
Microsoft Is Said to Have Agreed to Acquire GitHub - miguelrochefort
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-03/microsoft-is-said-to-have-agreed-to-acquire-coding-site-github?
======
EnderMB
I spent eight years building software on .NET, so I have a lot of time for
Microsoft, but I fully understand why a lot of people aren't happy with this
news. It's been good to have a leader in open-source that is unaffiliated with
anyone but the tech they chose to use (Ruby/Rails). For me, it doesn't matter
who takes it over - it's just sad to see a neutral player disappear.

With all that said, things have changed a lot over at GitHub over the past 2-3
years, so I can't say I'm all that surprised that this was the outcome.
Restructures, scandals, and some crazy comments over the few years has led me
to believe that GitHub probably isn't the same company that the development
community embraced. For that reason, I can't see Microsoft doing a "Skype" and
merging GitHub into their platforms. Developers are fickle, and if Microsoft
mess with GitHub then it's not only a huge blow to the relations they've been
trying to build for the past few years, it's a guaranteed way to see
developers flock to the next big service (i.e. GitLab).

~~~
closeparen
This dovetails nicely with Windows Subsystem for Linux, VS Code, and
Microsoft’s ongoing play to capture the Silicon Valley hipster development
ecosystem that Apple is alienating.

~~~
rbosinger
Yeah, the open source dev community may very well see Microsoft quite
differently in upcoming years if they keep playing their cards this way.

~~~
mixmastamyk
Can't speak for everyone but that won't happen personally until they start
respecting privacy.

~~~
pjmlp
The Silicon Valley hipster development ecosystem does not have a problem with
how Google respects privacy.

~~~
dirkgently
Stop bashing Google without any proofs. They do respect privacy and don't
share data you elect not to. In fact, their take out tool was released in 2009
or something, way before GRPR made others do it too.

~~~
millstone
It's insidious how Google has redefined "privacy" from "what's yours is yours"
to "what's yours is ours, as long as we don't share it."

Microsoft is moving fast along the same path.

~~~
not_kurt_godel
[Replying to sibling comment]

> MS do not tie an analytics product (on most sites around the world) into the
> world's largest personal-data-mining and advertising network.

They're trying pretty damn hard with Windows 10, which by default collects
pretty much every keystroke you make. That data in turn gets shared and sold
to advertisers - see MS's own privacy page: [https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-
us/privacystatement](https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement)

------
nyxtom
It's interesting that the HN community continues to make reference to the
prospect of a decentralized internet when Git was built to be decentralized in
the first place. In spite of this, we all have congregated around GitHub for
the community and are shocked when the centralized source we've been using
gets acquired by a company we don't trust. That's sort of the whole point of
centralization, you can't trust it. Maybe this event will finally shift things
back into a decentralized direction.

~~~
st26
Centralization has an undeniable fundamental attraction. Everything, really,
seems to naturally trend towards centralization, and then major scandals
reverse the trend. We will probably swing back and forth between the two in
perpetuity.

The whole darn internet was built to be decentralized. And yet we all use
GMail, the same handful of DNS servers, the same short list of major trunk
hubs, the same shrinking list of bitcoin mining pools, etc.

~~~
neckardt
I've always found it too difficult to choose the "decentralized" option for
many services. It's just not convenient enough to spin up my own gitlab
server, or own email. I tried to do both of those things a while ago when I
was still new to Linux, and gave up due to the number of steps involved which
I inevitably fucked up.

The solution for me would be packages which hold my hand through the install
process to make installing such software as easy as possible. Obviously,
packaging software in this way would take way more work, and people qualified
to do this would rather package more software rather than hold some noob's
hand.

That being said, hopefully in the future when software gets even more mature,
repackaging will become less necessary, and this type of packages might become
more common, allowing decentralized systems to be easy enough to set up that
they become common.

~~~
voltagex_
I saw someone post on Twitter saying they were tired of being their own
sysadmin.

It's true - I could set up my own mail server, my own Git hosting etc etc, but
why would I? I'd rather just pay Fastmail for email and GitHub for some
private repos.

~~~
simias
I'm my own sysadmin (for personal email, small HTTP server, an OpenVPN and a
few other minor services for personal use) and while it did take me a non-
negligible amount of time to get things running smoothly it now only requires
a few minutes of attention every other week to apply security updates and make
sure my backups are running smoothly. In exchange for that I have total
control over my data and basically unlimited customization potential. I'm
definitely not planning on stopping that.

I do use Github regularly however, but it's because of the "social network"
aspect. If you want to interact with many open source projects it has to be on
github nowadays. The network effect is strong.

~~~
bobmichael
I want to make that switch, but am rather intimidated by my inexperience in
that domain. Are there any guides or tutorials you've used that you'd
recommend?

~~~
simias
Not a single tutorial comes to mind but you generally find a wealth of
resources and tutorials online about setting up anything you might need.

Always start by setting up a strict firewall and then whitelist cautiously
anything you need as you set up the rest. Don't bother with SELinux. Be very
careful with your Postfix (or if you're masochistic, sendmail) config as it's
rather (needlessly IMHO) intricate and it's easy to end up with a
configuration that appears to work but is extremely broken. In particular if
you end up configuring an open relay by mistake spammers are going to have a
lot of fun with your server but you'll end up blacklisted everywhere.

My "stack" is nginx for web, postfix + dovecot + spamassassin for email (+
roundcube when I wanted a webmail). Postfix was by far the trickiest to
configure, although if you find a good tutorial online and can spare a couple
of hours to understand how it all works it's not too bad.

~~~
neop1x
I have similar setup but use Exim instead of Postfix. And I am still glad I
host my own services. Yes, it took time but it will work as I want it forever.
Only lazy people prefer ready-made cloud services - yes, it's convenient - but
it's more costly, you lose control over your data and they are constantly
redesigning and reinventing something. You never know when they sell the
business or increase prices, ban or limit you.

------
PascLeRasc
This is sad news. Partially because I don't care for Microsoft, but mostly
because Github was a neutral third-party without any priorities. I hope they
don't discontinue Atom or apply their UX styling to the site/desktop app. Like
Spotify, I felt safer that a company was just doing hosting in their domain
(of music or code projects) and wouldn't try to shovel some other tech into it
like Apple making Apple Music terrible on Windows. It's good to have more tech
companies just doing their single thing well.

~~~
hobofan
> I hope they don't discontinue Atom

Hadn't crossed my mind that they might drop Atom for VS Code before...

~~~
nielsbot
I thought VS Code was Atom? (well, a fork of)

~~~
rhencke
No, it's not a fork. They both run on Electron, so they share a common runtime
environment, but they share no editor code.

~~~
jonny_eh
Wasn't Electron created for Atom? If so, VSCode is at least using a part of
Atom.

~~~
Gaelan
I mean, by that argument Windows uses Unix because C was written for Unix.

~~~
johannes1234321
At least historically Windows used different parts of UNIX. i.e. they used
BSD's TCP/IP stack for quite some time. Also used "UNIX services for Windows"
and recently added the Windows subsystem for Linux.

------
013a
This is a completely smart purchase on Microsoft's part. I can't imagine more
synergy between two companies:

\- Microsoft has always been the largest developer advocate of any of the
major tech players (Google has been a great contender for this position since
2010).

\- Microsoft has moved most of their open source projects to Github.

\- Microsoft is a major contributor to Git, including massive infrastructure
projects to make it possible to host the NT kernel on Git.

\- Microsoft has tried to do open source git hosting in the past (Codeplex?)
but it never succeeded. Also: Microsoft partnered with Github when they shut
down to migrate Codeplex projects to Github.

\- Github has the Atom team, which would have some great synergies to combine
with the VSCode team.

\- Github are the champions behind the electron project, with a lot of
institutional knowledge about that technology + native web apps/PWAs in
general. Microsoft is making a huge push toward writing UWP apps as PWAs.

Time will tell how they handle this merger. They've handled a few pretty well
(Linkedin, Mojang come to mind) and others horribly (Skype, Yammer, Nokia).

~~~
guitarbill
This "synergy" seems to be pretty one-sided. Which of these synergies is
useful for existing GitHub users? That's kind of the problem with this
acquisition, which is why few Github users are excited for it.

It also doesn't feel like Microsoft understands developers or even end users
consistently. VSCode is a nice editor, but not the only one. The MSDN docs and
site is awful. Azure is okay, but Windows 10 is somehow more annoying than
macOS.

Meanwhile Github is in a tricky position, because for most people there's
nothing but "community" keeping them on it. Github has some decent features,
but nothing so great it would stop me from using their competitors. And they
don't even have a CEO to provide the vision. The only thing in their favour is
inertia.

~~~
bhouston
GitHub subscriptions included in msdn?

~~~
josh64
I was thinking part of Office 365 - collaborative dev tools are the missing
piece for most businesses.

There wouldn't be a major need for Jira, GitLab, etc for the most part.

~~~
wodenokoto
I don't know why this is downvoted.

I've worked at two major companies which both used MS Office/Skype for
everything and a selfhosted gitlab for code repo.

If the MS package provided git, I'm sure we would be using that instead.

------
LeanderK
I am worried that a company as important to the open-source community as
github is now owned by one of the major players. I think it really impacts the
neutrality of github. If I would compete with microsoft in a certain space, I
would really think twice about relying on github.

Also, this monopolization is driving me mad.

~~~
Y7ZCQtNo39
I could see developers ditching GitHub with the acquisition for a perceived
conflict of interest. It's really easy to change your remote.

I see a potentially big market opportunity for anyone who wants to compete in
the space now.

~~~
monotypical
Changing the remote doesn't migrate anything in the issue tracker, merge
requests, webhooks, pages or wiki

~~~
static_noise
Migrating from GitHub to GitLab

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYOXuOg9tQI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYOXuOg9tQI)

this adresses some of the issues.

~~~
johannes1234321
It doesn't solve the number one issue: External references to your project
will all still point to github.com since that's where the project homepage
(aka README.md) is.

~~~
mort96
If GitHub does get sold to MS and I end up moving to GitLab, I'll probably
push one last commit to the GitHub repo adding a header saying the project has
moved, with a link to the GitLab repo. It's not perfect, but it wouldn't be
too bad.

~~~
johannes1234321
Until MSFT/GitHub does what Sourceforge.net did - taking over project sites
from projects which moved away and adding malware (adware/spyware) into those
;)

(I believe with all critique on Microsoft they aren't as bad, but want to
exemplarize the risk)

~~~
askvictor
It might just be cleaner to close the github repo and when other projects find
a 404 where it used to be, they'll have to use super detective skills (i.e.
Google it) to find the project's new home. And if they can't find it that way,
then nothing of value was lost. (Yes, yes, I know it's more nuanced than that,
but if you wanted permanence, you'd be hosting on your own domain, right?)

------
phantom_oracle
I don't quite understand why people are sad or disappointed about this
acquisition. You should be extremely elated about it. You know why?

Github was never an Open Source product itself but sat on top of the Open
Source community and used that "goodwill" to license and sell its proprietary
software.

Now that another proprietary software-maker has acquired this company, maybe
we can all finally adopt the principle that:

> _Open Source software needs Open Source tools_

~~~
timvisee
Although this doesn't directly have anything to do with open-source; look at
what happened to Skype, LinkedIn, and other companies they acquired.

~~~
joering2
Did i miss some news? Skype is still Skype and Linkedin hasn’t changed much
either. ?? if anything those two proves being Acquired by MS is not as bad as
for example Google who loves to eventually shut down their acquirers.

~~~
xt00
Skype UI was changed dramatically for virtually no obvious reason and resulted
in the usage of skype to be way more annoying for basically no good reason.
They then rebranded Lync to be called Skype for Business which is a giant mess
because like so many microsoft enterprise products it uses some strange scheme
to connect to either a web-based server or to an enterprise server that
invariably is not setup correctly and never works reliably. So they basically
bought skype which everybody loved and turned it into something that a huge
amount of people don't like now due to UI changes and created a second version
of Skype that basically barely works and many people are forced to use at
work..

~~~
rdm_blackhole
We are forced to use Skype for Business at my job, and let me tell you, I have
never seen a POS like that. Calls drop out for no reason, UI is unintuitive
with all kinds of weird dropdowns and buttons, slow to start and just a pain
to use in general. I wish we could use Slack calls instead...

~~~
t_treesap
I'm counting down the days until Teams has fully integrated all of the Skype
for Business features so that they can finally shut the POS down. It is,
indeed, the absolute worst.

------
obl
Tangentially related, but maybe microsoft could actually do that : why is
github's search so terribly bad ?

If they had developed a good powerful code search (custom semantic engine for
most used languages, complex queries, exact/fuzzy matches for syntax, use of
history, etc) they could have become the primary way you interact with code
you don't know yet.

As it stands now it's simply more efficient to clone and use plain old grep,
it's really sad.

~~~
blt
It is shockingly bad. The fact that you can't code search in a fork blows my
mind. How have they not fixed this basic, important feature after so many
years? What could possibly make it more difficult than a few person-months of
effort?

~~~
knownothing
Um, have you actually tried doing anything about this?
[https://help.github.com/articles/searching-in-
forks/](https://help.github.com/articles/searching-in-forks/)

~~~
blt
> _You will not be able to search the code in a fork that has less stars than
> its parent._

... but since it's allowed if the fork has more stars, I guess they're just
trying to save compute cost. Seems like a bad place to scrimp to me.

------
marricks
Can anything exist anymore without

A) Getting acquired by a multinational

B) Becoming one

Sure, MS visual code is open but as a few players get more and more power we
all become subject to their whims and not them to ours.

MS is pushing their ads within their own OS more and more, will GitHub get the
same treatment, or will it’s data be useful to MS for those ads?

What sort of integrations can we expect to see with other MS products that
encourage a more closed ecosystem?

This may all seem alarmist but with so many companies having so much power
this sort of behavior get through unchecked.

The only recourse people suggest is “well then don’t use it” but what options
do employees have when higher ups mandate technologies? What about most users
who just go with the wind and just let these snowballing large companies skate
by? It all makes me very sad...

~~~
archagon
Probably a direct consequence of VC funding.

~~~
marricks
Definitely, investors don't give you money just for kicks, they want a payday.
It shapes the community... people who take that money get a head start, crowd
out competition. Everyone needs to grow huge, get bought, or die.

What could change this? People refusing money? Some encouragement to stay mid
sized? Wonder if that will ever happen...

