floss still I would say -- not talking about the engineers working there of course).
Re: Microsoft’s purchase of GitHub leaves some scientists uneasy
#6I don’t really understand why it matters that these are scientists. It seems that the scientist title is added only to give this article more weight.
Because this is Nature. It's a science magazine.
Re: Microsoft’s purchase of GitHub leaves some scientists uneasy
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
For the current regime, mmaybe. But don't underestimate next regime's ability to flip tables.
That is the main worry, I would say. Less likely Github is going to flip and die than Microsoft becoming anti-opensource again (they are anti-foss/floss still I would say -- not talking about the engineers working there of course).
Of course, this ignores the fact that by forging their employers goals ahead, they're, to some extent, endorsing their viewpoints.
Re: Microsoft’s purchase of GitHub leaves some scientists uneasy
#8"During the 2014–16 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, for example, researchers used the platform to share and cross-check daily patient counts." Pretty sure this is referring to the lab I used to work in. Honestly, I'm not particularly worried about the buyout - pretty sure the chances of them just scrapping the whole service are slim, and "GitHub disappears" seems equally as likely burning through VC cash as it does ow…
the chances of them just scrapping the whole service are slim, and "GitHub disappears" seems equally as likely burning through VC cash as it does owned by Microsoft.
Right, the people who should really be worried are VSTS users. And GitLab users funnily enough. They are VC backed and will have to exit too, and everyone’s looking at them now. The least worst thing that could happen is bought by Atlassian and folded into Bitbucket.
And you’re completely right, it is actually pretty weird that they were never worried before when it was burning VC cash. Funded by grants, I’m not sure scientists fully understand how this works.
Re: Microsoft’s purchase of GitHub leaves some scientists uneasy
#9> "[..] researchers used the platform to share and cross-check daily patient counts."
No concerns about private datasets in the open on Github ?
I get they like the workflow but they traded ethics for convenience there.
Medical ethics.
Re: Microsoft’s purchase of GitHub leaves some scientists uneasy
#10The cool thing about git is it doesn’t matter what happens to the platform. You can take your repo and push it somewhere else if you don’t like how Microsoft runs the show. Given how Microsoft took Github’s idea with Atom and ran with it to make VSCode, I wouldn’t be surprised if Github improves under Microsoft’s rule.