After supposed claims that Microsoft was looking into acquiring GitHub, it has now been officially confirmed. In a few months, Microsoft will own GitHub, a major purveyor of open source code. With the prior success of other acquisitions like Minecraft and LinkedIn, GitHub staff claims they feel confident with Microsoft's leadership.

According to the announcement blog post by the site, innovations will be made with Microsoft's help, though the focus on providing open software will always remain. A new CEO, Nat Friedman, has been appointed as well, while the previous CEO and co-founder of GitHub will be now working directly at Microsoft.

Of course, this announcement and the rumors leading up to it has caused controversy. Microsoft hasn't always handled its acquisitions well, with many pointing to Skype as evidence of this. GitLab, a competitor to GitHub, has also seen massive registration numbers in the past two days.

The total transaction cost Microsoft 7.5 billion dollars.

Source

 

[Insighted]

I don't understand you people.
Microsoft bought Minecraft and expanded it. Windows 10 allows you to run UNIX codes straight from its own cmd prompt including running GUI versions of UNIX apps and distros.
They bought GitHub for a good reason, they have been going more open source lately.

They may have been putting more and more of their small projects open-source, but they keep core APIs like DirectX closed source so as to entice developers to support their proprietary OS Windows 10.

 

[GreyWolf]

They may have been putting more and more of their small projects open-source, but they keep core APIs like DirectX closed source so as to entice developers to support their proprietary OS Windows 10.

That's not really relevent since DirectX is basically part of their retail product. They do have the largest amount of code posted on GitHub out of anyone. (1800+ projects and for multiple OSes)
I wouldn't really call VS Code or .NET Core small projects. They are already in use as much as Visual Studio is.

 

[Deleted User]

I dont mind, Microsoft is a great company that listens to its user base

lmao

 

[Yepi69]

That's not really relevent since DirectX is basically part of their retail product. They do have the largest amount of code posted on GitHub out of anyone. (1800+ projects and for multiple OSes)
I wouldn't really call VS Code or .NET Core small projects. They are already in use as much as Visual Studio is.

Not to mention that Xbox also uses DirectX, which can save time and money if developers want to develop a co-existing game for Windows and Xbox.

 

[MFDC12]

My main concern is that they're going to merge TFS with Git or replace TFS with Git. If I'm right, there's no way is that going to be a smooth transition

TFS, the software, you either can use TFVC OR git and it's not like they don't have tools to switch from tfvc to git. I am not even sure what your concern is, and TFS, the software, is geared almost elusively for enterprise + actual businesses, not really hobby programmers. If anything happens it'd probably be a paid feature to integrate anything like that.

They may have been putting more and more of their small projects open-source, but they keep core APIs like DirectX closed source so as to entice developers to support their proprietary OS Windows 10.

C# itself is open source, they made .net core open source, as well as F# compiler, VSCode.. these are not "small projects" whatsoever. They are planning to make Xamarin open source. edit: they already have

things cant get worse oh they can if MS gets a hold of the git protocol

Microsoft already uses git. They are one of the top contributors on github, even. They use git for their non-open source projects too (the windows kernal uses git for source control). Also github != git. If they modify git in any way, per terms of the GPL, they can't make it closed source.

Anyways.

Guys, this is full panic that isn't even warranted by anything. Github's itself is closed source, judging by Microsoft's recent history, I wouldn't be shocked if they made github open source. I don't use windows anywhere but work, but the hate for microsoft needs to leave and your 90's/early 2000's attitude needs to leave with it

 

[matpower]

Rest in Git, you will be missed.

One has to wonder: Was it worth it for Micro$oft?

Git doesn't seem like a hard concept to clone. I hope they realize one fuck up is gonna make that 7.5bil price tag a giant waste of money.

git is fine, git is a version control system made by Torvards, MS buying GitHub doesn't affect git at all, please.

Doesn't this technically mean that MS owns all of this opensource software and it can make it closed source whenever they feel like it?

That's not how licensing works at all. For example, GPL code can't be close sourced at all, and the owner could sue them if they took it and didn't release the source back.

Can't wait for Microsoft to upload Windows on GitHub.

As a fun fact, Microsoft already uses git as their version control since they couldn't make their own.

As much as I don't like them, Satya Nadella hasn't run MS like this, heck, very quickly after becoming CEO he went so far as to say "Microsoft loves Linux", and MS is now even a part of the linux foundation. and Gihub's new CEO was involved with mono and GNOME, so I feel he can be trusted until otherwise. MS has also open sourced VSCode (https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode <-- this was on github before today )

Microsoft is a paradox, they say they love Linux, open source and bla bla bla, but their major software (Windows, Office, DirectX, etc.) is always closed source. They are only "embracing" open source because the future is, sadly, the cloud and Linux already won the server race, as matter of fact, they offer it on Azure (Microsoft's current future) and have their own Linux distro. Mono is behind and doesn't offer the full .NET stack and VSCode was caught injecting telemetry into other people's code.
And yes, they can profit while keeping their stack open source, FOSS is "Free as in Speech (Libre)", not necessarily "Free as in Beer (Gratis)".

What alternatives are there to GitHub? Beyond GitLab?

Besides GitLab, there is SourceForge (which was caught doing shady shit, but they seem to have improved recently), BitBucket, NotABug, etc.

I don't understand you people.
Microsoft bought Minecraft and expanded it. Windows 10 allows you to run UNIX codes straight from its own cmd prompt including running GUI versions of UNIX apps and distros.
They bought GitHub for a good reason, they have been going more open source lately.

Windows Subsystem for Linux is still a joke for anything serious IMO, tried accessing block devices and it isn't supported at all.

GitLab's better. They offer unlimited private repos to all users.