~~~
oculusthrift
doesn’t matter what you do. there will always be a competitor that takes the
money and kills you. If not, the big companies themselves will fund their own
projects with 100x your budget

------
rixrax
GitHub is a venture backed company with some $350M raised according to
Crunchbase[1]. As such, your options are pretty much limited to IPO, being
acquired, generating crazy profits and buying out investors to stay private,
or go bankrupt. Since it appears they had hard time turning profitable[2], I’m
hardly surprised that GH May be ending the way of Microsoft.

I think it’s worthwile question to everyone who is lamenting here about the
future fate of GitHub if they put their money where their mouth is? Or through
some magical reality expected to forever have a free, really great and well
taken care of service? (I’ve had paid private account since forever).

GitLab btw has meger $45M raised[3]. I urge all the ‘let’s move to GItLab or
other’ people give that a hard thought and how that will eventually expire.

TANSTAAFL

[1]
[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/github](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/github)
[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13188574](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13188574)
[3] [https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/gitlab-
com](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/gitlab-com)

~~~
sytse
GitLab took external investments will have a liquidity event at some point.
That means an acquisition or an IPO. Right now we're aiming for an IPO
[https://about.gitlab.com/strategy/#goals](https://about.gitlab.com/strategy/#goals)
as we have since 2015 when we took the first external investment.

~~~
rixrax
Out of topic, but how often do you have the ear of CEO: sytse, one specific
wish for Gitlab that I have: please enable 'one-click' automatic
LetsEncryptNow certificate creation for GitLab Pages with custom domain names
(just like GitHub is doing it today) instead of me having to go out of my way
to go get a X.509 from a CA for my TLS/SSL enabled site[1].

[1]
[https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/pages/getting_starte...](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/pages/getting_started_part_three.html#ssl-
tls-certificates)

EDIT: typos

------
indigochill
Heck, I already prefer Gitlab and/or Bitbucket because they let me run free
(or at least self-hosted in Gitlab's case, not sure what their hosted option's
like) private repos. Github's just got the mindshare going for it. But maybe
now that'll change.

~~~
frutiger
If you ever get something for free, remember something somewhere is
subsidizing it. Whether that's the other paid accounts, which therefore must
be uncompetitively priced, VC funding (which will eventually run out), or your
data is sold.

~~~
Symbiote
> your data is sold

It's now easier to see some of this, with the GDPR rules.

The Gitlab cookie page lists 80 "marketing" cookies which may be set:
[https://about.gitlab.com/privacy/cookies/](https://about.gitlab.com/privacy/cookies/)

~~~
phs318u
Wow. On the one hand I'm impressed with the openness (almost - what does
purpose='unclassified' mean?), as well as the option to elect which cookie
category I agree to. On the other hand... my, that's a lot of tracking!

~~~
Symbiote
Something similar (sometimes exactly this interface) is shown on about every
third newly visited website I look at from the EU, since 25 May.

If you don't see this, it could be informative to use a British or Irish VPN
(to keep an English language default) for a day or two.

------
abinoda
I recently built a GitHub Markeplace [0] app Pull Reminders [1] and have been
really impressed by GitHub's ecosystem strategy. They seem to taking lessons
from Slack's success and doubling down on supporting integrators who provide
valuable apps and features built on top of GitHub (ie. TravisCI, ZenHub). I
hope this direction continues under new ownership.

GitLab on the other hand is focused on solving every facet of the development
lifecycle within their core product. From their blog post about GitHub's
acquisition:

> ... instead of integrating multiple tools together, we believe a single
> application, built from the ground up to support the entire DevOps lifecycle
> is a better experience leading to a faster cycle time.

It will be interesting to see how the different strategies play out.

[0] [https://github.com/marketplace](https://github.com/marketplace) [1]
[https://github.com/marketplace/pull-
reminders/](https://github.com/marketplace/pull-reminders/)

~~~
throwaway35411
GitLab has always demanded too much faith from its users.

First with CI, it was the all-or-nothing approach where you couldn't use
GitLab CI with any other provider. Lately they have tried to fix this but it
was a half-hearted development after a lot of complaints.

Lately with their DevOps approach, it's exactly how you've said.

I don't have trust in GitLab leadership and their product feels way too
bloated.

------
lkrubner
I'm worried. Consider what happened to Skype. Consider what happened to
LinkedIn. I worry something similar will happen to Github. And I love Github.

At some point Microsoft told me I had to change my password for Skype. The
"Reset your password" process failed 6 times in a row. I eventually had to
create a new, Microsoft ID, to use Skype. I lost all of my old contacts and
had to slowly recreate my address book. This is really one of the worst
transitions I can recall.

Meanwhile, I act as adviser to a number of entrepreneurs, and the biggest
trend of the last year has been "I want to do _______ for professionals, since
LinkedIn isn't doing it." The lost opportunities for LinkedIn are very sad.

~~~
gressquel
what did they do with LinkedIn?? I havent noticed any change.

as for Skype, its completely ruined. I have it installed but I am scared to
open it. Horrible GUI. Constant updates and generally just useless now.

~~~
darawk
> what did they do with LinkedIn?? I havent noticed any change.

I think that's his point. He's saying that LinkedIn has the opportunity to do
lots of interesting things, and appears to be squandering it.

~~~
gressquel
LinkedIn is excellent as it is; its a utility to keep your CV updated and
connect with professionals. We don't want FB-like functionality here, thank
god.

~~~
markovbot
LinkedIn is a massive pile of dark patterns and spam. What universe are you
living in that that's "excellent" or even acceptable?

~~~
geodel
Well, it is excellent platform for self-declared thought leaders offering
groundbreaking insights about business/culture and innovation.

~~~
markovbot
It's a shit platform for that. Users who are attempting to read these
"groundbreaking insights" are subjected to a deluge of tracking code and other
malicious behavior. There are plenty of excellent platform for people to share
ideas, LinkedIn is absolutely not one of them.

~~~
dash2
I think parent was joke.

~~~
markovbot
I can't even tell anymore.

------
jasonrhaas
This is a sad day for Open Source and software in general. What makes Github
great is that its a neutral place where anyone can host their code. Now that
its owned by a Big Corporation, the values that Github has built will be
abandoned in favor of making money for the corporation.

R.I.P. Github. Your move, Gitlab.

------
nkoren
Ouch.

So, my startup is positioning itself as a kind of "GitHub for X". When
investors ask about our exit strategy, I have to be honest and say that
acquisitions the big platform players in the space are largely ruled out; if
we are to remain a neutral networking medium within our market, we can't be
biased -- or even the _suspicion_ of bias -- towards any particular company
within that market.

To illustrate this, the example I've always use is: "Could GitHub still be
GitHub if it was acquired by Microsoft? Of course not: a meaningful subset of
its userbase could then no longer trust the platform to be a neutral
intermediary, and the resulting exodus -- even if small -- would have a
corrosive knock-on effect with regards to overall networking effect lock-in.
So such an acquisition could never happen, because it would too obviously
destroy value."

Didn't expect to have the opportunity to validate that particular hypothesis!

------
makecheck
This seems like an odd move that I would have expected investors in GitHub to
oppose for the sake of preserving one of GitHub’s biggest advantages: its
large number of projects (to the point where it seems like practically
everything is on GitHub).

You see, whether or not it’s justified, some projects invariably _will leave
GitHub_ simply _because it’s Microsoft_. And then, GitHub will no longer feel
like a place where most projects exist. And really, GitHub isn’t perfect:
projects overlook a lot of minor imperfections in GitHub’s actual product
_because_ there are so many projects on GitHub and the usefulness of the
networking outweighs the warts here and there.

~~~
jannes
Why would investors care? It's a payday for them.

Current investors are going to be bought out in cash or MSFT stock.

------
Angostura
Personally, I can't wait for GitHub360 Professional for Sharepoint 360.

~~~
riazrizvi
“Hi, I’m Gitty! I see you are having difficulty submitting your large file.
Would you like some help with that?” [YES] [NO]

~~~
oblio
Clippy was last activated by default back in 2001 (!). When are we going to
let go of this old joke?

~~~
tzahola
Never.

------
ajiang
There will probably be a decent amount of skepticism around this acquisition
(with fair reason), but I'd like to think of this as an opportunity for
Microsoft to demonstrate their respect and commitment to the developer
community. I say this as someone who has been pleasantly surprised at how
helpful BizSpark has been. Staying cautiously optimistic.

~~~
saagarjha
BizSpark is discontinued.

------
Animats
"Please sign in with your Microsoft account".

"Requires Windows 10".

"Best viewed with Microsoft Edge".

"This project violates our terms of service by competing with a Microsoft
product."

OK, where do we move everything?

------
siruncledrew
This is pretty conflicting. Github is nice on its own, but business wise they
haven’t been profitable, so sooner or later some change had to happen. In my
experience, Github is great for public code storage and small private projects
(easy to manage developers that already have github accounts), but it does
become pretty expensive and I don’t necessarily think the ROI is worth it
compared to a self-hosted solution. For opensource and personal portfolios,
the “network effect” or first mover advantage sort of set the stage for
github’s popularity over gitlab, but for a paid enterprise solution I think
gitlab does a better job and offers more value per dollar. Partially what
sucks is having to have separate github/gitlab accounts/repositories since
that’s now 2 things to manage. I’ve tried codecommit and bitbucket as well,
but those were kinda meh (in my opinion).

Typically when “the Microsoft touch” is added it’s for the worse, so the
expectations bar is pretty low. But who knows. I can definitely see them
leveraging github to further go after AWS by giving Azure a leg up over
codecommit. VSCode has also been pretty good, if they add in the “social
integrations” of github to VSCode that also competes against Cloud9 on AWS.
Right now AWS is solidly winning the cloud race, but if this puts
price/service competitive pressure on amazon I won’t complain.

I also wonder what will happen with all the code and personal data from
github. I really don’t want to have to make a microsoft account to access
github. As long as the switching costs from github to a viable alternative
(right now gitlab) remain low, I would not have a problem with jumping ship.

------
hapnin
Why I'll never trust Microsoft ever again.

"postmaster@nsa.gov"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSAKEY](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSAKEY)

~~~
TheCabin
Don't forget about:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish)

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
I don't think anyone on HN has forgotten considering it's repeated ad nauseum
on every single Microsoft story on here.

~~~
TheCabin
Well, because the strategy was really nasty stuff and acquiring github might
fit into this kind of pattern.

~~~
jhall1468
Except all the key players of this strategy are gone and Microsoft has
embraced (full stop) open source as much as any major corporation in recent
years.

But don't let actual evidence stop your pitchforks.

~~~
TheCabin
I see that Microsoft is not a corporation that is evil by design and that they
are doing exciting stuff as well -- I don't hate them.

However, I am keeping my skepticism when they embrace open-source and am
curious which 'actual evidence' you are referring to?

So far, many open-source efforts look more like marketing to me. For instance,
WSL makes sense to keep people in a Microsoft environment (and to me at seems
that more and more frameworks favor Linux and Mac over Windows).

------
timvdalen
This may just be paranoia but if I were competing with Microsoft on something
that I'd have private code for hosted on GitHub, I'd be pretty worried right
now.

~~~
sverige
That's not paranoia. That is completely reasonable considering Microsoft's
history.

~~~
peteretep
Microsoft have a history of corporate espionage against their customers?

~~~
sverige
Just for example, among the EU's criticisms of Microsoft were some of the
documented (as in civil judgments in the hundreds of millions of dollars
documented) abuses of some of its notable customers like IBM and Intel.[0]

"Oh, but that was way back in the 80s and 90s, and different people run the
company now. They're more mature and responsible these days." This is the only
argument I've been offered when pointing out Microsoft's very shady history.
It doesn't suffice.

[0]
[http://www.ecis.eu/documents/Finalversion_Consumerchoicepape...](http://www.ecis.eu/documents/Finalversion_Consumerchoicepaper.pdf)

~~~
peteretep
> among the EU's criticisms of Microsoft were some of the documented abuses of
> some of its notable customers like IBM and Intel

Scanning that, I don't see any mention that this was in any way due to
corporate espionage, or weaponizing the customer relationship -- could you
point me directly to that part?

------
gerdesj
Soooo .... Linus Torvalds knocks together a code repo thingie a few years back
because Bit Keeper became a bit too non free (nice one Tridge P) and calls it
Git. Git is specifically designed not to need centralisation. It turns out
that git is not just for Linux and can be used to manage lots of software
development. A few companies spring up with some paid for value add stuff -
mainly centralisation with a pretty frontend.

MS buys GitHub for $5B.

Funny old world.

~~~
chrisan
Perhaps Linus should have knocked together all the other things GitHub
created/glued together, or more importantly grown such a large community under
a single roof

There’s a reason MS bought GitHub and not GitLab

~~~
gerdesj
_Perhaps Linus should have knocked together all the other things GitHub
created /glued together, or more importantly grown such a large community
under a single roof_

Linus invented git because Linux needed a new code repo thingie. He was only
focused on one project - Linux. He released git as GPL. GitHub n Co are value
add sites with fees for services and are more than welcome to use GPL software
for obvious reasons.

------
dz0ny
The way GitHub is developed (remote) and culture, this is pretty much death of
GitHub and if most developers leave it will become a mess quite quickly.

GitLab just got big boost.

~~~
jasonvorhe
That's extremely doubtful. First, having to login to different Gitlab
instances is terrible UX. Second, you cannot easily reference another
instance's issues. Hosted Gitlab is also unreliable and slow and comes with no
publicly mentioned SLO of any kind.

I'd be surprised to see any big projects going away from GitHub in the coming
years, unless Microsoft actually manages to tarnish the GitHub brand in a
meaningful way.

The typical tinfoil head probably never trusted GitHub anyways, whether
they're owned by Microsoft or not.

------
nelsonic
Just when it looked like GitHub was "sustainable" through revenue ... greed
for a "payout" (VCs wanting to exit the "bubble") and they sell out to the
_worst_ software Monopoly notorious for stifling software creativity through
anti-competitive practices! :-( Can't GitHub just sell stock/shares to the
GitHub _community_ to secure their own _independent_ future? I would buy a few
(thousand) shares ... Who _else_ would buy stock/shares if they remained
independent?

