On: Thanks Microsoft for open-sourcing VS Code Server

[ushakov]

i really like Gitpod as a company, but i'm wondering what's their survival plan as they're competing with Microsoft?

[phillipcarter → ushakov]

Another flavor of the "focused startup vs. big company portfolio" story. A small, scrappy team can do incredible things and find product-market fit despite having a gargantuan competitor. A big company can lose the plot with big staffing overheads, internal politics, and being tugged in a million different directions by users/customers. Of course a big company can also be laser-focused and leverage their vast cash sums and engineering weight to dominate the space. But in my experience, that's pretty rare.

[manquer → ushakov]

Not that different from gitlab? There are some (enough) Enterprise needs that MS is unable or uninterested to do.

Usually stuff like on-premise( at lower price than what MS) or significant customization or some features/extensibility.

At MS scale these are not viable things to do, but smaller companies don't have the same concerns.

Also getting bought by MS or another large player is always an option.

[_ktx2 → ushakov]

GitHub isn't the only VCS provider. There's GitLab and SourceHut and there will likely be more in the future as standards coalesce. That's where open source thrives: strong and proven standards. Once VCS hosting becomes fairly standardized then Open Source will take over and the innovation cycle will start again.

[rektide → ushakov]

continue to drive open source. continue to believe there's a non-proprietary community worth investing in. continue moving the ball forward & making microsoft also have to keep open sourcing.

it's less about what's their survival plan, and more about what the rest of all of us are going to do with vscode taking over the planet.