Microsoft snaps up GitHub

[LordFerret]

I'll just drop this here and let one of you moderators decide where it best belongs.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/06/microsoft-snaps-up-github-for-7-5-billion/
As the title says, Microsoft has bought GitHub. " The all-stock deal is expected to close by the end of the year, subject to regulatory approval in the US and EU. " The end of the year has nothing to do with the flurry of activity on GitHub at this moment however; The news of this deal does not bode well with developers, and I can understand why. There's a lot of negative hype tagged to this, and I believe it's totally warranted especially given Microsoft's history. ZDNet also has an interesting article on this; https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-microsoft-buying-github-means-to-open-source-software-development/

Make no mistake, Microsoft is all about making money. GitHub on the other hand, I don't think so as much... their being an Open Source environment should answer that question, at least up until now.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4179322-github-deal-fits-new-microsoft

 

I'm sure Devs who use GitHub will have plenty to say on this. I'd be interested in hearing.

[Dman979]

Since this isn't about KSP itself, I'm moving this to the Lounge. Depending on how the discussion goes, it might end up in Add-on Discussions, though.

[Gordon Fecyk]

I'm guessing MS is about brand recognition right now, up against Facebook and other recent brand giants. When IBM embraced Linux was there an outcry that IBM was taking over open source?

Plus MS moved a lot of their stuff to GitHub over the last few months / years / I don't know. I suppose if I were a megacorporation storing a mess of stuff on some public environment, I'd want a say in how said environment were managed.

This isn't the MS from the 1990s with embrace / extend / engulf because they can't afford the negative press that comes with that anymore. Or they are being sneakier about it from a certain point of view.

I expect haters will use this as an excuse to hate even more. Whatever. s/Microsoft/Take-Two

 

[HebaruSan]

Code is pretty mobile, thanks in no small part to Git itself. Anyone can clone a public repo from GitHub in seconds to minutes and import it and its full revision history to other hosts. Open projects will be fine, including KSP mods. They may even benefit; I'm quietly optimistic that this acquisition may allow GitHub to move more quickly on any improvements they want to make.

My understanding is that GitHub makes money by selling enterprise development services to companies; the same services available to open projects (source code hosting, issues, pull requests, etc.), but restricted only to authorized users. If some of those companies are competitors of Microsoft, they'll be in the awkward position of relying on a competitor for a vital service and giving that competitor access to their code. I'd find it quite sensible for such parties to decide that's too risky and migrate elsewhere. Oddly, that means the purchase itself may have undermined GitHub's business model.

[Johnny Wishbone]

9 hours ago, Gordon Fecyk said:

This isn't the MS from the 1990s with embrace / extend / engulf because they can't afford the negative press that comes with that anymore. Or they are being sneakier about it from a certain point of view. 

Actions have consequences. When you spend the better part of 2 decades behaving that way, people are naturally going to believe you're doing more of the same. Just because you haven't acted like that recently doesn't automatically excuse a long pattern of s***ty behavior. As an IT professional of 20+ years experience, I'm still dealing with a lot of the crap caused by Microsoft's "embrace/extend/extinguish" attack on Kerberos. So, admittedly, I'm a little biased. :)

 

8 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

Code is pretty mobile, thanks in no small part to Git itself. Anyone can clone a public repo from GitHub in seconds to minutes and import it and its full revision history to other hosts.

And that's the big thing here. This acquisition does not signal the death of open source. People/organizations can easily just move their projects elsewhere. Isn't that essentially what happened when Sourceforge imploded and people just migrated to GitHub?

In the long term, I don't see this working out for Microsoft, and I'm guessing they know it too. I have no facts or evidence to base this on; its my own speculation, but I'm guessing this was done as a future write-off. Its hard to believe, but sometimes companies will deliberately take on a project or acquisition they know will not bring in a profit, simply because they need losses to write off against other profit streams and lower their tax burden. My guess is that this is one of those deals. Microsoft figured "If we make money off this somehow, great. If not, we get a good write off." When you are a company with $90+ billion in cash reserves, you can afford to take that kind of chance on something like this.

