Microsoft purchases GitHub

IMG_8264.PNG

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

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

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

The total transaction cost Microsoft 7.5 billion dollars.

:arrow: Source
 

GerbilSoft

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Mar 8, 2012
Messages
2,395
Trophies
2
Age
34
XP
4,249
Country
United States
I mean, maybe i don't get something but he is in fact an inventor of Git, right?
git is not GitHub. GitHub uses git.

Linus Torvalds got jack shit from this acquisition.

EDIT: Also, Bill Gates no longer manages Microsoft, so your post is doubly ignorant.
 
Last edited by GerbilSoft,

astronautlevel

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2016
Messages
4,128
Trophies
2
Location
Maryland
Website
ataber.pw
XP
4,998
Country
United States
Yesterday I was ready to jump-ship to GitLab, but after thinking about it more and reading about it more, Microsoft acquiring GitHub isn't all that terrible, or surprising.

It's been known for a while that GitHub was basically bleeding money, and was likely well on their way to running out of the 250 million that investors gave them. When GitHub runs out, either their investors give them more money, they're forced to go out of business, or they look to be bought out by someone. If the investors don't think GitHub has a path to profitability (which they don't as of now, they simply don't make enough from enterprise customers) they're unlikely to invest more money into GitHub, leaving really only 2 and 3 as viable options. 2 obviously would be catastrophic, which makes 3 the best available options.

Out of all the possible people to buy GitHub, Microsoft is actually probably the best. The other tech companies that have the money included Google, Amazon, Facebook, Oracle, IBM, Apple and maybe a few others (RedHat? As happy as I'd be I doubt they have the money). Facebook is bad for the obvious privacy concerns, Oracle has a history of big "fuck yous" to the open source community and would probably be the worst of the ones I named, IBM is... IBM? They haven't done much with the open source community and don't seem inclined to. Amazon has been actively hostile to open source in the past. Which leaves Google, Microsoft, and Apple.

Apple's a bit of a mixed bag in the open source world. They do some things very publicly, namely webkit, and have recently open-sourced their kernel, but overall they're not known for being the friendliest face in open source software. Google has done quite a bit in open source, but there are similar privacy issues with Google as there are with Facebook, and Google is arguably a larger corporation than Microsoft.

Microsoft on the other hand has been embracing open source, largely out of necessity to maintain their top talent. Between VS Code, dotnet, Chakra, TypeScript, and even dumb things like Powershell, Microsoft has arguably been one of the most active companies in open source. In addition, Microsoft is one of the best companies to make GitHub profitable again without major changes to the end user experience. They can cut costs in huge ways, thanks to being able to migrate GitHub from AWS to Azure, and being able to integrate a lot of GitHub's HR and management teams into their own.

In addition to cutting costs, Microsoft can likely increase the revenue of GitHub without changing anything about the service. Microsoft has very well established enterprise sales routes which could lead to an increased adoption of GitHub Enterprise, thus raising GitHub's profits and getting them out of the ditch they're currently in.

MS acquiring GitHub is the best possible outcome for what GitHub's current situation is, and could actually lead to improvements in GitHub thanks to the more sustainable profits.
 
Last edited by astronautlevel,

Burlsol

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Nov 7, 2015
Messages
113
Trophies
0
XP
752
Country
Keeping free (as in freedom) software in Microsoft's care is like having Jimmy Savile take care of your children.
Here's a great alternative, with a perfectly timed migration tutorial.

Not necessarily true, look at Skype...

Dumpster.png


Okay, maybe not.

Git doesn't seem like a hard concept to clone. I hope they realize one fuck up is gonna make that 7.5bil price tag a giant waste of money.
The problem is twofold:
- While a similar frontend and website can probably be put together rather easily, you still need a backend and money to pay for servers to keep it working reliably as demand grows. With the sort of scale we are talking about, that is not as easy to setup unless you have someone willing to pay for it.
- Despite being an 'open' platform, Microsoft could still probably find some sort of legal loophole to try and shut down your service if it becomes too successful. This could simply be something like claiming that your service name infringes upon what they call their service, forcing you to have to rebrand after already being established. Or they could simply make it so that their browser links to their own service when trying to visit your service (similar to how, for a time, searching for Firefox in IE will return the first link to a Microsoft page directing you to Internet Explorer).

It's the same reason why there really weren't any new services which functioned similar to how Skype did popping up when Skype got bought. Sure, we have Discord (eventually bought by Amazon), but that is much harder to use for business purposes and mostly came about as an alternative to Teamspeak.
 
Last edited by Burlsol,
  • Like
Reactions: pandavova and ry755

ry755

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Nov 29, 2017
Messages
535
Trophies
1
Age
20
Location
California
XP
1,497
Country
United States
They obviously know that if they fuck it up then people will move to the alternatives. So I doubt they would change something major.

I am still a little worried though, I don't like change. If it's working fine, don't mess with it.
 

astronautlevel

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2016
Messages
4,128
Trophies
2
Location
Maryland
Website
ataber.pw
XP
4,998
Country
United States
I am still a little worried though, I don't like change. If it's working fine, don't mess with it.
Except it wasn't working. GitHub leaked financials showed that they were practically burning through money, and even the most positive analysis of it showed that github was on track to burn through their 350 million dollar investments sometime in the middle of this year. They needed to be bought out by someone.
 

astronautlevel

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2016
Messages
4,128
Trophies
2
Location
Maryland
Website
ataber.pw
XP
4,998
Country
United States
Skype is a joke now (esp. on Windows 10)
Except in business settings, where it's the industry standard. Check Microsoft's reports - Skype makes them a decent amount of revenue still.