~~~
azernik
> Can't GitHub just sell stock/shares to the GitHub community to secure their
> own independent future?

No. Unless they want to go for an IPO, they are only allowed to sell to
accredited investors
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accredited_investor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accredited_investor)).

> greed for a "payout" (VCs wanting to exit the "bubble")

That's their _job_. They put hundreds of millions of dollars into GitHub 3
(Series B) or 6 (Series A) years ago, and _their_ sustainable business relies
on selling those investments for a profit.

~~~
nelsonic
@asernik I was referring to the idea of them doing a "Direct Public Listing"
("DPO") as opposed to an IPO (similar to what Spotify recently did...)
[http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/spotify-
ipo/](http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/spotify-ipo/)
[https://www.investopedia.com/news/what-difference-between-
ip...](https://www.investopedia.com/news/what-difference-between-ipo-and-
direct-listing/)

> " _a DPO is attractive to small companies and companies with an established
> and loyal client base. A DPO is also known as direct placement._ "

GitHub _has_ the " _established and loyal client base_ " with many millions in
recurring revenue.

GitHub's principal VCs, Sequoia and A16z can both afford to _wait_ for a
return. _everyone_ could sell in the "DPO" so VCs could liquidate if they
needed cash ...
[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/github](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/github)

------
flocial
If this goes through Microsoft basically gets access to all the private
proprietary code of so many companies. I would have never expected Github
founders to even entertain the notion. I guess times change.

~~~
tome
Microsoft has access to the _running systems_ of so many companies.

~~~
noah-kun
Notably Google banned Windows years ago and every startup I know is 99.9% Mac.

~~~
tome
I was actually thinking about Azure, but good point.

------
Jedd
From at least two angles this is great news for Gitlab.

But it feels a bit like the Atlassian / Trello arrangement, which has had
little impact on users.

From recent behaviour I'd expect Microsoft to have a very light touch here.

~~~
miketery
I'm not familiar with recent behaviour anything in particular? (My memory goes
to Skype...)

~~~
intern4tional
Minecraft, LinkedIn as examples. While LinkedIn has not gone super well, it
has been left to make the decisions that it made on it's own.

Minecraft has also gone untouched - it's still hosted on AWS in fact.

------
erichurkman
Hey, GitLab, if you want to push a big migration from GitHub, inundate the
GitHub design team with requests for a ribbon UI on github.com and to move the
subscription system to Office 365.

------
EastSmith
I am very interested in what will happen with these accounts (t name a few)
the next few weeks / months:

[https://github.com/torvalds/linux](https://github.com/torvalds/linux)
[https://github.com/mozilla](https://github.com/mozilla)
[https://github.com/google](https://github.com/google)

~~~
voltagex_
What do you think will happen?

What advantage would any change bring for Microsoft?

(/torvalds/linux is not the upstream, btw)

~~~
EastSmith
I am expecting the owners of these sort of accounts to just move away. I am
certainly not expecting MS to mess with the accounts in any way.

Another issue: Lets say I am a small business competing with MS on some very
small niche market. Lets say all my code is on a private github repository.
Would I stay on GitHub for a moment after this news? I mean I know these are
separate companies (Microsoft and GitHub), but I still will be moving away
_right now_.

~~~
voltagex_
A bit like if you're a bookshop running your online site on AWS.

The downside risk for Amazon messing with anything is greater than any benefit
they could gain.

I mean, Microsoft has a kernel module upstreamed. It's not 1990 anymore.

------
shmerl
I guess it's time to move to Gitlab.

~~~
atmosx
MS has had an 180 degree turn in policy since Balmer left.

Lately they released amazing open-source projects with VSCode being the most
prominent one.

~~~
glogla
Looking at Windows 10, with stuff like telemetry that's impossible to disable
completely and hidden behind every dark pattern imaginable, or ads in Start
menu?

Microsoft of today is more Microsoft than ever.

~~~
madeofpalk
Eh. _Windows_ today might be more Microsoft than ever, but the rest of the org
is spending lots of effort creating cross platform developer tools that's
preparing Microsoft to remain relevant in a world that doesn't involve Windows
PCs.

------
mikece
Not surprising. Microsoft has made a big deal of partnering with GitHub,
showing off how well their Azure-based CI/CD products and services integrate
with code hosted at GitHub. Not to mention that .NET Core and many companion
libraries are hosted at GitHub, not on VSTS.

------
Philipp__
I am really sick of monopoly and centralization of internet. For last few
years many of important projects changed hosting to GitHub... Now this? We
have alternatives, and good ones (one may argue much better than GitHub), but
where is all of this going?

And Microsoft going around devouring _open-source_ community. To some extent
we are the responsible ones. But on the other hand I am getting really tired
of this. Then people ask me why I use Emacs... it's free and immortal as of
now...

------
smolder
I hope this encourages people to fight vendor lock-in a bit and move to self-
hosted git portals. With SaaS there is always the danger of acquisitions and
degradation of service. The solution is open software, self hosted and
portable. Git itself is absurdly easy to self host, but self-hosted
alternatives to github deserve more attention, both in terms of use and
development effort.

See here for some alternatives: [https://github.com/Kickball/awesome-
selfhosted#project-manag...](https://github.com/Kickball/awesome-
selfhosted#project-management)

(Funny that this list is hosted on github.)

------
nicoburns
I worry about github too. BUT, at least with github most of the data is open.
And they have a worthy competitor in Gitlab. Might be a bit of disruption if
MS mess things up, but not a disaster.

~~~
kworker
Why not self-hosting?

~~~
EchelonFuxMe
1\. Electricity cost 2\. Need for constant electricity 3\. Internet cost 4\.
Need for constant Internet access 5\. Cost of hardware 6\. Heat generated by
the running hardware 7\. Noise generated by the running hardware 8\. Space
occupied by the hardware 9\. Need to update and maintain hardware/software
10\. Worse discoverability for your repos 11\. ISP asking questions 12\.
Government asking questions 13\. Police asking questions

Then again, I live in a "developing" country so most of these might not be an
issue for you.

~~~
donkeyd
Most of these aren't an issue if you're self-hosting in the cloud though. You
can cheap VPS for a couple of $ a month.

~~~
GrayShade
Have you tried running GitLab on a $3 VPS?

~~~
Yetanfou
Gitlab, no. Gogs [1] or Gitea [2], no problem. I run Gitea on an Intel SS4200
(2.4 GHz Pentium E2200, 2 GB, 8 TB JBOD), it hardly causes a blip on this
rather anaemic system. The process generally takes up around 35 MB (RSS), it
talks to a PostgreSQL database server on the same box. You would not want to
run a service the size of Github on this but for a personal repository it is
more than enough. If your projects get so popular that they outgrow the
hardware or VPS just move to a higher tier.

[1] [https://gogs.io/](https://gogs.io/)

[2] [https://gitea.io/](https://gitea.io/)

------
JumpCrisscross
Microsoft was the second most frequent contributor on Github (to Google)[1].

[1] [https://medium.freecodecamp.org/the-top-contributors-to-
gith...](https://medium.freecodecamp.org/the-top-contributors-to-
github-2017-be98ab854e87)

~~~
EnderMB
Absolutely, and this has been the case for many years. Microsoft has
contributed to open source heavily for a long time, but it won't stop a lot of
people that have been burned in the past from not trusting Microsoft.

~~~
TheAceOfHearts
It's worth noting that the same goes for Apple. They have tons of closed
source stuff, but they also make huge contributions to the open source world.
If it weren't for them we wouldn't have LLVM or Clang as they exist today.
WebKit is another big one.

------
madspindel
Tbh, I like this move. I hope they will merge Atom with VS Code and shutdown
VSTS in favor for GitHub.

~~~
the_trapper
I'm also optimistic they'll revamp GitHub's pricing structure. Their current
price of $7 a month is absolutely absurd for individual developers. I can get
a pretty decent VPS for $2 a month cheaper. Considering that most of their
competitors give small teams free private repos, their price should be half of
that. I understand that they have a lot of open source projects to subsidize
and all, but I highly doubt a lot of individual developers are biting at that
price.

~~~
gkya
I don't understand why a solo dev needs to host his private repos somewhere.
You can just keep it on your machine, and have it backed up with the rest of
your data. And given git is distributed, you should be able to work with teams
w/o requiring Github.

~~~
the_trapper
It's a convenience thing for me. As a hobbyist solo dev it'd be nice to have a
place to work on code across different devices in private and then open it up
when I feel the code is mature enough and the time is right to put it out
there under an open source license.

Right now I use VSTS for private repos, but it'd be nice to be on GitHub were
the vast majority of open source projects are hosted.

------
cjhanks
Microsoft being an owner here doesn't bother me that much.

The Azure integrations are inevitable. I guess we'll see if Microsoft has
learned that strong-armed vendor lock-in makes people not like them. At this
point, I am more glad they were acquired by Microsoft than Amazon. Still -
there is still so much Microsoft ill-will, that this will take away the aura
of 'software purity' from the GitHub.

Microsoft, please be a kind steward... I don't want to waste time migrating.

------
atesti
I consider this a huge waste of money on Microsoft's part.

Why did they create and then shutter codeplex in the first place? Why can't we
have multiple competing platforms (Google Code, Github, Codeplex, Sourceforge,
bitbucket, etc.)?

If I were Microsoft I'd rather invest a smaller amount of money (it surely is
much cheaper than acquiring Github!) into making Codeplex the best platform.

And then I'd just do a traditional way of forcing people a bit: Why did
Microsoft put their software on Github, a competitor? Why not force people a
little bit into your ecosystem? Why give up the fight for winner takes it all
every single time??? If I were Microsoft I were a bit more proud to use
Codeplex, Windows phones, Windows instead of Mac, etc...

Why shutter MSN messenger for Skype? Why making apps for iphone first before
Windows phone? Why does Microsoft not simply fund their projects (Windows
Mobile had a head start and was abandoned, tablet PCs were already there with
XP) and try to compete and create an ecosystem full of solutions working
together?

Of course it's kind of nice to see Microsoft embracing github and being more
open etc. But where's the fight? Why give up all the time?

Why letting codeplex die when all we need is a bit competititon.

~~~
TheCabin
You need to reach a critical mass of users. In contrast to Github, neither
Codeplex nor Windows phone did that.

------
7ewis
Putting aside my general dislike for Microsoft for a moment, I still believe
this is bad for the tech industry.

It was great having a neutral player running the site, I don't think anyone
should own them. GitHub would be best as a nonprofit, though unfortunately I
don't think that will ever happen.

Imagine if CNN for example bought Twitter, would other news companies use
Twitter still? Probably not.

Will Google, Amazon etc. move their code elsewhere? Maybe. But we will no
longer have a centralised git repo, whether that's a good or bad thing.

GitLab have already said they're having 10x the amount of normal traffic
migrating GitHub repos to them.

Will employers now ask to see your GitHub/GitLab/Bitbucket profiles?

~~~
oculusthrift
yeah but frankly 10x of a small number is still a small number. we still have
to see what the real numbers are.

------
ancarda
If you're thinking of moving off GitHub, one thing that I have heard about
that might help you is you can ask GitHub to mirror repos, the way
[https://github.com/moodle/moodle](https://github.com/moodle/moodle) looks --
note it says:

    
    
        moodle/moodle
        mirrored from git://git.moodle.org/moodle.git
    

That way any URLs to your GitHub repo should carry on working. People can even
clone and pull this repo. That may ease migration, especially if some tools
assume code is on GitHub and don't allow you to specify the full URL to the
repo.

~~~
sverige
This will certainly be one of the first features to be deprecated once the
deal goes through. _Quietly_ deprecated, of course.

------
ceohockey60
Just like how no e-commerce/retailer wants to use AWS for competitive reasons,
now no tech company who hosts its codebase on GitHub would want to continue
doing that if its MSFT-owned. It's already happening:
[https://twitter.com/nixcraft/status/1003388106626629632](https://twitter.com/nixcraft/status/1003388106626629632)

~~~
Jdam
> Just like how no e-commerce/retailer wants to use AWS for competitive reason

My former employer, a major e-commerce player in Europe and a direct
competitor of Amazon, had basically their entire infrastucture on AWS. You
might want to reconsider your definition of “no”.

~~~
zxcvhjkl
Just because someone did it, it doesn’t mean it’s wise and advisable. Just
saying.

------
autarch
I don't understand how GitHub has been unable to become profitable. Anyone
know more and want to share some details?

~~~
nvarsj
My guess is they built a very expensive system for the kind of scale they
support. It's all RoR and sharded mysql right? Considering how dynamic it is,
the resources to power that must be mind boggling.

~~~
user5994461
The costs of the fancy office and the workforce should be quite high as well.

The cash flow is probably good but even with a million customers at $5 a
month, that's not enough to sustain a large company.

------
lapinot
Hop, that's one thing less to do tomorrow! ... of course it was just a matter
of time before it happened, github have stood on the other side of the mirror
for a long time now, they just happend to have kept that not-for-
profit/garage-built-startup image for some time, kinda like twitter. Or reddit
and even y combinator. And yet people comment stuff like _" let's switch to
{gitlab,bitbucket,gogs}"_. We need to understand that making a self-hostable
floss clone of a service that has been designed for a monopoly captive market
is not gonna change anything durably. Build something based on small friend-
to-friend networks. Something that doesn't need to be big to suceed. That will
slowly change the way people think about collaborative tools and get people
out of the "giant ad-based ex-startup owned; `free' (as in beer) to use;
hosted service" mental model. _Please stop building services and start sharing
collaborative tools with your peers._

------
geekjock
I recently built a GitHub Markeplace app
([https://pullreminders.com](https://pullreminders.com)) and have been really
impressed by GitHub's ecosystem strategy. They seem to taking lessons from
Slack's success and doubling down on supporting integrators who provide
valuable apps and features built on top of GitHub (ie. TravisCI, ZenHub). I
hope this direction continues under new ownership.

GitLab on the other hand is focused on solving every facet of the development
lifecycle within their core product. From their blog post about GitHub's
acquisition:

> ... instead of integrating multiple tools together, we believe a single
> application, built from the ground up to support the entire DevOps lifecycle
> is a better experience leading to a faster cycle time.

It will be interesting to see how the different strategies play out.

P.S. Here's the GitHub Marketplace:
[https://github.com/marketplace](https://github.com/marketplace)

------
greenhatman
I bet GitLab is getting infrastructure ready in anticipation of the exodus.

