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Microsoft acquires Github

blogs.microsoft.com

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Re: Microsoft acquires Github

#711

Post by cup-of-tea »

rkangel wrote: post #581
nimbius wrote: post #117

Friendly reminder: this is the same Microsoft that "empowered" skype and once called open source a cancer. Its the same Microsoft that ruined open document standards and started the browser wars. I wouldnt be surprised to see next years release of "Github Pro Platinum with Minecraft 3D and Windows Store integration" For those looking to move, https://gitlab.com is an excellent open source alternative that can easily…

> once called open source a cancer There are some really good arguments as to why we should be worried about Microsoft so can we please stop ruining them by using this complete misquote as a component. This comment covers it well: > This is disingenuous. He was referring to the licensing model of certain open-source projects, where the introduction of a single line of code coming from an open source project would req…

It's not a misquote and it's not disingenuous. That was their attitude at the time.

Re: Microsoft acquires Github

#712

Post by kumarharsh »

toofy wrote: post #647

Part of the reason we trusted GitHub with our projects and our code was they were a neutral party simply providing a service. Sadly, being bought out by microsoft completely removes their neutrality. Whether they will abuse the trust of having complete and total access to every private repo and all of the code inside or not remains to be seen. But I certainly don’t view GitHub as neutral site anymore. Sadly, from a b…

Why will they kill of Github? They just shut down their own repository website (Codeplex) and moved all their code to github. That's perhaps the most misplaced fear I've read here.

Plus, from what I've read, MS was perhaps the best possible buyer of GH - and no, a federated distributed model was definitely not a possibility given the huge sums of investor money involved.

Re: Microsoft acquires Github

#714

Post by disposablename »

jhasse wrote: post #244
Totoradio wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can understand those concerns, but what can they do to convince you they have changed?

* Drop DirectX for Vulkan * Drop MSVC for Clang or GCC * Drop Edge for Firefox or Chromium because they love open-source, right?

Yes, let's have fewer choices for everything! That is sure to spur innovation!

Re: Microsoft acquires Github

#715

Post by cup-of-tea »

pera wrote: post #696
rkangel wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> once called open source a cancer There are some really good arguments as to why we should be worried about Microsoft so can we please stop ruining them by using this complete misquote as a component. This comment covers it well: > This is disingenuous. He was referring to the licensing model of certain open-source projects, where the introduction of a single line of code coming from an open source project would req…

To be more precise, this is what Steve Ballmer said back in 2001: > [...] Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches. That's the way that the license works. https://web.archive.org/web/20011108013601/http://www.suntim...

But in fact, copyright is the cancer. There is no way to disable copyright. Even if you put something in the public domain, copyright will reattach itself and future users can be legally denied full access to it. Copyleft is the cure for copyright. It's the only cure we know.

Re: Microsoft acquires Github

#716

Post by Gaelan »

cup-of-tea wrote: post #711
rkangel wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> once called open source a cancer There are some really good arguments as to why we should be worried about Microsoft so can we please stop ruining them by using this complete misquote as a component. This comment covers it well: > This is disingenuous. He was referring to the licensing model of certain open-source projects, where the introduction of a single line of code coming from an open source project would req…

It's not a misquote and it's not disingenuous. That was their attitude at the time.

Sounds like they were referring to GPL (and similar), not OSS in general.

Re: Microsoft acquires Github

#717

Post by joelhandwell »

Submitted an issue to dear-github. "Host Github by itself as open source project" https://github.com/dear-github/dear-github/issues/304

Issue body: Microsoft open sourced Xamarin after acquisition and it was good for community. Open sourcing Github source will benefit open source community. Github was not open source for its own reason and it could be same reason why Xamarin was not. Now that Github acquired by Microsoft, would this event be an opportunity to re-consider the reason?

Re: Microsoft acquires Github

#718

Post by 08-15 »

bmuon wrote: post #340
mwcampbell wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did GitHub become unprofitable? Did they spend too much money hosting open-source projects, compared to what they made on private repos? Maybe the lesson is that free hosting never works.

If I learned anything working at large companies is that hardware is never close to being as expensive as headcount.

Github tried hard, but clearly didn't achieve enough diversity[1] and still had too many white women[2].

[1] https://blog.github.com/2016-05-26-diversity-and-inclusion-a... [2] http://i.imgur.com/7YaVYUx.jpg

Re: Microsoft acquires Github

#719

Post by distances »

kamaal wrote: post #484
distances wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahead in what sense? Apart from Apple and Google, everyone was behind. The fact that HTC and Motorola adopted Android didn't do much good for them in the end, and in hardware and market share Nokia still had the lead at that time.

>>Ahead in what sense? Refusing to move on to Android? There was no real chance Symbian had in the post iPhone world. Nokia forgot its USP, which was basically durable rugged hardware. Instead they tried to compete with the iPhone in the software department, it didn't work out too well. Motorola is doing quite good with Android.

> Nokia forgot its USP, which was basically durable rugged hardware. Instead they tried to compete with the iPhone in the software department, it didn't work out too well.

You misremember things quite badly. Nokia was the clear leader in all phone segments, smartphones included. At the peak they sold just over 50% of all smartphones in the world. Of course they would try to hold on to that. They were better in software than their hardware competitors (Ericsson/RIM/etc), but of course that didn't amount to much when the field was upended by Google and Apple.

> Motorola is doing quite good with Android.

Motorola is now a Lenovo brand.

Re: Microsoft acquires Github

#720

Post by LinuxBender »

sanbor wrote: post #422

This is a wake up call. Too many things are relying on Github right now. Microsoft was part of the PRISM program. If Microsoft shares SSL certs with NSA they could do MITM attacks. What if in some very specific cases you download dependencies from GitHub and they give you a different version with malicious code? It's the NSA. They could be smart enough to only deploy those attacks on production servers were nobody is…

I agree with the concern around too many things depending on Github for real time builds and deployment.

In regards to MITM, that can happen regardless of who maintains the repositories. If an NSL is issued, compliance is mandatory. A gag order is included. AFAIK there are no large organizations that would fall on that sword.

It is on the individual organizations that utilize public resources to do proper certificate and checksum validation, along with code diff reviews to reduce the risk of tainted packages.

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