Also, no matter how much you personally think Microsoft ruined Skype, part of the acquisition deal was Skype devs would remain independent. MS didn't "ruin" Skype, Skype ruined Skype.
 

the_randomizer

The Temp's official fox whisperer
Member
Joined
Apr 29, 2011
Messages
31,284
Trophies
2
Age
38
Location
Dr. Wahwee's castle
XP
18,967
Country
United States
Except in business settings, where it's the industry standard. Check Microsoft's reports - Skype makes them a decent amount of revenue still.

Also, no matter how much you personally think Microsoft ruined Skype, part of the acquisition deal was Skype devs would remain independent. MS didn't "ruin" Skype, Skype ruined Skype.

Doesn't change my opinion on how I think Skype is a pathetic shell of its once useful application, the GUI is horrible, its win 10 integration is a joke. Discord and Telegram are far superior in terms of usefulness for the average user. I don't care
what businesses do, that's their own thing.
 

MasterControl90

Well-Known Member
Newcomer
Joined
Dec 18, 2017
Messages
92
Trophies
0
Age
33
Location
Italy
Website
www.capslocktech.com
XP
227
Country
Italy
True, but did it Wunderlist, Nokia, Rare, Hotmail, LinkedIn, Lionhead, Minecraft or Skype any favour to be bought by MS?
The only real victim I can find here is Nokia although it was mostly killed by all the Devs being like "I do not develop on windows phone because it is microsoft" which led to Windows phone death. Rare was already dying when acquired by Microsoft and lionhead.... Peter Molyneux and him over promising were sufficient to kill it.
 

MasterControl90

Well-Known Member
Newcomer
Joined
Dec 18, 2017
Messages
92
Trophies
0
Age
33
Location
Italy
Website
www.capslocktech.com
XP
227
Country
Italy
iirc. they made an approach to sega too..
that's why it was worrying me, imagining the rpgs such VC/Yakuza only on Microsoft platforms frightened me.
Lately? The first Xbox is literally the Dreamcast 2 and also the Sega arcade platform that succeeded the Dreamcast based one. Even the Dreamcast had a little bit of Microsoft in it already.
 

FAST6191

Techromancer
Editorial Team
Joined
Nov 21, 2005
Messages
36,798
Trophies
3
XP
28,284
Country
United Kingdom
Their handling of hotmail could have gone better. Indeed had gmail not come along and gobbled up a substantial number of clients and potential clients, thus dragging them kicking and screaming into the modern world, it would not be the more or less functional service we see today.

At the start/pre acquisition Hotmail was doing many things right. After the MS buyout... well look when they (re)introduced POP support, never mind IMAP.
https://www.firetrust.com/blog/chris/hotmail-now-with-free-pop3-and-imap-access (January 2009 there)
https://lifehacker.com/outlook-com-now-supports-imap-which-means-great-new-ap-1301910785 (December 2013).

At the same time a lot of that was all early enough into the internet being a thing the general public knowingly and greatly enjoyed that I can almost ignore it.

Back on Skype then I am never quite sure how many damage the ebay owning them bit did. However I will certainly recognise the current inability to share screens half as well as before, group calls being a pain to orchestrate (compared to the earlier simple invites), the general meh of the UI (they will probably call it streamlined) and basically regression in all but call quality (most of which is probably the better webcams and better internet connections we have today, and also hardly keeping pace with what could be done). Of course it is a proprietary service, like most IM protocols these days which is sad really (can't wait for this discord fad to blow over, looks like it is already starting), so I should really know not to expect anything. Equally as far as "staying independent" goes then nobody believes that, it would be trivial for MS to exert some force on them and as MS shuttered their MSN messenger service in favour of it then it follows they are OK with the way things are going.
 

Site & Scene News

Popular threads in this forum

General chit-chat
Help Users
  • Veho @ Veho:
    Mkay.
  • Veho @ Veho:
    I just ordered another package from China just to spite you.
  • SylverReZ @ SylverReZ:
    Communism lol
  • SylverReZ @ SylverReZ:
    OUR products
  • The Real Jdbye @ The Real Jdbye:
    @LeoTCK actually good quality products are dying out because they can't compete with dropshipped chinese crap
    +2
  • BakerMan @ BakerMan:
    @LeoTCK is your partner the sascrotch or smth?
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    Good morning
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    Out of nowhere I got several scars on my forearm and part of my arm and it really itches.
  • AdRoz78 @ AdRoz78:
    Hey, I bought a modchip today and it says "New 2040plus" in the top left corner. Is this a legit chip or was I scammed?
  • Veho @ Veho:
    @AdRoz78 start a thread and post a photo of the chip.
    +2
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    Yawn
  • S @ salazarcosplay:
    and good morning everyone
    +1
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    @BakerMan, his partner is Luke
  • Sicklyboy @ Sicklyboy:
    Sup nerds
    +1
  • Flame @ Flame:
    oh hi, Sickly
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    Oh hi flame
  • S @ salazarcosplay:
    @K3Nv2 what was your ps4 situation
  • S @ salazarcosplay:
    did you always have a ps4 you never updated
  • S @ salazarcosplay:
    or were you able to get new ps4 tracking it \
    as soon as the hack was announced
  • S @ salazarcosplay:
    or did you have to find a used one with the lower firm ware that was not updated
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    I got this ps4 at launch and never updated since 9.0
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    You got a good chance of buying a used one and asking the seller how often they used or even ask for a picteof not updating just tell them don't update
    K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2: You got a good chance of buying a used one and asking the seller how often they used or even ask...