~~~
sureaboutthis
The exodus began a number of days ago when this was just a rumor.

------
NicoJuicy
I think a couple of people will change to gitlab or alternatives because of
how Microsoft was in the 90's.

But that Microsoft has changed, I see the most what people are complaining
about is telemetry that is send, for following up on their biggest product.
But all companies do this ( eg. [https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/28/its-not-
just-you-clicking-...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/28/its-not-just-you-
clicking-on-links-in-ios-9-3-can-crash-your-iphone/) ), also open source
applications eg. Ubuntu,.. do this.

Microsoft has changed and I think they want to show it too, because I think
they have more to lose if they fail with GitHub then when they succeed (with
more integration for visualstudio.com probably)

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
> I think a couple of people will change to gitlab or alternatives because of
> how Microsoft was in the 90's.

And because of how Microsoft was in the 2000s, and the 2010s. Ballmer was
after the 90s. Did they ever stop suing Android manufacturers for using FAT,
or open up exFAT after managing to get it as part of the SDXC standard?

> also open source applications eg. Ubuntu,.. do this

...Yeah, Ubuntu did that. Not Debian. Not Fedora. Not Arch. Not Gentoo. Even
RHEL barely phones home enough to check its license and get updates. And in
Ubuntu, the single Linux distro to have done this, you could toggle it off in
5 minutes and it would actually respect your choice, rather than
"accidentally" resetting to the most invasive set of options every other
update after you spend hours hunting the latest set of registry hacks that
make it better.

> Microsoft has changed and I think they want to show it too

I agree that they want to show that they've changed. I even agree that the
current ecosystem is forcing them to change some. I also expect them to pull
something the moment they think they can get away with it.

------
blauditore
I wonder what the reaction would have been with Apple being the acquirer.
Microsoft still receives lots of hate, sometimes justified, but often just
baseless. On the other hand, whenever Apple fucks devs (or users) over,
they're just "protecting users" or "making business decisions". I feel there's
a strong bias in the dev community.

~~~
aldanor
I bet the reaction would have been largely the same; a megacorp monopoly is a
megacorp monopoly.

That being said, Apple did make a few nice moves lately -- e.g., open-sourcing
FoundationDB (when was the last time Microsoft opened up anything it
acquired?).

------
cft
I doubt that Google or Amazon will use GitHub to opensource anything two years
from now.

~~~
andyidsinga
I was just thinking the same thing.

If github ends up running completely on Azure infrastructure; how likely will
microsoft's competitor's be to host large projects there.

that said, I'm not sure the impact will be too negative if google or _______'s
open source being on some other git-based system if it includes decent github
/ gitlab like collab tools.

------
pavlov
...And in the comments, a thousand developers suddenly realize GitHub is a
plain old business rather than some kind of core infrastructure service
altruistically provided by Free Software Elves and their Infinite Bandwidth
Rainbow.

------
wand3r
My dissenting opinion is that this is good. I am not a Windows user and only
peripherally use their services however ironically I believe Microsoft is now
the challenger if monopolies:

\- Bing is one of the only english search engines with a big userbase;
provides a google alternative. I like ddg but it isnt mainstream yet.

\- Provides alternative to gmail and enterprise services

\- a big 3 cloud provider, competes with AWS and GC. Likely why this github
acq makes sense

\- runs linkedin to keep fb in competition

There are a lot of examples where they drop the ball, but they are
surprisingly the challenger in a lot of new markets providing an alt to the
leader/incumbent

------
sarpmis
Get ready to merge your Github account with your Office 365 and Skype accounts

~~~
Zekio
doesn't seem like something that will happen, just look at LinkedIn, they
don't even have MS Account logins

------
0xFFFE
Maybe this is an unpopular question.

People unwilling to pay for a service they think is important for their work,
yet lose their shit when the the said service does what is best for them. That
is, to be sustainable.

AFAIK, GH charges for private repos and yet they are not-profitable. Gitlab
offers free private repos, how will the story end differently?

EDIT: Typo

------
CM30
Oh god, I hope not. Anytime a big company acquires almost anything, the
quality level drops off a cliff. Microsoft with Skype is the obvious example,
but so is anything bought by Google (like YouTube).

Add to this the bad experience we had with Sourceforge, and I definitely worry
it could be all over for GitHub if this is true.

~~~
singularity2001
I was going to quote YouTube as the one counterexample to your otherwise valid
rule. What's wrong with YouTube? (other than being part of the Google
Surveillance State GoStaPo)

~~~
CM30
Videos get demonetised for questionable or non reasons

Subscribers don't see videos from those they're subscribed to in their home
page(a depressingly large percentage of the time).

Things like the YouTube inbox are so 'well' pushed to the background that most
people don't remember they exist, let alone know how to use them for anything.

Recommendations are borked, and often consist of videos you've already seen
ten times (maybe even ten times today).

Rules in general seem to applied based on how popular a YouTuber is/how much
money they bring in instead of what they actually do on the site.

Fair use is basically non existent, or very poorly applied overall. Sometimes
people are able to get paid off content they don't own and it's almost
impossible to get it taken down/demonetised, sometimes content is claimed
through complete lies by the claimant.

Google account integration means that any setup related issue can break large
parts of the site. For example, I couldn't previously get Adsense on my
account; not because I wasn't qualified, but because the account I used
Adsense with and the one I used YouTube for were different, and the merge
basically broke any chance of connecting them.

YouTube comment/channel moderation is really bad, with few tools leading to
horrendously toxic comment sections.

And then there are various bits of the interface that make me wonder exactly
who designed them. For example, you've got a username, display name and
channel name, and all can be completely different from one another. Or
conflict. This makes it easy to confuse or mislead people, since
youtube.com/user/[whatever] and youtube.com/c/[whatever] can be completely
different people/channels.

~~~
singularity2001
Most of these features (and problems) appeared after YT was acquired, but
demonetization and account problems (including wholesale blocking) seem
specific to Google, so I agree.

------
testplzignore
According to [https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/11/github-has-a-110-million-
run...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/11/github-has-a-110-million-run-rate-
from-business-products.html), GitHub had a run rate of $200 million in August
2017, but still is not profitable per the Bloomberg article. The writing was
on the wall here. They've focused on user growth and solidifiying their
infrastructure, without much concern for profit - of course they're looking
for an exit.

I wonder if they chose to not go public due to the overlap with the Atlassian
market. There wouldn't be much to distinguish themselves in an IPO. They are -
in the minds of many developers - better and cooler than Atlassian, but with
less revenue. Perhaps GitHub figured a buyout had the better expected value,
rather than risk being viewed as a me-too by investors.

I never really understood why GitHub succeeded over a decentralized model.
It's a social network for a service that does not need to be a social network.
The small git hosting services that existed before GitHub got huge were just
fine. It's like what Reddit did to smaller forums - Reddit was not better, but
it won the popularity lottery when Digg destroyed itself. I think the internet
would be better without these massive centralized services. I hope the users
who do decide to flee GitHub don't aggregate elsewhere and end up in the same
situation a few years from now.

------
bob33212
I talked to a VP from MSFT last year. He asked how MSFT could do a better job
appealing to the open source community and start up community. I said just
keep doing what you are doing. It is going to take time for those of us that
were around during the Balmer days to be willing to believe that MSTF has
turned a corner. I think that they are on the right path, but I certainly
don't judge anyone who is skeptical about the future of github. I've been on
gitlab since 2011 so it don't make much difference to me.

------
nicodjimenez
This is seriously depressing. GitHub had such massive network effects that
you'd think if anyone could stay independent it would be them.

------
jkells
Perhaps an unpopular opinion around here but I see nothing but positives in
this announcement.

This move towards a "good" Microsoft has been going on for a decade, ASP.NET
MVC was released as Open Source in 2009. Seeing where they're going with .NET
core, VSCode and TypeScript makes me pretty confident they will be good
stewards of the site.

Microsoft had their own open source hosting solution Codeplex but closed it
and migrated all their stuff to GitHub so they could be where the community
was. That was a bold move and I think demonstrates how they see the community
now. This isn't the Microsoft of the 90's.

GitHub is great but it's not profitable and I'm sure there are lots of
improvements they could make with a bit of a cash injection.

On the flip side if Microsoft stuff it up or there is an exodus from Microsoft
because people hate Microsoft, that's not such a bad thing either.

There are great alternatives out there, it's not the same landscape as when
GitHub launched, everyone's learnt from GitHub, GitHub's biggest feature is
the network effect. Everyone has an account and it's super low friction to
contribute there. If we can break that a bit and everyone has an account at 2
or 3 places I think we might see some great innovation as competitors try to
differentiate themselves.

Finally on that point. Bitbucket is awesome, you can build apps that are
integrated directly into the UI
[https://developer.atlassian.com/cloud/bitbucket/](https://developer.atlassian.com/cloud/bitbucket/)

~~~
noah-kun
In case you haven't seen it already:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish)

TL;DR, Microsoft's known strategy is to feign goodness, then use the goodwill
to kill competition, especially in the open standards/open source area.

------
foepys
Every business that built their service around the GitHub ecosystem will get
massively screwed. They should immediately start to integrate as many GitHub
competitors as possible or Microsoft will just eat them within the next
months. GitHub always wanted to concentrate on the code hosting, not the
CI/CD, code quality, code analysis, etc parts but Microsoft will soon start to
extend GitHub to support Azure's services directly.

------
geff82
GitHub was never conceived as a charity. But this didn't stop people to put
half of the world's open source code centrally on this one platform. Now they
are crying/worried because this platform is being sold. Can't really
understand your point, guys. That is the way it often goes with commercial
enterprises. It's quite an irony that free/open source makes this platform so
financially interesting to buy.

~~~
kylehotchkiss
I use it for work like everybody else here, but being so comfortable and happy
with it, I paid $7/month for a few private repos which maybe used $.02/month
in their resources. Just a shame companies and the developers paying for it
wasn't enough

------
Yizahi
At least it's not Oracle

~~~
Gibbon1
I searched through the comments to see if anyone else had the same thought I
did.

------
feelix
Does it strike anyone else as ironic that Linus, the creator of linux, wrote
git, which then went on to be used for github... and that it was good enough
that Linus decided to use it to host linux on github, and then Microsoft
bought it? So now, unless it gets moved, the linux kernel is going to be
hosted on Microsoft's platform, even though git itself was created by the
creator of linux.

~~~
gkoberger
Linux doesn't use GitHub for anything other than a mirror, and Linus famously
hates GitHub.

(More reading: [https://www.wired.com/2012/05/torvalds-
github/](https://www.wired.com/2012/05/torvalds-github/))

~~~
feelix
Point taken when you say it's only used as a mirror... but he doesn't hate it.
He both dislikes it and likes it. This is FTA:

"The hosting of github is excellent," he said. "They've done a good job on
that. I think GitHub should be commended enormously for making open source
project hosting so easy."

But then he listed a few other things he doesn't like about GitHub, including
"the way you can clone a [code repository], make changes on the web, and write
total crap commit messages, without GitHub in any way making sure that the end
result looks good."

------
godzillabrennus
Gitlab is a good solution for most folks. They have a for profit business
powered by open source software.

~~~
TAForObvReasons
GH also had a for-profit business. Apparently the profits weren't enough, but
they were profitable and bootstrapped in their early days

~~~
codexon
It says in the article:

GitHub, which has been trying for nine months to find a new CEO and _has yet
to make a profit_ from its popular service that allows coders to share and
collaborate on their work.

~~~
timr
And why exactly do you think that GitLab is any more profitable than Github?

~~~
codexon
I never said it was. I am just pointing out that the article says Github
hasn't even turned a profit yet while the OP said they were profitable.

~~~
timr
Fair enough. The parent said "early days", though. It's fairly common for
reporters to get this stuff wrong.

------
bluefox
From a recent github blog post: "Millions of developers trust us with their
data—and protecting their privacy is a top priority for us."

Now these millions of developers will face a dilemma.

------
carlchenet
Some years ago I wrote "The Github Threat" [https://carlchenet.com/the-github-
threat/](https://carlchenet.com/the-github-threat/) and I'll be delighted to
update the conclusion with this quite predictable and logical outcome.

------
hnrodey
Personally, I think this is great news given the investment Microsoft has made
in hosting their open source projects on GitHub. I'm heavily invested in the
Microsoft stack so I'm kind of excited to see where they take this.

Also, I'm excited because I'm in the middle of launching a product that aims
to build people in to Git experts, or at the bare minimum build up your
comfort level with Git to make you productive.

I'd love for you to check it out. This open source version is kind of the
basis for my upcoming commercial project.

[https://github.com/ryanrodemoyer/git-
evangelism](https://github.com/ryanrodemoyer/git-evangelism).

Also, let's connect if you're in the Denver area. You can find my email
through my GitHub account or comment on my message.

------
EchelonFuxMe
Speaking of fickle developers, I'm already planning my exit.

Any mention of Microsoft is enough to turn me off, I have seen enough - I have
had enough.

~~~
parvenu74
And... what has Microsoft done to you lately? Gates is playing international
philanthropist; Ballmer is playing NBA owner. The new regime not only likes
open source and contribute massively to open source projects, they joined the
Linux Foundation at the _Platinum_ level... there are a lot of "good open
source companies" with deep pockets who haven't done that. Like Google.

[https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press-release/microsoft-
fort...](https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press-release/microsoft-fortifies-
commitment-to-open-source-becomes-linux-foundation-platinum-member/)

[https://www.linuxfoundation.org/membership/members/](https://www.linuxfoundation.org/membership/members/)

~~~
jakebasile
I am forced to use Windows for gaming, and let me tell you what Microsoft has
done to me lately.

\- Forced updates are a travesty. I should be able to delay or ignore updates
indefinitely as I own my computer.

\- I'm not allowed to not run an antivirus program, despite having no need of
one. I can only temporarily pause Windows Defender's real-time checks before
they'll helpfully turn it back on for me. This results in a loss of gaming
performance.

\- Turning off their spying telemetry is essentially impossible and will
helpfully turn itself back on.

