GitHub acquired

rolf

Microsoft + GitHub = Empowering Developers

Aaaaaaaaaaaa...

Johnaudi

Back to the old "save it in notepad".
Any thoughts about Gitlab?

rolf

Johnaudi wroteBack to the old "save it in notepad".
Any thoughts about Gitlab?

Yeah my thought is I'll wait and see. I believe that the userbase is the main asset of GitHub and that they will try to preserve it. Plus I have other things to do with my time!

GitHub works for me so I'd rather see it remain as it is, and my way of contributing to this happening is to keep using it.

Of course if it morphs into something else, then I would not be interested anymore.

The true way to "empower developers" is to offer them cross platform solutions so that they can develop their app once and not spend half of their time worrying and tinkering to make it work across more than one platform.

I'm not sure MS are doing this. For example their UWP only works on Windows 10, so it's not even compatible across all the Windows platforms, forget about other platforms.

I find it funny that the U in "UWP" stands for "Universal".

Adnan

I felt astonished when I first heard about it. But at the end they're probably not gonna lock it down into the Windows ecosystem, otherwise I can see a lot of migrations to other platforms such as Gitlab.

rolf

The question I am asking myself is, why would MS acquire GitHub?
It seems to be related to them acquiring Xamarin (mono), they are offering this technology with MS Visual Studio, so it increases the value of their software.
Maybe they will do something similar with GitHub? Offer GitHub entreprise services as part of the MS cloud and Visual Studio?

samer

I am not too worried. Microsoft has been fully embracing open source and the CEO seems to get it.
Some of Microsoft's contributions over the last few years:

- VS Code
- TypeScript
- RxJS
- ReactXP

More here: https://opensource.microsoft.com

Joe

dotnet, Microsoft has open sourced .net! Imo most of the paranoia around this isn't really justified.

rolf

Yes, no need for paranoia, however here are some potential concerns:
- Github is platform-agnostic, and we're just hoping it will stay this way. Microsoft has a history of prioritizing Windows.
- TypeScript, RxJS, yes, but these weren't aquired for 7.5 billion dollars. There is much more pressure to make money from this.

By the way the amount of money that MS managed to put out is bedazzling. Maybe they can buy our little country.

vlatkozelka

So MS can now acquire data about who committed where... big deal

samer

- TypeScript, RxJS, yes, but these weren't aquired for 7.5 billion dollars. There is much more pressure to make money from this.

7.5 billion in Microsoft stock, which more than tripled in value in the last 5 years. Their net income is north of 20 billion (2017).

This paragraph from Stratechery gives a good rationale for the acquisition:

Again, though, GitHub revenue is not the point; Microsoft has plenty of revenue. What it also has is a potentially fatal weakness: no platform with user-based leverage. Instead Microsoft is betting that a future of open-source, cloud-based applications that exist independent of platforms will be a large-and-increasing share of the future, and that there is room in that future for a company to win by offering a superior user experience for developers directly, not simply exerting leverage on them.

https://stratechery.com/2018/the-cost-of-developers/