[Lisias]

If anyone of you had the uter displeasure of using SourceSafe or any other of the MS Team Services on the last decade or before, you would be asking yourselves why Ms didn't bought something before. :-)

I'll not enter (openly) on any Conspiracy Theories, but I was on the mobile business when Ms bought the mobile division from Nokia, and some friends from Nokia Foundation didn't told me nice histories about what was happening there about a year before the acquisition. 

I ditched Github almost two years ago due some issues I will not talk here, and I can't help but to wonder If MS was already planning to acquire Github by then. 

[kerbiloid]

So, that's a general sign for future: if MS starts using some open source product, don't hurry up with gloating on MS defeat.
Most probably it's going to swallow it and just covers it with saliva..

[LordFerret]

15 hours ago, Gordon Fecyk said:

This isn't the MS from the 1990s with embrace / extend / engulf because they can't afford the negative press that comes with that anymore.

When you (essentially) control the press, you don't have to worry about negative press. Nothing that I've seen about Microsoft has changed at all since its inception... and I've been around a long time, since before there was a Microsoft.

 

14 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

...

My understanding is that GitHub makes money by selling enterprise development services to companies; the same services available to open projects (source code hosting, issues, pull requests, etc.), but restricted only to authorized users. If some of those companies are competitors of Microsoft, they'll be in the awkward position of relying on a competitor for a vital service and giving that competitor access to their code. I'd find it quite sensible for such parties to decide that's too risky and migrate elsewhere. Oddly, that means the purchase itself may have undermined GitHub's business model.

This is true, and I agree with your view here. The fact that Microsoft is basically using this as a write-off, only expecting real earnings from the venture starting in 2020+, kind of smells to me like the move could be an effort to uproot competitors - force them to waste time and capital on a move elsewhere for protection. As for undermining GitHub's business model, Microsoft has its own high-end enterprise element which could easily absorb any ripples.

 

6 hours ago, Johnny Wishbone said:

Actions have consequences. When you spend the better part of 2 decades behaving that way, people are naturally going to believe you're doing more of the same. Just because you haven't acted like that recently doesn't automatically excuse a long pattern of s***ty behavior. As an IT professional of 20+ years experience, I'm still dealing with a lot of the crap caused by Microsoft's "embrace/extend/extinguish" attack on Kerberos. So, admittedly, I'm a little biased.

 

And that's the big thing here. This acquisition does not signal the death of open source. People/organizations can easily just move their projects elsewhere. Isn't that essentially what happened when Sourceforge imploded and people just migrated to GitHub?

In the long term, I don't see this working out for Microsoft, and I'm guessing they know it too. I have no facts or evidence to base this on; its my own speculation, but I'm guessing this was done as a future write-off. Its hard to believe, but sometimes companies will deliberately take on a project or acquisition they know will not bring in a profit, simply because they need losses to write off against other profit streams and lower their tax burden. My guess is that this is one of those deals. Microsoft figured "If we make money off this somehow, great. If not, we get a good write off." When you are a company with $90+ billion in cash reserves, you can afford to take that kind of chance on something like this.

Color me the same.

It wouldn't surprise me one bit to see, in the future, that where ever it is people are retreating to in leaving GitHub will become the next acquisition target. Fighting for market share with Apple is one thing; Having to do so with Linux and its Open Source community in the mix mucking everything up as well - is another. So eliminate the lesser of the two so that you may put all focus on the final obstacle... which I think by the way, is shooting itself in the foot these days.

[LordFerret]

More fallout...

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/05/github-interest-from-google-and-others-revenue-about-300-million.html

http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-github-developers-atlassian-gitlab-2018-6

[Nuke]

vader no dot gif

[General Apocalypse]

Given that today MS is an incompetent dying software company we expect only the worse from this. In the last years they made Windows next to unusable , they made Office nag you about "the cloud" 24/7 while having basically no support and they decides to abandon the mobile market by stopping phone production and reverting to trying to push idiotically coded privacy invading impotent office apps.