\- They hold some good games hostage and refuse to release them on Windows
(Halo Master Chief Collection) since they don't take gaming seriously on PC.

\- Every once in a while, they become dedicated to PC gaming again which
simply means they will use their power to force something awful onto the
community, like the Windows Xbox Game Bar, Games for Windows Live, etc. in
their quest to make my gaming PC into an Xbox.

\- UWP is trash and greatly restricts what the user can do with their game,
such as mods or fan patches to fix bugs developers ignore.

\- The Windows Store is horrible in and of itself and is full of even more low
quality software. Instead of releasing their games on Steam, Origin, GOG, or
even UPlay, they force them into this dumpster fire.

\- They install Candy Crush and other drivel by default on a fresh copy of
Windows, and sometimes it magically reappears.

Just because Microsoft has put on the "I'm changed!" act recently by releasing
some FOSS and donating some money does not mean they have actually stopped
being a negative influence.

~~~
parvenu74
> Forces updates are a travesty.

You can disable this. Google on the use for modifying the hosts file to block
your machine's access to Windows Update if you're not sure how to do this.

> They hold some games hostage and refuse to release them on Windows...

Wait -- I thought you were forced, as a gamer, to use Windows. I don't follow.

> UWP is trash...

This is true. UWP tries to be many things, like a single container for
desktop, tablet, and (Windows) mobile apps. In the end it mostly fails.

> I'm not allowed to not run an antivirus program.

Uh, dude: I run Windows 7 and Windows 10 machines and none of them FORCE me to
use antivirus. They nag about it for a while but those alerts and nags can be
disabled.

~~~
reificator
> _You can disable this. Google on the use for modifying the hosts file to
> block your machine 's access to Windows Update if you're not sure how to do
> this._

That's not disabling Windows Update, that's hacking name resolution to prevent
the connection itself. That's like saying you can disable Windows Update by
not connecting to the internet.

And I'm not even confident that the host file solution will last forever, in
future you might have to do it from the router level instead.

> _Wait -- I thought you were forced, as a gamer, to use Windows. I don 't
> follow._

If you play PC games you are effectively forced to use the Windows ecosystem.
Several of my favorite games are available on macOS/Linux, but it's like
watching movies. You might watch Blazing Saddles and Evil Dead 2 on a regular
basis, but you're also going to want some variety in there as well.

What the GP is saying though is that Microsoft is holding game franchises as
XBox exclusives to try to slow their marketshare bleed. They are taking
franchises that were formerly present (if delayed) on Windows such as Halo and
using them to sell XBoxes.

------
simon_acca
Ask yourself and ask your dev friends, who is paying for Github? I personally
don't know a single person that is subscribed to it even after spending 5
years in academia and several others in the job pool. And yet every single
person that I know && that can code is more than acquainted with github!

Now this could be the result of a lack of business acumen on github's part or
stubborness from the users. In any case, it might be too late for github now,
but I will myself conduct a review of the free services that I use regularly
and reconsider pitching in, since I value independent businesses.

EDIT: looks like my experience may be atypical, that’s good! Just for
anecdata, would you include where you live as part of your replies? In my case
it’s central europe.

~~~
saagarjha
> I personally don't know a single person that is subscribed to it even after
> spending 5 years in academia and several others in the job pool.

You're looking at the wrong people. It's companies who are paying for GitHub.

~~~
simon_acca
And yet the article mentions losses, companies might not be enough

------
geuis
I may be in the minority. I’ve had a change of heart over the last 5 years or
so towards Microsoft. They’ve changed a lot of the practices that used to make
me not like them. They’ve embraced open source a lot more than in the past and
have clamped down a lot on the anti competitive practices they used for
decades. I also have a good friend that works there and I’ve seen how the
sausage is made from the inside a bit. They treat their employees really well
and from what I’ve experienced they’re a good company to work for.

I don’t have a hard opinion on this acquisition for the OSS community, but it
will be good for the employees and I’m hopeful that not much will change with
Github as a service and somethings may even get better. Time will tell of
course.

------
beenBoutIT
GitLab's prayers have been answered. Hopefully they can make GitLab easier to
use.

------
bigbugbag
Great news ! Maybe now people will understand why github was the wrong was to
do things.

Using a designed to be decentralized development tool and flocking all in one
place, centralizing free software development on proprietary centralized
platform is the epitome of not doing things the way they should.

Hopefully people will catch the difference between opensource which microsoft
is surfing on in a PR effort to regain prestige and free software which is a
nemesis of microsoft.

Now let's see projects scramble to find another centralized place to migrate
to in order to keep doing things wrong, and see which ones do not care enough
to even do this.

~~~
ojosilva
But what would be the alternative then? I mean, GH serves as the de facto
opensource social network, it allows private and public collaboration and
integrates with many tools creating a web of transparency and free flow of
knowledge.

How do we make a similar or comparable service that is decentralized yet
transparent and instantly accesible to millions of people across the globe?

------
ausjke
So it's time to move on, is gitlab up for the job? or bitbucket? or everyone
should run a gitea/gogs container on their $5 vps?

While I use vscode sometimes for web hacking, I use geany/vim for anything
else, other than that, I have nothing to do with Microsoft whatsoever, and
yes, I run linux as my desktop for the last 15+ years.

Money talks, Microsoft is embracing OSS because it's defeated by OSS, it never
liked OSS, and it does all these moves just because it has no better options.

And, who knows,it might be the modern Trojan to ruin us all when time comes, I
have no doubts on this when I recall how hostile MS has been to OSS.

------
chrissnell
Can you imagine how this story would have gone over on Slashdot in 1998?
Microsoft was the Borg, Linux was the nerd's favorite OS and Google was a
benevolent and powerful new search engine. How the tables have turned...

------
throwaway080383
The final step will be acquiring StackOverflow. After that, nearly every
developer will find their next job via Microsoft.

------
ocdtrekkie
I don't mind this, as long as the side of Microsoft which has been on GitHub
so far as the side of Microsoft who ends up dealing with GitHub in the future.

But this will definitely end the concept of GitHub as a single-source place to
find code. Microsoft's competitors will likely move their code, at the least,
and of course, the crowd who will never trust Microsoft will leave as well,
regardless of how well they manage it.

All-in-all, I don't think that's a bad thing for anyone: Software shouldn't
all come from one site, and the industry was becoming far too centralized
around GitHub.

------
singularity2001
Github to Gitlab migration:

[https://gitlab.com/import/github/new](https://gitlab.com/import/github/new)

EDIT: the old links were useless:

[https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/import/github.html](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/import/github.html)

I'm stuck here:

[https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/integration/github.html](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/integration/github.html)

what is the gitlab Authorization callback URL?

------
pronik
We've been lamenting the github-centralization of open-source for years now,
this might be the wake-up call people have been waiting for. Rightly so.
Gitlab ops people might be in for a treat tonight.

------
textmode
Any plans to make backups/archives before Microsoft takes over? There is an
enormous volume of useful open source code from individual authors on Github.
A pleasing respite from the world of team-developed commercial software. It is
difficult to imagine Github could remain the number distribution channel for
individual authors of non-commercial code when it is run under the auspices of
a large, proprietary enterprise and consumer software company.

Since its inception, I have been using simple tcp/http clients and text-only
browsers to download and browse source code from stable Github urls, as I did
throughout the 90's with Freshmeat, Sourceforge, etc. To its credit, Github
has always been very accessible.

What are the chances this kind of accessibilty will continue to be possible if
Github is being administered by Microsoft. Direct downloads of small, source
code files, many with no licensing restrictions, no sign-ups, no web browser
required, no hassle... Microsoft has never managed anything like that.
Microsoft has always done the opposite. Indirect downloads of large
collections of binaries, often coupled with installers, licensing
restrictions, usually requiring some sign-up or click-through agreement, and
today, possibly with telemetry.

I hope I am wrong to be concerned about this takeover. Will Github continue to
be the respository service of choice amongst authors of free source code?
Perhaps some will pull out and move their code elsewhere.

------
m4shd0t
IMO, Microsoft will most likely take a hands-off approach. They would not want
some people's frights to be realized, and they would appreciate developers
being okay with their acquisition.

------
clarke78
I was really hoping GitHub would focus on a IPO vs. acquisition. I honestly
think we would be saying the same things about Google/Apple if they had
decided to swoop in and make a deal here (so none of what I say is directed
specifically at Microsoft).

I think the general consensus is that we want a new, independent org, that
genuinely cares about OSS but has the mind to create/maintain a sustainable
business model and ensure the long-term success of an OSS platforms is
extremely important (and now we'll look to Gitlab and others for that).

Microsoft will, no doubt, have their fingers all over this platform in short
order. It's what they're paying for; and it's an extremely smart move
(EXTREMELY). Some of GitHubs product offerings have competitors within the
Microsoft ecosystem already, which may spell bad times for those long-term.
Atom directly competes with VSCode and it simply doesn't make sense to
continue development of two, independent, IDEs. Electron utilizes Chromium
under the hood, and I'd be hard pressed to thunk Microsoft wouldn't want to
try and inject Edge/Chakra into that platform somehow.

It makes good business sense to consolidate efforts once a company is
acquired. I give it, at most, 12-18 months before you start seeing major
changes to both of those platforms that reflect Microsofts own interests.

------
suranyami
It looks like you’re trying to issue a Pull Request! Would you like to use
Visual Studio Azure Github for Windows 2000, Enterprise Edition with Skype &
Linkedin Integration?

[https://www.redbubble.com/people/suranyami/works/32080448-it...](https://www.redbubble.com/people/suranyami/works/32080448-it-
looks-like-youre-trying-to-issue-a-pull-request?asc=u&ref=recent-owner)

------
ptrkrlsrd
To everyone switching to GitLab or considering it: Theres a feature on GitLab
where you can import all your GitHub repos in on go. Or you can do it one by
one if you want.

------
mythrwy
I can't believe Microsoft isn't aware an exodus (at some level) will occur and
Github will no longer be what it is if they buy it.

But apparently they don't care. Demonstrating they have not changed as so many
claim but are still the same old M$.

I'll be closing my account as soon as this is official. As for clients who
decide to stay, sorry, I won't be able to help them as I won't have a Github
account. But I will walk them through moving if they like.

------
brazzledazzle
Based on the way Microsoft has been “punishing” their on-prem customers since
they started pushing O365 this has me a bit concerned about the fate of GitHub
Enterprise.

------
mhartl
_As [Microsoft CEO Satya] Nadella increasingly moves the company away from
complete dependence on the Windows operating system to more in-house
development on Linux, the company needs new ways to connect with the broader
developer community._

If you told me ten years ago that someday Microsoft would buy GitHub as part
of its strategy to do "more in-house development on Linux", I'd have assumed
the acquisition was announced on April 1.

------
Distant_horizon
Smart and inevitable, to secure dominance in the talent vertical. I remember
walking into an org where none of the engineers or UX folks had Linkedin
accounts. They didn't need it to land in a healthy workplace w/ a decent
salary. They were active on GitHub instead, had Angellist profiles. One of
them mentioned LI's InMail tool drove him away. Another said he can network
just fine with Meetup and twitter.

Edited those typos.

------
shiado
Deleting my accounts tonight. I just can't stomach a future Microsoft Github
Azure™ 365 Enterprise Edition with LinkedIn™ integration. Fucking gross.

------
ageofwant
I'm a paying Github customer, I'm very uncomfortable with giving Microsoft any
money. Not after what they have done to me. Not after what they have done to
my friends, and my family. Time heals all wounds they say, but fool me
twice...

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYOXuOg9tQI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYOXuOg9tQI)

------
anothergoogler
Microsoft paying $2B for a company based on Linus Torvalds' work, unreal.

~~~
geoalchimista
It's probably not for the platform, but for the user base and the community.

------
randop
As for me, I also dislike Github being owned by Microsoft. Big conflict of
interest. Microsoft core business is closed-source software.

But, it's not wrong to give Microsoft a chance to cultivate Github. Yes,
Microsoft have a long track record of being disproportion with open source
products. This is also true with other companies.

Good thing to point out is, there are alternatives.

------
carlosdp
"The acquisition provides a way forward for San Francisco-based GitHub, which
has been trying for nine months to find a new CEO and has yet to make a profit
from its popular service that allows coders to share and collaborate on their
work."

Github was profitable day 1 from what I remember, before they took the $100
million from Andreseen, right?

------
SubiculumCode
Extinguish.

I mean, if I had wanted to troll. Still..almost everything about MS's choices
in Win10 (aside from Linux Subsystem) bother me.

------
pcarolan
What is Github's reason for this? I'm looking for some salient reason why
they'd sell their company. Is it investor pressure or founder apathy, or ...?
It seems to me like creating and running a product as admired as Github is a
bigger prize than just cash in the game of life?

“Man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely; or to be that
thing which is the natural and proper object of love. He naturally dreads, not
only to be hated, but to be hateful; or to be that thing which is the natural
and proper object of hatred. He desires, not only praise, but
praiseworthiness; or to be that thing which, though it should be praised by
nobody, is, however, the natural and proper object of praise. He dreads, not
only blame, but blameworthiness; or to be that thing which, though, it should
be blamed by nobody, is, however, the natural and proper object of blame.”

~ Adam Smith

------
scarface74
Microsoft's own hosted platform Visual Studio Team Services is nuetral. It
supports hosted and on prem build and deployment agents for Windows, Linux,
Android, and iOS. There are easy to use plug ins for building and deploying on
both Azure and AWS. You can use Github now for hosted git repositories in VSTS
and still use Microsoft's other build and release tools.

Thier Wiki is Markdown based and they have a very visible link that lets you
pull down your entire Wiki using git clone.

They also have free private repos, 40 hours of hosted builds, up to five users
for free, project management features that are at least as good (or as bad
depending on your perspective) as the other project management tools - again
free for up to five users. You can also host your own private Nuget, NPM, and
Maven feeds for free.

For non open source projects, you can't beat the value. Additional users over
5 are $5 a month.

~~~
bauerd
I think you ascribe different meaning to "neutral" than most others here

~~~
scarface74
I ascribe "neutral" to technology. VSTS supports every major platform/OS and
the tools are on par for all of them.

~~~
rbanffy
Unfortunately, the company that owns it profits from Windows sales and doesn't
profit from any other OS.