Sadly, their releases have a 10MB limit against GitHub's 2GB.

 

[x65943]

Good for Microsoft but even better for GitHub - that's a lot of money!

M$ offer for GBAtemp, when?

git is fine, git is a version control system made by Torvards, MS buying GitHub doesn't affect git at all, please.


That's not how licensing works at all. For example, GPL code can't be close sourced at all, and the owner could sue them if they took it and didn't release the source back.


As a fun fact, Microsoft already uses git as their version control since they couldn't make their own.


Microsoft is a paradox, they say they love Linux, open source and bla bla bla, but their major software (Windows, Office, DirectX, etc.) is always closed source. They are only "embracing" open source because the future is, sadly, the cloud and Linux already won the server race, as matter of fact, they offer it on Azure (Microsoft's current future) and have their own Linux distro. Mono is behind and doesn't offer the full .NET stack and VSCode was caught injecting telemetry into other people's code.
And yes, they can profit while keeping their stack open source, FOSS is "Free as in Speech (Libre)", not necessarily "Free as in Beer (Gratis)".


Besides GitLab, there is SourceForge (which was caught doing shady shit, but they seem to have improved recently), BitBucket, NotABug, etc.


Windows Subsystem for Linux is still a joke for anything serious IMO, tried accessing block devices and it isn't supported at all.


Sadly, their releases have a 10MB limit against GitHub's 2GB.

Wow, never seen someone reply to so many messages all at once.

Thanks for the info on git. So github is special because of its adoption rate in that case.

So this means if M$ screws up, again, they will have thrown away their entire investment. Not a direct parallel, but would sort of remind me of how people bought out myspace to try and save it - and ended up creating an even worse platform - which was essentially worthless because its system wasn't unique - the only thing that it had going for it was large user base.

I guess when the copyright lawyers run away - that's all any business has - users. Piss of the users and destroy the business.

 

[codezer0]

That weirdo Gentoo guy is already shrieking in the distance.

"Muh Open sores!"

I predict a crap ton of projects leaving Github upon this news.

 

[matpower]

Wow, never seen someone reply to so many messages all at once.

Thanks for the info on git. So github is special because of its adoption rate in that case.

So this means if M$ screws up, again, they will have thrown away their entire investment. Not a direct parallel, but would sort of remind me of how people bought out myspace to try and save it - and ended up creating an even worse platform - which was essentially worthless because its system wasn't unique - the only thing that it had going for it was large user base.

I guess when the copyright lawyers run away - that's all any business has - users. Piss of the users and destroy the business.

Yeah, I decided to check each page to clear any misconceptions
But yeah, GitHub's value come from its adoption rate and social features, it is not just a place to host code, but to interact and allow contributions to be made more easily.
They probably bought a sinking ship since most developers don't want business with Microsoft and that kills the platform. There's a chance it has hit "Too big to fail" though, specially from more casual users.

That weirdo Gentoo guy is already shrieking in the distance.

I predict a crap ton of projects leaving Github upon this news.

You mean this guy?

Spoiler

He always hated GitHub AFAIK.
And he doesn't endorse Gentoo due to it not being libre, it is mostly a /g/ meme.

 

[codezer0]

You mean this guy?

Spoiler

He always hated GitHub AFAIK.
And he doesn't endorse Gentoo due to it not being libre, it is mostly a /g/ meme.

Yeah, that guy. He comes off as a real creeper, like the kind of person that should be informing everyone in a given neighborhood if he's even allowed to leave state borders.

 

[matpower]

Yeah, that guy. He comes off as a real creeper, like the kind of person that should be informing everyone in a given neighborhood if he's even allowed to leave state borders.

I have nothing but respect to his cause, but yeah, he is creep as fuck.

 

[Deleted User]

yall are ridiculous i bet yall nothing bad will happen and everyone is just freaking out for the sake of freaking out XD

 

[felix.200]

Pretty much what i have to say about this:
https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1003554331470131200

That's a really good argument

 

[Soulsilve2010]

I think NotABug is a good replacement for Github if anything happens.

 

[Creatable]

git commit suicide

 

[The Catboy]

they're not dead, are they. compare rareware to visceral, origin, maxis, criterion

like seriously, microsoft isn't as bad as everyone's crying about

Really the only thing they haven't completely ruined is Minecraft (which is still debatable to some)
Otherwise they ruined Rare, Skype, and so many other brands that they bought out, ruined, and replaced. Microsoft has a very long history of ruining brands and they've earned the heavy skepticism they get when they buy out a company.

 

[RedBlueGreen]

I'm going to wait and see before immediately jumping ship... I don't think it would be "as bad" as some people are claiming. Maybe Microsoft will allow GitHub to run as it does now. Maybe with some extra Microsoft services integration which wouldn't be that surprising, as long as it's not intrusive/forced.

I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft starts taking down custom firmware, back up loaders, etc.

 

[Kigiru]

Linus Torvalds - "Microsoft is a piece of shit and they make shitty things"
Bil Gates - "Here, here little Linny. I have some 7,5 billions for my little friend~"
Linus Torvalds - "B-BILL SENPAI! PLEASE TAKE MY OS AND MY GITHUB! :'D"

 

[Pleng]

Linus Torvalds - "Microsoft is a piece of shit and they make shitty things"
Bil Gates - "Here, here little Linny. I have some 7,5 billions for my little friend~"
Linus Torvalds - "B-BILL SENPAI! PLEASE TAKE MY OS AND MY GITHUB! :'D"

I.... I don't think Linus owned GitHub?

 

[Kigiru]

I.... I don't think Linus owned GitHub?

I mean, maybe i don't get something but he is in fact an inventor of Git, right?