I expect GitHub to fall like Skype - becoming gradually more useless with each update. Pretty much like all indian IT companies running under the husk of a former US company.

[steve_v]

On 6/5/2018 at 1:21 PM, Gordon Fecyk said:

This isn't the MS from the 1990s with embrace / extend / engulf

Much as I would like to believe this, I have yet to see any evidence to support it. MS are still all about profit, and still seem quite willing to resort to underhanded tactics to make it.

I was willing to take the "wait and see" approach to this acquisition of github... then they went and and launched GVFS, completely ignoring the complaints of the GNOME foundation over the usurpation of a name they had been using for years (and search rankings etc. that go with it). Microsoft loves open-source? Yeah, right.

Microsoft has a long history of trampling the little guy whenever they like, and buying out competitors only to destroy them. Looks like little has changed.

[YNM]

I'm not in any form a developer nor bussinessman so I have no freaking clue.

But you can always make another startup.

So count this under GitHub's incredible journey. It's not a demise of something - it's their peaceful rest. May something new arise in their spirit.

Edited June 6, 2018 by YNM

[kerbiloid]

Microsoft Octocat.

[LordFerret]

17 hours ago, General Apocalypse said:

I expect GitHub to fall like Skype - becoming gradually more useless with each update. Pretty much like all indian IT companies running under the husk of a former US company.

**
Unless you've some inside scoop on that specific demographic, I'd say that's a bit unfair to state. There are plenty of examples out there that show far different performance.

**
I don't know about that. I use Skype, have been since it came to be. When Microsoft grabbed it, it was pretty much a matured fully developed and sound running application... still is in my opinion, I find its video connection quality much better than Viber. The only thing I see Microsoft having done to it is further develop its advertising model... which, like Facebook, was pretty much as far as one could take it when it went public. Now I know there are plenty of other *new* apps out there that many of you I'm sure will tout to be better than Skype & Viber, but I've not tried them (yet); So if you're going to bring them up, please define why they're better (specifically so, for me).

 

I've not checked today, but I'm getting the impression there is still a mass exodus going on over at GitHub. A quick look, as I kind of expected, has statements by many about how the competition is gaining from this, Microsoft's buy-out creating opportunity.
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/github-rivals-see-code-influx-after-microsoft-buyout-492860

[LordFerret]

 

Humm... I wonder. Google's AI NASnet source code is stored on GitHub. Do you think they'll move it elsewhere?

[General Apocalypse]

@LordFerret

Unfortunately I do have the inside scoop. I've been a MS partner for over 9 years now . The company tried to cut cost on its developer farms , imported a lot of underskilled devs from it Hyderabad center in India (main developers of Vista) , when that failed they doubled down and started a "diversity program" for low and mid tier managers once again Hindustan provided the bulk of those people. So now you had a stupendous amount of teams with little training killing themselves trying to prove that they can deliver revolutionary results. All talk and now show , just like Windows 10 , Cortana and many other projects.

Skype is a premier example , being buggy AF and without any new features for over 5 years AFAIK ,  we still use it but it's a joke of a program. BTW it has hindi exclusive emojis for what is suppose to be an international version - just to give you an example of how out of touch the developers are.

Not to mention the bone headed "CEO" trained by billy boy himself that went with "Mobile first" and killed it's mobile business. MS main advantage is the lackuster lack of any competition. Google could have long killed Office but they vehemently insist on shooting themselves in the balls on a yearly basis. So Google Docs is just another poophole probing program with little features , no security and no long terms stability - basically Google's gold standard.

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

On 6/7/2018 at 5:29 AM, LordFerret said:

Google's AI NASnet source code is stored on GitHub. Do you think they'll move it elsewhere?

They will make their own github. With blackjack and friendly persons.