~~~
UK-Al05
They profit from Linux. They host it on azure and have their own distribution.

------
jas-
Does this remind anyone else of the back to the future movie where Biff is the
free worlds leader and just a pompous asshat with the power to keep being a
pompous asshat?

Having watched Microsoft over the years steal ideas from smaller companies
(not purchase them then bastardize and part them out mind you), but actually
steal their ideas and make them standard in their operating system.

Some examples are CDR/CDRW now standard after small companies in the late 90's
developing the standard.

The bastardized implementation of Active Directory after Novell's Netware
platform and the later implementations of OpenLDAP and the standards that were
spurned.

What about the MIT Kerberos authentication mechanisms after Microsofts
MsCHAPv2, MsCHAP & NTLM roll your own crypto schemes were found easily
crackable and exploitable?

I can go on but actually have to do some work today...

------
maxxxxx
If somebody of the size of GitHub can't manage to stay a standalone company
it's a pretty sad state of affairs. We really need more players in this
industry. It's becoming more and more a monoculture (not sure what the term is
for a few players that together pretty much have monopoly. Oligopoly?)

------
cup-of-tea
All good things must come to an end. We had free software before Github and we
will have free software after Github.

------
billfruit
My fear in this is that MS may require MS passport or whatever it is called ID
system to log in to GitHub, with their really unreasonable 16 character max
password length restrictions.In general MS websites are poor in usability, and
littered with marketing copy, difficult to find useful information.

------
aquova
I'm not that big of a fan of Microsoft to begin with, but I definitely see a
reason to be wary about this. I don't really want any Microsoft integration
into GitHub, and really the best case would be for them to not change much
with the site at all, although I don't see this being the case.

------
skriticos2
I read about this as a hypothetical a few days, but it really moved to done
deal quicker than I expected.

I started to look for alternatives to host private repos and found that Amazon
CodeCommit has a plan that's even much better than the GitHub plans. Does
anybody have experience on how well this works?

~~~
wiredfool
I’ve got a couple of code commit repos for various purposes, and it’s high
friction. Uploading a large repo with a plain git push will likely fail. The
user management is way more complicated and enterprisey than github. It does
work, but it feels awkward.

------
sandebert
I can imagine the people at GitLab being very excited about this! Perhaps
sytse would like to comment?

------
bwblabs
I think instead of moving everything to one new (central hosted) silo like
GitLab.com, we should move to self hosted git instances, with some GitHub like
web interface to do remote comments/pull requests (e.g. gitea/gogs with some
simple modifications).

------
victor106
Moving all my projects to gitlab. For those wondering why gitlab is different
see this comment from another HN thread

[https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=yogthos](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=yogthos)

------
zanny
This is the "extend" phase, in case anyone is keeping track. The embrace was
"MS loves Linux!", switching Windows to use git, and putting tons of near
random libraries and projects on github publically (vscode, chakracore, etc).

I just love how anyone that cards had been actively avoiding walled garden
proprietary services like this and were using gitlab, phabticator, etc for
years saying this or anything similar (could have just been github starting to
sell user data themselves) but only when big evil MS comes along to put the
reality in peoples faces that you don't bet your software infrastructure on
some proprietary non interoperable web service.

------
wmij
There probably won't be (m)any noticeable changes for the open source and devs
running personal private repos and possibly the same for GitHub team plans.
However, I'd bet Microsoft will plan on a sunset timetable for TFS and push
their licensing and sales machine toward GitHub for Enterprise. I'm glad my
group isn't on GitHub for Enterprise because after seeing this news I'd be
looking to migrate away ASAP. I can envision the the potential for their
draconian licensing lock-in and TOS language spawning a nightmare for teams
that are running GH Enterprise. These GH enterprise installations will likely
be required to purchase MSDN licenses.

~~~
alkonaut
Why would they sunset TFS (Or VSTS)? I use both and there is barely _any_
overlap in features. GitHub is only code storage + a rudimentary issue
manager. There is very little release management, test management, CI/CD etc.

If anything I’d expect them to integrate better and of course integrate more
with Azure (e.g one-click setup of build/test on azure from any Github
project)

~~~
wmij
> Why would they sunset TFS (Or VSTS)?

Admittedly I've been away from TFS for a number of years, however, it seems
that GitHub Enterprise is a natural fit product wise for revenue stream via
licensing thru MSDN to get organizations onboard with GitHub that weren't
before. If they were to sunset TFS and provide a migration path, it would end
up giving them significant licensing dollars.

The more important point I was trying to make is that orgs that are now on
GitHub Enterprise would need to subscribe to MSDN enterprise licenses for a
bunch of things that aren't relevant and get locked into TOS that they hadn't
been previously.

Regardless of sunsetting TFS/VSTS, I think that Github Enterprise will be only
available through a MSDN enterprise/premium license or whatever that is now in
2018.

~~~
alkonaut
Superficially it seems there is some overlap, but github’s issue tracking for
example is very simple (assuming enterprise is the same, I haven’t seen it).

VSTS supports the JIRA level of features like complex workflows, hierarchical
issues, scrum/kanban boards (including hierarchical sub teams with differing
sprint dates), burndowns and hundreds of other charts.

I would love to see all that ported to github, but it just wouldn’t be GitHub
any more then.

To me they seem like VS and VS code. One is a big fat enterprisey thing and
one is lighter. The enterprise version of GitHub doesn’t seem so focused on
enterprise processes as VSTS is, but rather on enterprise infrastructure
things (auth stuff, cloud integration stuff...).

------
pier25
Gitlab must be really happy. I know my team will move out of Github if
Microsoft buys it.

------
goffi
For people looking for alternatives, I've started to write code forge tools in
Salut à Toi (on top of XMPP).

It's decentralized, already working (tickets and merge requests), based on
standards, and written in a popular language (python), help would be more than
welcome!

It is also agnostic of the tools, I'm using it with Mercurial, but Git
implementation will of course follow.

You'll find details and a demo at
[https://www.goffi.org/b/9555cc02-6a87-4b6b-af85-20f1c0736722...](https://www.goffi.org/b/9555cc02-6a87-4b6b-af85-20f1c0736722/xmpp-
based-tickets-merge-requests-with)

------
gkya
I'm kind of happy with this happening as it seems to me that this can cause
the VCS hosting arena to diversify a little bit. The "monopoly" of github
always worried me as a huge freaky single point of failure.

------
squarefoot
Now we need a GitLab alternative, just in case MS decides GitHub isn't enough.

------
some_account
I was using gitlab anyway. But it's significant that Microsoft is taking
another step towards destroying open source and the community around it (while
making it look like they are embracing it, of course).

------
zitterbewegung
So it looks like Github is going to be the next sourceforge! Onward to gitlab!

------
nottorp
Well, let's say I wouldn't switch away from github at once (I have a paid
account with private repos and all), but consider the Skype precedent: from a
mostly working native application, now it's an Electron abomination that takes
100% CPU and is a lot harder to use than the previous versions. But it has
social networking!

It's very likely they will "improve" github in the same way. I don't think
they dare to make the site explicitly not work on anything but IE, but I
expect subtle incompatibilities to pile up over time...

------
JepZ
Lets just hope Microsoft has learnt how they tend to kill good products by
merging them into their ecosystem and won't do that.

If Microsoft honestly wants to improve GitHub, they should ask the community
first.

------
m4shd0t
IMO, I think Microsoft will take a hands off approach, they don't want some of
people's fears to be realized, and they really would want a friendly attitude
towards their acquisition.

------
fntd
The negativity in here is crazy. It‘s not even official yet everyone already
seems to know that Microsoft will destroy Github. Microsoft tried really hard
to improve their relationship with developers in the last couple of years and
they surely don‘t want to spend a lot of money just to destroy the
relationship again. I can understand the scepticism and that people dislike
the fact that Github is not independant anymore, but saying that Github will
be ruined? We should be better than this.

~~~
markovbot
Are they still trying to extort "licensing fees" from Android device
manufacturers? Have they apologized for ever doing that and promised never to
do that again? Until that, I won't even consider it. Fuck Microsoft. They're
horrible and their recent attempt to go back to the "embrace" part of Embrace,
Extend, Extinguish deserves absolutely zero good will.

------
unfunco
This might be a stupid question, I did Cmd+F to search if it had already been
asked and answered and it hasn't, so it might actually be stupid.

I'm guessing it's very illegal (IANAL) and that it's not the intention of
Microsoft (IANACEO), but what are the ramifications relating to IP (GitHub's
customer's IP, rather than the GitHub's IP) - has Microsoft essentially bought
access to a massive stash of IP/trade secrets in the form of private
repositories?

~~~
lioeters
I'm wondering this too - private repos might be a goldmine of intellectual
property, which businesses assumed would stay "private", i.e., not in the
hands of companies like Microsoft.

------
MightySCollins
GitHub is the website 90% of the packages I use are hosted on. All our company
code and hundreds of hours are invested into whats hosted on it. I would hate
to see this change...

------
shihn
[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DezCaWaUYAAa5ih.jpg:large](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DezCaWaUYAAa5ih.jpg:large)

------
Midnightas
What's a tool for moving _every_ GitHub repo to GitLab?

------
czeidler
Not judging if this is a good or bad thing but in general it's annoying to be
dependent on a single company. While git is decentralized, github's social
platform features are centralized and lock users to github. I would love to
see more solutions that allows users to migrate freely between platforms
without losing their social contacts. See
[https://fejoa.org](https://fejoa.org) for more information.

------
preek
Centralized and proprietary unfortunately are two key attributes to Github.
That fits the old school MS bill. But it also fits the new “we have changed
hype”.

It’s most unfortunate, because git made decentralized revision control
popular.

My future Tooling bets are on sustainable open source.

Good for MS, though. It’s a smart move for them. And Github has been
struggling for years, anyway. Scandals, new structure, more hierarchy. It’s
probably easier to pick up now than three years ago.

------
segmondy
I'm hopeful. I like typescript and Visual Code. I like their linux subsystem
on windows granted that I don't use it since I'm not a windows user.

------
jaboutboul
Guys. Enough with the FUD please. I myself don’t even believe I’m saying this
but clearly Satya Nadella != Steve Ballmer. Dude has seen the light and is
trying to put the company on the right path.

Every time they do something good all the tinfoil hats come out. Give them a
chance. They’ve turned over a new leaf. And until and unless we see otherwise
we should be giving them the benefit of the doubt.

This is not our childhood Microsoft.

~~~
bgorman
Ballmer didn't turn Windows into spysare the way Nadella has. Windows 10 is
basically a rootkit that phones home about your every activity.

------
skellera
So much parroting going on in here.

Microsoft has been doing amazing things recently for devs. Wait to see what
their plans actually are before you start to freak out.

~~~
meesterdude
What Microsoft acquisition has been a "success"? Because there are quite a lot
that got worse under MS. They have a long track record and it'l take years
before they can begin to counter all the stuff they've done.

Would have rather seen an investment or partnership in github than a purchase.
Recognizing the desire for github to stay neutral but supporting it to
continue would have been a much better received move and done far more to
build up reputation.

------
jrochkind1
> GitHub preferred selling the company [in this case to a public company
> --jrochkind] to going public

Anyone have any comments on what might drive this preference?

------
daveheq
Microsoft ruined Skype, why wouldn't I think a company whose main source of
income is from closed-source software wouldn't ruin GitHub?

------
pipio21
It was good while it lasted.

We will have to start migrating our software there into a more neutral
platform.

I don't like the consolidation in Software in which there are only 5-6 huge
players. It means politics and private interest of the conglomerate take
precedence over everything else, like competence, and freedom.

Those oligopolies can just send their lawyers against competition or just buy
them to stop the threat.

------
bitL
So, where should I switch to now? I dumped LinkedIn and Skype since MS
acquired it, next is GitHub. Hosting own GitLab? Something else?

------
erazor42
I'll probably quit github once they add their horrible login system. Have you
experienced the login on azure portal or skype ?

------
static_noise
I wonder how Microsoft can manage to commercialize all the projects on GitHub.
Maybe by providing an universal installer that works through the Windows
Store. Maybe by adding a few mandatory patches to each project that improve
compatibility. Maybe by making a much improved version of Git with a proper
GUI interface. The possibilities are endless!

------
spdegabrielle
Now is the time to move to Fossil [https://fossil-
scm.org/index.html/doc/trunk/www/index.wiki](https://fossil-
scm.org/index.html/doc/trunk/www/index.wiki)

Issue tracking & wiki built in.

You can use its git integration to ensure recruiters/employers can find you.

------
hestefisk
Perhaps there is a market for a really simple Git based issue tracker, which
doesn’t require Ruby. This acquisition feels like Freshmeat / SourceForge v2;
the hardcore OSS enthusiasts will begin their exodus. Is there an argument for
actually building simple issues management into Git itself with a simple API
for pull requests?

------
futurix
Will it go the way of Nokia, LinkedIn, Skype or the way of ... err... did they
have any really successful acquisitions ever?

------
pesfandiar
I hope they keep GitHub Pages, even if it's not free anymore. It's so
convenient to host small static sites there.

~~~
Ros2
Netlify does this for free along with a path to hosting larger sites as well.
I found them via HN and have seen them recommended here many times.

~~~
meesterdude
Netlify is great! I also found them via HN at some point and use them for a
couple customer projects. Totally moving my personal stuff to them too now.

------
atlasM
Funnily enough a friend of mine and I migrated some of our projects over to
GitLab right before this original story broke. It’s really unfortunate though
that this will probably go through since GitHub was/is really the staple site
for social programming and project management, something that GitLab is
certainly lacking.

------
cuddlypsycho
Microsoft ruined Hotmail, JellyFish, Skype, LinkedIn, Yammer ... and now they
want to ruin GitHub? :/ Noooooo

------
myf01d
If it's true, it's the moment that GitLab will see a major boost and replace
GitHub within 2-4 of years

------
smartmic
Some HN reaction reminds me of...

"Hackers come to struggle against the particular forms in which abstraction is
commodified and turned into the private property of the vectoralist class." [A
Hacker Manifesto, McKenzie Wark, 022]

Big five representatives of the vectorialist class are Amazon, Google,
Facebook, Microsoft, Apple.

~~~
tostr
Not very much on topic, but is the book worth reading? I started a couple of
times but always kinda tuned out at some point.

