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GitHub Raises $250M at $2B Valuation

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Re: GitHub Raises $250M at $2B Valuation

#121

Post by toomuchtodo »

mszyndel wrote: post #119
blazespin wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, the valuation makes no sense to me. There's really no switching costs that I see. Bitbucket is actually superior in many ways because of its tight integration with Atlassian - the real Microsoft Word of the Developer community. Sourceforge had this kind of play at one point and look at it now. Maybe they're going to start displaying ads for jobs for developers. Not sure that's worth 2B though...

Yet to meet a developer who's as excited about using Jira as about using Github issues...

I very strongly prefer, as an engineer, not to use Atlassian products (Jira, Hipchat, Bitbucket, etc).

Re: GitHub Raises $250M at $2B Valuation

#122

Post by [deleted] »

hga wrote: post #67
calcsam wrote: post #41

Both this piece, and most commenters, seem to miss the point about where Github's value comes from. It's not for being a social identity for programmers, or hosting open-source libraries. Those are worthy pursuits, but from a business perspective mostly serve as marketing. Github is basically Microsoft Word for programmers, and is an essential part of their workflow. Companies that need enterprise functionality aroun…

I'm not aware of Microsoft Word or any editor I've ever used or heard of forbidding me from using the word "retards" or any other. Heck, Gnu Emacs allows me to write proprietary software, a user freedom RMS is no doubt not entirely happy with. I require that general freedom of expression in my tools and do no tolerate vendors who engage in these sorts of damaging stunts. I suspect I'm not alone, and I note GitHub has…

[deleted]

Re: GitHub Raises $250M at $2B Valuation

#123

Post by rtpg »

blazespin wrote: post #112
timr wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft Word became a valuable monopoly because it was a proprietary standard. But git hosting is a commodity service. There are already a number of players doing exactly what GitHub does, for less money, and it's trivially easy to migrate a repository away from GitHub to those other providers. Something tells me that the "facebook for programmers" angle is essential to selling the dream here. The so-called "networ…

Agreed, the valuation makes no sense to me. There's really no switching costs that I see. Bitbucket is actually superior in many ways because of its tight integration with Atlassian - the real Microsoft Word of the Developer community. Sourceforge had this kind of play at one point and look at it now. Maybe they're going to start displaying ads for jobs for developers. Not sure that's worth 2B though...

Its' definitely easier, but if you've configured a bunch of integrations to GitHub's API, it's a little annoying at the very least

Re: GitHub Raises $250M at $2B Valuation

#124

Post by chucksmash »

hueving wrote: post #14
Trufa wrote: post #2

Github seems to be a pretty good or "safe" investment. Developers have already entrusted them with something as precious as their code itself. They also have pretty clear pathways for being profitable with private repos and so on, I'm not that surprised they are getting a lot of funding.

It's a bit like a social network. There are better technologies out there (e.g. bitbucket), but like you said, developers have chosen Github for now. However, it would be possible for a mass exodus as they turn up the enforcement on the offensiveness bans.

Why do you say bitbucket is a better technology?

Re: GitHub Raises $250M at $2B Valuation

#125

Post by joeyspn »

colechristensen wrote: post #104
cheald wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that GitHub has right now is the userbase - the network effect keeps people interested in their service. The technical value they provide is pretty trivially replicable (see: GitLab, BitBucket), but you can't code up a (real) community. It's worth noting that 10 years ago, this same statement was true of Sourceforge.

gitlab and bitbucket aren't as good, I've tried them and more. GitHub isn't a commodity that excels only because of it happening to be popular. People choose GitHub because it's both popular and good. It has competition, some of which are better for specific circumstances, but as a whole they don't execute as well. Let me contrast with Facebook – it was only good, in my opinion, for a brief period starting in 2005 wh…

Bitbucket is not as good? Feature-wise they're almost identical.... I use github for my FOSS projects and bitbucket for stuff that shouldn't be public, like for-profit soft and side-projects. If you don't see added value in free unlimited private repos that's not the case for many of us.

Re: GitHub Raises $250M at $2B Valuation

#126

Post by roflmyeggo »

fideloper wrote: post #31

What I am tremendously curious about is: 1. Is GitHub Profitable? 2. Is taking on funding ultimately heading towards an IPO? Getting sold? (Not that anyone can predict the future, but "just becoming profitable" isn't really a realistic goal of a VC funded company, right?). Is there a way to find out how much of GitHub is owned by whom?

Ultimately headed towards an IPO? Probably.

How long? Probably a while.

More and more companies are staying private as VC/hedge fund/private equity firm valuations stay high, it's fairly easy to continually raise money through private avenues, etc. There is less of a need to go public for the founders and investors of these backed companies to get rich.

Re: GitHub Raises $250M at $2B Valuation

#127

Post by mizzao »

digikata wrote: post #65
jtwebman wrote: post #47

I wish they would say what they wanted the money for!

Well, they could buy Sourceforge and Slashdot. Though that might end up a distraction...

Buying SourceForge and apply a svn-to-git converter on top of everything; that would really cement the monopoly.

Re: GitHub Raises $250M at $2B Valuation

#128

Post by erics32 »

hga wrote: post #67
calcsam wrote: post #41

Both this piece, and most commenters, seem to miss the point about where Github's value comes from. It's not for being a social identity for programmers, or hosting open-source libraries. Those are worthy pursuits, but from a business perspective mostly serve as marketing. Github is basically Microsoft Word for programmers, and is an essential part of their workflow. Companies that need enterprise functionality aroun…

I'm not aware of Microsoft Word or any editor I've ever used or heard of forbidding me from using the word "retards" or any other. Heck, Gnu Emacs allows me to write proprietary software, a user freedom RMS is no doubt not entirely happy with. I require that general freedom of expression in my tools and do no tolerate vendors who engage in these sorts of damaging stunts. I suspect I'm not alone, and I note GitHub has…

Also not the first time Github has deleted a repo for ideological reasons. See: C+=

Re: GitHub Raises $250M at $2B Valuation

#129

Post by findjashua »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #121
mszyndel wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet to meet a developer who's as excited about using Jira as about using Github issues...

I very strongly prefer, as an engineer, not to use Atlassian products (Jira, Hipchat, Bitbucket, etc).

okay, i'll bite. My employer recently made the switch from Hipchat to Slack, and I can't really tell any difference in functionality. The only thing slack has is that it's pretty/shiny, which doesn't really make any difference to me personally. If anything, I miss being able to arrange the channels like I could in Hipchat.

Also, what does Github give you over Gitlab?

Re: GitHub Raises $250M at $2B Valuation

#130

Post by joeyspn »

chucksmash wrote: post #124
hueving wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit like a social network. There are better technologies out there (e.g. bitbucket), but like you said, developers have chosen Github for now. However, it would be possible for a mass exodus as they turn up the enforcement on the offensiveness bans.

Why do you say bitbucket is a better technology?

I'm not sure if "better", but more versatile for sure since it accepts Git and Mercurial.
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