~~~
smartmic
It is not an easy, pleasurable read, maybe too intellectual. But it is worth
for the truth and insight it provides.

~~~
tostr
Thanks for the input! Will give it another try.

------
mickronome
If it's true, I'm cancelling my paid account immediately. A monopolist tried
and found guilty of monopolization shouldn't own the company where many of
their future competitors have their private repositories, it's frankly rather
disturbing they think it's a good idea.

------
jschrf
I hope this deal results in Visual Studio Team Services somehow getting
support for public projects. It is _amazing_ for private ones.

Also, paid tiers of GitHub moving to (or on top of) VSTS would not be a bad
thing IMHO.

I hope both GH and VSTS benefit from this and I'm inclined to think they will.

------
rambojazz
Long live [https://notabug.org](https://notabug.org)

------
tajen
Wait a minute. Microsoft owns LinkedIn, so it has prime access to recruitment.
It now also owns GitHub, where it can run anything they want to find the best
programmers. I don’t know what Microsoft plans to do, but those are good wats
to find all kinds of talent.

------
smsm42
If this is true, it is really sad news. Remembering what Microsoft did with
Skype, turning it from one of the most usable communication platforms to a
pile of unusable crap, I can't help but wonder if it's time to prepare a
migration strategy right now.

------
mehrdadn
I guess now this makes sense:

[https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/bharry/2017/03/31/shutting-...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/bharry/2017/03/31/shutting-
down-codeplex/)

------
pellucide
Relevant [https://help.github.com/articles/about-archiving-content-
and...](https://help.github.com/articles/about-archiving-content-and-data-on-
github/#third-party-archival-projects)

------
braindongle
What specific user-affecting changes would the new overlords make that suck
for developers? I don't doubt that there are good answers to this. They could
treat it like a cash cow and just start charging more for less, but I mean
functional changes.

------
ttoinou

       Microsoft [...] is now one if the biggest contributors to GitHub
    
    

Citation needed ?

~~~
golf1052
[https://octoverse.github.com/2016/](https://octoverse.github.com/2016/) under
Organizations with the most open source contributors

------
robert_nsu
This doesn't bother me at all. I'd be far more worried if Oracle acquired
GitHub.

------
ryan-allen
Of all the big players who could have acquired GitHub, I'm most glad that it's
MSFT. Their open source initiatives of late have been fantastic, and they
really get developers. Visual Studio is a 10/10 IDE. Congrats GH and co :)

------
miguelmota
Gitlab is seeing 10x the normal daily amount of repositories

[https://twitter.com/gitlab/status/1003409836170547200?s=19](https://twitter.com/gitlab/status/1003409836170547200?s=19)

------
nearmuse
If anyone could stay independent, it should have been them. If it weren't
Microsoft but someone else, it would be almost the same to me. There are so
much things they could do to improve the experience and make it more
profitable.

------
hicolour
Microsoft 2016' new year resolution [X] Join bigest open source community and
get right to vote #linuxfoundation

[X] Acquire the largest open source community #github

[X] Do not share even bit of valuable open source (*do not count azure
toolkits)

.. completed in 2018

------
martin1975
Color me naive but it can't be that bad, maybe they will surprise the FOSS
community by opensourcing the NT kernel. Satya has said it is a possibility.
And he is probably the only CEO who has been friendly toward FOSS.

------
greatNespresso
Done or not, at least Github's wikipedia entry has already been updated
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GitHub](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GitHub)

------
JustSomeNobody
Prediction: 5 years from now github will be a memory for anyone but the
Enterprise.

------
rdlecler1
I’m sure they paid a good chunk of change but this looks like more of a soft
landing than an acqusition. Even the language: “Microsoft agreed to acquire”
dampens the enthusiasm. I wonder how this worked out for investors.

------
taf2
[https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/import/github.html](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/import/github.html)

------
SwaroopH
[http://tom.preston-werner.com/2008/10/18/how-i-turned-
down-3...](http://tom.preston-werner.com/2008/10/18/how-i-turned-
down-300k.html)

------
AdeptusAquinas
I wonder what this will mean for VSTS? That has it's own public/private git
repositories. Though they're more 'enterprise integrated ci/cd' than github's
'portfolio'

------
lioeters
This the end of an era. GitLab, BitBucket, self-hosted options, here we come!

------
narven
If is true, this is one of the saddest news I've heard in the last 5 years.
Please Github don't allow this. Look of what crap Skype became to be... look
at what crap LinkedIn became to be...

Time to move to gitlab.

------
jstanley
Step 1: Embrace.

~~~
jenscow
I think they're on step 2 now.

They already embraced it by adding 1k repos. They're now going to extend it.

We'll soon have an msgit, which is git with extensions that only github will
support.

~~~
MarkyC4
You mean like the current extensions in the .github folder (pull request
template, etc)?

------
jannes
I wonder what Linus thinks about this. He has a mirror of the Linux kernel on
GitHub: [https://github.com/torvalds](https://github.com/torvalds)

~~~
UK-Al05
Probably doesn't give a crap. Microsoft have their Linux disto for embedded
stuff already.

------
rainbowmverse
Maybe this means Netlify will speed up adding GitLab support to their CMS.

------
jugg1es
I really like Microsoft, but this is a TERRIBLE idea for GitHub. Some rich
bastard needs buy GitHub and then make it community owned. Why is GitHub a
for-profit? It should be considered a utility.

------
larkeith
Previous discussion re:acquisition talks:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17208293](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17208293)

------
yani
I am so happy to see this moving forward. Microsoft will provide the proper
management to drive innovation again in GH. Start by creating a replacement
for the astronomically priced Travis

------
gandutraveler
Used to seeing these kind of reactions on HN. Saw this during FB React
licensing issue. Angry Engineers moving to Vue or whatever was non-react, only
to move back to usual in few weeks.

------
ggregoire
GitHub became too expensive. I’m curious to see the new pricing model.

~~~
vezycash
Look at Amazon Prime. For ONLY $99 free video, deals, free shipping, and many
more.

This purchase is about increasing 365 value. They'll make the pro version free
with office 356 subscription.

------
waivek
Why Github can't host the Linux kernel community

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14972872](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14972872)

------
meiraleal
This is great for Gitlab. I'm going to try to use more and more.

------
htims
Microsoft got me using IDE's it was a nice cover for all the shit underneath.
Now they are taking something good .... likely they will turn it into shit
like everything else.

------
jbschirtzinger
I surely become tired of becoming the product for someone else's overly
inflated bottom line after having an option to feel it is "safe" to be a part
of a community...

------
deepaksurti
I wonder if instead Apple had acquired GH and today morning introduce laptops
with 32 GB RAM, discreet GPU and fully tinkerable laptops for geeks to
recapture losing mindshare.

Well I can wish!

------
samfisher83
Microsoft had codeplex which was older than github. They are probably going to
spend 4 or 5 billion buying Github. They most likely write down the value a
few years later.

------
guidovranken
So a lot of people mention GitLab as an alternative. Would anyone with
experience with that platform care to chime in and list some pros & cons
compared to Github?

~~~
rahkiin
I like that is also has CI/CD and other features, and that you can host it
yourself (also for free). I do keep hearing about database issues on their
hosted version though.

In general: haven't had problems with it, am cheaper than hosted GitHub,
cheaper and works better than (self-)hosted Atlassian software.

That is for a developer duo.

------
mindcrime
GitLab appears to be the default choice for migration for many people... I
wonder though if this might prompt some folks to go old-skool and move back to
SourceForge?

------
matte_black
I wonder now that Microsoft controls LinkedIn and Github what kind of
synergies can form between the two to better serve recruiters looking for
software developers.

------
bitmapbrother
It just seems odd that a company that threatens to sue companies for using
Linux, unless they pay their patent licensing extortion royalties, may control
GitHub.

------
onra87
Could have been great to see the GAFAM agree to finance GitHub to remain an
independant platform.

Now, I can't imagine the GAFA let their open source projects on GitHub...

------
yeukhon
GitHub UI is terrible in recent years. The launch of discovery was a mistake;
now they finally made the newsfeed "simpler" and cleaner, thank god.

------
siavosh
Are there any projects in the "blockchain" / "decentralize everything"
industry that's tackling the source control problem?

------
Rapzid
I'm hoping this puts the times of people with political agendas stearing the
GitHub message well behind us. They weren't _really_ neutral anymore when the
CEO stepped asside and they got the business guy to take over...

I suspect MS is aware of the delicate situation in regards to alienation the
user base. If this goes through I expect them to address this directly and
with perhaps some creativity.

As a bonus Microsoft did some great work scaling git for the Windows codebase.
That and other great engineering efforts making there way into GitHub could be
great for the community.

~~~
oaiey
I also think that Microsoft is very aware of this situation. They should
already work on the communication part of this. And if true that maybe Nat
Friedman will take over, they will handle it the right way. He has shipped his
Mono team and the later Xamarin stack through four companies with success and
stability for the product and the team.

------
manigandham
Good. I don't understand the hundreds of comments invested in a company that
provides one of the most fungible services around, with the weakest features
and no profitability. The only other option for them was dying a slow death on
the public markets if they did an IPO.

There are dozens of git hosting companies, including GitLab, BitBucket,
Microsoft's own VSTS, repos by all the major clouds, and many others.
Microsoft has every incentive to not screw this up but even if they did, so
what? Nothing happens. Switch to something else and you're all set.

------
kthejoker2
90% of this comment section could have been copied from a Slashdot post in
1999. Ironic, all the FUD being thrown here.

Really showing HN's selective myopia.

------
ianwalter
This is a little unfortunate but I think theres a possibility this could turn
out to be a positive thing for both MS and GH. I hope so at least.

------
stock_toaster
Soonds like a good time for gitlab to go fundraising!

------
grizzles
Google open source ERP and realize what a gold mine github data will be to an
enterprise play like Microsoft.

As acquisitions go, it's pretty brilliant.

------
nt411
I'm a CTO in the genomics sector. I'll hastily be looking for an alternative.
I've long ago abandoned the Microsoft morass.

------
kennxl
Part of me likes the possibly new native Windows-Git integration projects to
come for developers.

Part of me wishes some companies were non-profit entities.

------
supergirl
good. github sucks and i don't want to be forced to use it just because
everyone uses it. if microsoft buys it it will slowly die.

------
noja
Good. Can we make a distributed GitHub now please?

------
burger_moon
A lot of GitHub employees are remote. All of the big tech companies are
allergic to remote teams. I wonder if that will change now?

~~~
oculusthrift
I wonder as well. If linkedin is any indication, Microsoft hasn’t affected
their engineering culture really at all yet. In fact linkedin still routinely
poaches Microsoft engineers and used slack and google drive and bluejeans
instead of skype. If anything linkedin has gone on a massive hiring spree on
Microsoft’s dime.

------
salmonfamine
Anyone know the easiest way to migrate to GitLab?

~~~
ggregoire
Click on “import from GitHub” when you create a new repo.

------
erikb
9 hours ago: Microsoft Is Said to Have Agreed to Acquire GitHub

6 hours ago: GitLab sees huge spike in project imports

I think that says all there is to be said.

------
jenscow
I'm not one to praise Microsoft without reason - I've worked the last 2
decades with their tech.

However, I don't see this as a negative thing. Provided they don't trash it
like most of their acquisitions - and bear in mind they sort of depend on
github themselves.

I feel this will prevent github from going like sourceforge now that someone
with deep pockets can support it.

They have a lot of PR to lose if they screw this one up. Generally, migration
is a only few git commands away.

------
zamobo
was this when they decided, nah fk it let s just aquire the thing
[https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/bharry/2017/05/24/the-
large...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/bharry/2017/05/24/the-largest-git-
repo-on-the-planet/)

------
leothekim
I'm probably being silly, but it is ironic to me that Microsoft will own the
service that hosts the Linux codebase.

~~~
rhblake
That's just a mirror.
[https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin...](https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git)
is where it's at.

------
olivermarks
sourceforge, github...these platforms have their moments but are almost always
superseded by something else that is more of the moment and useful.I can't see
this msft move, which has been in the works for what feels like years, will
help github to stay in the position it's been in for the last 3 years or so...

------
UK-Al05
I wouldn't be surprised that the first thing they do is open source it.
Removing the advantage of its competitors.

------
OJFord
Well, they must be over the moon at GitLab!

------
herogreen
I hope that we will never read "X Is Said to Have Agreed to Acquire Stack
Exchange" With X being a GAFAM.

------
pletnes
I wonder if Stallman will be right, again, and whether we will see the rise of
the Fossil SCM? (Or a similar clone)

------
debacle
Unhappy about this. If TFS and Github are ever glued together, you'll see the
end of github as a platform.

------
tnorthcutt
[https://sivers.org/horses](https://sivers.org/horses)

------
shp0ngle
They can finally join github and LinkedIn

------
ianwalter
Just in case people are looking for one more alternative, it looks like no one
has mentioned codegiant.io yet.

------
gonational
We’ll be migrating everything off GitHub this week.

This is good, because I’ve been wanting to dive into GitLab for a while.

------
ENGNR
Git is great, but it has a few social features missing

Centralised git is great, but becomes a target

Is this the perfect blockchain pairing?

------
qop
This is amazing. I hope they build in support for Azure and let us have free
private repos.

Congratulations to Microsoft!

~~~
jacksmith21006
This is terrible news. Big guys will have to move code elsewhere. We finally
has a single and neutral site and MS destroys it.

Swear MS does not want us to have nice stuff.

------
merinowool
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.......

That means I could finally get to cancel my multiple subscription and setup
gitlab.

------
the_arun
It is a matter of concern for private repositories (of Microsoft's
competitors) in GitHub.

------
burnstek
I love this! Maybe the absolute fetishism over the overrated GitHub and Git
will finally cease.

~~~
adjkant
Why lump git into this?

------
sidcool
Was GitHub under monetary duress? I thought their private Git hosting business
was doing well.

------
beatle_sauce
I expect partial geoblocking and more censorship.

The chinese government tried to force Github to censor shadowsocks and the NY
times repository. But back then it would have to block the whole site with
other resourceful content.

My guess is that when Github is with Microsoft, the communist party in China
has far more leverage as Microsoft has to follow Chinese laws, e.g., for
selling Windows (even a special government-version), and bc China is an
important market. I hope I'm wrong.

------
singularity2001
If this is true, I delete my account immediately.

The last thing I want is my code to fall into the hands of MS.

~~~
cup-of-tea
If you've used GPL then you have nothing to worry about.

~~~
singularity2001
80% of github projects here are hidden, inhouse _trustworthy_ secret private
projects! This is such horrible news!

~~~
yongjik
Microsoft built its business by selling software products. If they had meddled
with Fortune 500 companies running their business-critical information on top
of Windows, Microsoft wouldn't be here now. There are situations to be wary of
MS, but I don't think this is one.

~~~
singularity2001
In Europe there are real worries about state-driven industrial espionage.

We shouldn't be worried that our developers coding habits will get connected
with linked-in and fed into the surveillance state (which MS is big part of)?

------
DrBazza
Github harassment in 2014, Microsoft potentially (at time of writing) buying
Github.

Mountains, molehills.

------
codesternews
Why microsoft and google ruin the things developer loves? First Kaggle and
than Github.

~~~
detaro
what happened to Kaggle?

------
coldseattle
Good! Getting rid of Atom for Visual Studio Code should make things a lot
better (and allow them to free up some staff). And if they eliminate they head
of "community" that makes public repository owners have to tiptoe around any
sensitive snowflake's sensibilities, that will fix most of the remaining
problems.

------
Gaelan
Is this a done deal, or could GitHub (maybe after seeing the backlash) still
back out?

------
crisopolis
At least it wasn't Oracle.

------
joeblau
You want to buy gitignore.io? I'll sell it for a fair and reasonable price :).

------
kylehotchkiss
I'm losing faith that people are in tech for anything more than the payday.

------
waydowntogo
RIP Github.

------
nkkollaw
I wonder what will happen to Atom, considering that Microsoft makes VS Code..?

------
baxuz
I can't wait to see Skype, OneDrive and Office integration in GitHub......

------
spdustin
Seems like a big boost to their recent ML offering that suggests source code.

------
xucheng
Will it mean that we will see Atom and VS code merging in the near future?

------
astrodev
Finally, we will be able to use the same login for both Skype and GitHub.

------
vzaliva
We've all seen how it ended with Skype... Terrible news indeed.

------
techload
"Nothing speaks louder than money; except more money."

------
wetpaws
I can already see gitlab and bitbucket jumping up in popularity.

------
onyva
Horrible and sad news.

------
franciscop
Just posted the petition on Hacker News:

> Github petition: please remain independent

[https://github.com/independent-
github/petition](https://github.com/independent-github/petition)

~~~
MrBingley
Petitions don't pay bills; GitHub is bleeding money. The solution is not
signatures, but for developers to start paying for all the free hosting GitHub
has given them. The open-source community itself is strapped for cash, so this
is an excellent time for all the _users_ of that open-source software
(especially companies) to start chipping in for hosting and development costs.
However, the cynical side of me says that ain't going to happen. :/

~~~
franciscop
That was my original idea but if the deal is already closed it is too late.
I've been paying for years even though I never needed it only to support
Github's amazing work. And now this :/

------
cdnh22
What are the goals Microsoft wants to achieve with this?

------
lurcio
Why isn't all this code on 'the chain'?

------
davidu
790b9db572a6a819f11ad0e0cac7d261 --- will update later.

~~~
spludge
What's this?

------
rootsudo
Alot of MSFT codebase was moved to Git in 2016 and this just makes sense. Wow.

Wonder how hiring/firing is going to be now at Git. They are pro-remote, while
most MSFT positions are going no longer remote.

~~~
steve_musk
Git != Github

------
TekMol
I feel a great disturbance in the Force. As if millions of voices suddenly
cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has
happened.

~~~
singularity2001
I feel the same. It's not the end of free software, but the end of free
software as we knew it (or something, still trying to rationalize).

Someone explain the extreme feeling of uneasiness penetrating our brains.

~~~
TekMol

        Someone explain the extreme feeling
        of uneasiness penetrating our brains.
    

There is not a single Microsoft product/tool/service I like. Including the
ones they aquired. So I expect them to turn GitHub into something I don't like
too.

~~~
solidr53
Not even VSCode ?

~~~
TekMol
No, because as the VSCode license puts it "The software may collect
information about you and your use of the software, and send that to
Microsoft."

------
__bee
and .. we will start seeing Linkedin ads on Github.

------
erjjones
Right click and publish to Azure. For the win!!

------
nyxtom
GitLab > Import all repositories from GitHub

------
nol13
Better than getting bought by Dice at least.

------
amelius
I'm really looking forward to IPFS ...

------
gaius
Why would they when they have VSTS already?

------
simonebrunozzi
Future often rhymes with the past (Skype).

------
mychael
Good for Github. Bad for Github users.

------
discordance
Can't help but notice the announcement aligns with Apple's WWDC this week.
Wonder it'll take a bite out of Apple's PR.

~~~
saagarjha
Might be the other way around: Apple's event overshadows this one, and
Microsoft quietly acquires GitHub with many being none the wiser.

------
sbr464
welp, bye github, it's been fun.

------
consultSKI
Hello gitlab.

------
zackya89
Alternatives and no not bitbucket

~~~
tradesmanhelix
Gitlab.com is what I was already slowing moving to, because their code is open
source. This will just hasten that migration.

------
animex
Have YET to turn a profit?! Wow.

------
bigcostooge
Well. There’s always bitbucket.

------
kome
Time to migrate to SourceForge.

------
aphextron
What a betrayal. I'm starting to get really sick of this whole economic
paradigm in general. A few lucky smart people who were in the right place at
the right time become fabulously wealthy beyond the dreams of the greatest
kings who ever lived in history, off the work and contributions of millions of
users creating all of the content for free, with absolutely no say in
anything. Is this really the best way to do things?

~~~
dilap
It's a real problem.

And yet, pure open-source / community initiatives don't seem to have the
strong centralized control that appears to be needed to make good, user-
focused software. Alterantives?

(I wonder if projects that reach a certain size shouldn't basically be
nationalized. Private enterprise is great at innovating, not so good at
maintaining w/o slipping into bullshit exploitation / ruining what was good in
the first place. Obviously you'd have to be careful to do this in a way that
still left enough of a payoff to not discourage new private enterprises.)

------
abraae
GitLab++

------
Ice_cream_suit
Time to move to Gitlab...

------
everdev
/me moves to GitLab

------
dba7dba
End of an era for sure.

------
jaigouk
guess it's time to move away from github.

------
sjukfan
O-boy! I hope they'll make GitHub as awesome as Skype.

------
rhabarba
A monopolist wants to buy a monopolist. Linuxers disagree.

------
Cofike
Pack it in boys

------
akerro
"Open season on open source"

------
innocentoldguy
Dammit!!!

------
chrisws
Oh, fork

------
dschuetz
So long, and thanks for the fish!

------
jermaink
The irony. 404 comments.

------
foobarbazetc
RIP GitHub.

------
skor
Oh crap.

------
nt411
Disaster.

------
wener
RIP

------
jacksmith21006
Horrible news. Swear MS does not want us to have nice stuff.

Wonder where the big tech companies will move their projects to? GitLab?

We finally has a single, neutral site for code and which everyone uses and MS
messes it up.

I do hope once and for all we can put to rest this idea MS has changed.
Clearly these actions show they have not change.

------
bunkydoo
Seems like something that would have been more fitting for Google...

------
buvanshak
Never used github. Always used bitbucket.

------
mrahmadawais
I am a [full-time open source
developer]([https://github.com/ahmadawais](https://github.com/ahmadawais))
working as a core developer of WordPress contributed to every single major
version for the last couple of years.

I am also well versed in JavaScript/Node.js ecosystem and have a deep interest
in DevOps, Cloud, and the new serverless tech. I care very deeply about
Developer Experience and most of my open source work is related to dev-
tooling.

Now that you know this about me, it's easier for you understand why I am
writing this post, and maybe why I think my opinion matters. Below is a copy-
paste from the Twitter thread that I created on this topic:

1️⃣ @Microsoft is about to acquire @GitHub. A lot of folks are skeptical. But
I have a different view. Many of you know I am building a course on VSCode.pro
for that, I've seen firsthand, how 🆚@Code repo is one of the best #OpenSource
repos out there

2️⃣— Once I created a GitHub issue at 🆚@Code repo for markdown and I was
impressed by how vscodebot auto-assigned @MattBierner (who works on Markdown
of VSCode) to the issue and then @tonybrix from MarkedJS helped me out. It was
best GitHub automation WITH results ever!

3️⃣— Don't "@" me coz I know about @Microsoft's history with #OpenSource. I am
a full-time open sourcerer and I can't sit here quiet instead of supporting
what looks like the new @Microsoft — @SatyaNadella's moving the company from
@Windows dependant to in-house @Linux dev

4️⃣— Every other day I find/meet people working at @Microsoft using Linux/Mac
based devices — even bought by the company for them. Guess what? 1,000 MSFT
Employees pushing open source code on GitHub. This is a BIG 🆕 change. Taking
it lightly in 2018 would be tomfoolery.

5️⃣— I've been most inspired by teams behind 🆚@Code (@auchenberg ) and @Azure
— I think that @JeffSand has built an incredible team of @AzureAdvocates folks
like @ashleymcnamara @sarah_edo @jawache @burkeholland @simona_cotin @_clarkio
@John_Papa @holtbt @film_girl @TommyLee

6️⃣—I'm a big fan of "Dev Experience" (DX) that's why I pay $200 for a font I
use in 🆚Code & have built s of #OpenSource dev-tooling
github.com/ahmadawais—Teams at @Azure are doing a lot to make DX better for
the cloud → @AzureFunctions + @Code integration is impressive!

7️⃣— GitHub's been struggling to find a new CEO for a year. What if? It's my
primary code hosting company. It's helped me go full-time open source with the
support from awesome dev community/companies. Safe to say that @GitHub has
made #OpenSource better

8️⃣— @Microsoft has done a lot for #OpenSource in the last 4 years with
@SatyaNadella.

🆚 @Code's love. @Linux Subsystem on @Windows. Draft.sh for @kubernetesio
didn't have a Windows version and still offers @MacHomebrew as the go-to way
of installing it!

9️⃣—@GitHub is not exactly a cash-cow. @Microsoft has put money where their
mouth is — out of 1.5 Million organizations on GitHub MSFT has most GitHub
contributors to its repos, it's the biggest company with over 1000 employees
contributing code to GitHub →proof of good faith!

— I think @Microsoft is changing for good. The intent here's to connect with
developers and not offend them by disrupting a good company. MSFT won't change
a lot but this acquisition might make GitHub a lot better. Also, MSFT will
jump into ROR. It's high time for #OpenSource.

What are your thoughts on this whole thing?! Peace! ️

------
sandworm101
Oh well. Github was great while it lasted. What's next?

------
Starz0r
People moving to a alternative just because they can't handle change is
hilarious. Good riddance!

------
singularity2001
Can the old CEO be sued for 'breach of trust'? At least they must have to give
prior notice before any of our sensitive data (trusted to github) falls into
the hands of MS (untrustworthy)?

------
tzzgb
Microsoft is also heavily "embracing" Python. CPython is on GitHub, the infra
is partly controlled by MSFT employees and the CI moves to MSFT as well.

Caveat emptor.

------
EGreg
Guys and girls, I really don’t get this. It’s 2018! Why do we need third party
domains to act as landlords for our content?

Git is decentralized. Why do we need GitHub, when we can have a decentralized
network of dumb servers storing various encrypted chunks of stuff, replicated?
(At least use the new keybase software, or host GitLab on the servers of your
choice.)

Why do we need to choose a landlord? Amazon’s store, Google’s search engine,
Apple’s app store, Facebook’s social network ... don’t you see the power
imbalance with these gatekeepers?

Suddenly the landlord changes hands and we’re upset. Oh no, what’s the new
owner going to do?

With a network that no one controls, we wouldn’t worry about that.

We are technologists. Why did we stop at DNS? It’s a hierarchical database.
Why did we stop at the Web? It requires us to rely on and trust our data to
“the cloud” ie some servers owned by someone else.

Why? Look at IPFS and SAFE network for instance. To me that represents the
disruptive future with no gatekeepers, and everyone free to work on what they
want.

~~~
rbanffy
We don't use Github to host Git repos alone. We use it as a tool for
collaboration - to track bugs, host some documentation, do code reviews, track
workflow and so on. And, most of all, we use it for discoverability. It's easy
to find things on Github.

> Why did we stop at DNS?

A lot of companies host their domain servers on AWS because Route 53 makes it
convenient.

A real successor to Github would allow all the extras around Git, but in a
federated way. We'd deploy a server for our projects, different addresses for
our repos and all members of this federation would agree on an API and share
data with each other.

It's doable, but, unless it's easier than other options, it won't fly.

~~~
EGreg
Back in 2011 I saw this problem — that social networking (profiles, ratings,
collaboration of all kinds) is all based on centralized platforms.

Even github as you said provides all the social layer on top of git and you
jusy have to trust them.

There was no good software to take care of that stuff. So we built it. It’s
exactly the federated API layer you’re talking about!

Here it is:

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ1O_gmPneI](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ1O_gmPneI)

------
ChicagoDave
Reading through replies to this and especially about "the death of free
software" makes me ask, "Was software ever free?"

From my perspective, any software that has made it to production use ended up
supported by some large for-profit corporation.

Java<-Oracle Linux<-multiple distro's with paid-for enterprise support

And IBM and other companies hiring developers to work on "free software".

Without the support of corporations, most software just dies.

So Github is losing money and can't figure out a model to become profitable.
They could start charging for all repositories. They could go public, but then
they're beholden to some small set of investment groups.

Microsoft, under Nadella, has been about as pro-open source as you can get.

The only change I expect from Microsoft re: Github is that they will very
likely bake DevOps into their tools (Code/Visual Studio) and their cloud
(Azure) so that developers can be more productive.

The illusion of free software has always been just that. An illusion.

~~~
smolder
This isn't even about free software... github is closed. It's SaaS. It just
became a defacto standard interface, a sort of facebook for git. git is free
and will stay that way.