 

[linuxgurugamer]

Well, MS has improved over the years.  I have all my mods in Github, as well as interfacing with the GitHub API, so I'll be adopting a wait n see attitude.  If anything changes I will move to gitlab

[LordFerret]

3 hours ago, linuxgurugamer said:

Well, MS has improved over the years.  I have all my mods in Github, as well as interfacing with the GitHub API, so I'll be adopting a wait n see attitude.  If anything changes I will move to gitlab

I thought there would be more talk/news about migration to GitLab/elsewhere, but so far it seems kind of quiet. I think maybe a lot of people are taking the same wait and see stance.

 

4 hours ago, General Apocalypse said:

I've been a MS partner for over 9 years now

You poor thing. Early 90's, one of my associates was, for a few years anyway... it just wasn't worth it. The only reason he chose involvement was because the client(s) were themselves locked into MS. It was a government/military contract thing.

 

4 hours ago, General Apocalypse said:

hindi exclusive emojis

Never bothered me, I don't use them. The only thing I use Skype for is video conferencing with the grand-kids in Georgia (Republic of), and as far as I'm concerned it works just fine. If it isn't broken, leave it alone. How much else, how many useless features does this stuff need anyway?

 

4 hours ago, General Apocalypse said:

lack of any competition

This whole GitHub buyout is a perfect example of why things are the way they are, IMO. Lack of competition spells disaster for everyone, especially in light of global economies and standards development.

Edited June 10, 2018 by LordFerret
type'o

[Lisias]

On 6/9/2018 at 6:53 PM, linuxgurugamer said:

Well, MS has improved over the years. 

Windows 10. Hummm... I beg to differ.

[linuxgurugamer]

4 hours ago, Lisias said:

Windows 10. Hummm... I beg to differ.

Feel free.  I'm not a  MS lover, but I've been using DOS and Windows since they were first made (I predate them).  And overall, from a user's point of view, W10 is the most stable I've seen.  I don't like how they keep hiding functionality, but it's gotten very stable, to the point that my home computer stays on 24x7 without any problems for weeks on end

[Lisias]

11 hours ago, linuxgurugamer said:

Feel free.  I'm not a  MS lover, but I've been using DOS and Windows since they were first made (I predate them).  And overall, from a user's point of view, W10 is the most stable I've seen.  I don't like how they keep hiding functionality, but it's gotten very stable, to the point that my home computer stays on 24x7 without any problems for weeks on end

Windows 2.13 and DOS 3.3 here.  Yeah, and I made some money with Novel Netware. 2.x  (I also hanged myself as a monkey while passing through coaxial cables over some manufacturing facilities - good times, it was kind of fun). I was already a Full Stack Developer at that times - I installed the cables, the power line, the computers, the O.S. and the program!  

The stability I can get on Windows 7, once I get rid of the trash - I made a Home Theater with Torrent Daemon on it using an Atom 330, and it also run for weeks. Never managed to get more than a month, as usually the electrical power where I live is not stable enough.

The problem I have with Win10 is not a technical one. The O.S., once you get rid of the clutter, was already stable since the Win NT times - my servers running Windows NT4 stayed online indefinitely - the uptime were better then Novell's, as we have to reboot the Netware if we need to reconfigure something.

Win10 managed to stabilize the clutter.  (Not to mention that crappy U.I... By Turing's sake, I couldn't do worst!).

 

On 6/9/2018 at 5:15 PM, General Apocalypse said:

Unfortunately I do have the inside scoop. I've been a MS partner for over 9 years now . The company tried to cut cost on its developer farms , imported a lot of underskilled devs from it Hyderabad center in India (main developers of Vista) , when that failed they doubled down and started a "diversity program" for low and mid tier managers once again Hindustan provided the bulk of those people. So now you had a stupendous amount of teams with little training killing themselves trying to prove that they can deliver revolutionary results. All talk and now show , just like Windows 10 , Cortana and many other projects.

10 years ago, I was working in Siemens VDO with embedded development as a contractor (I was there when the division was bought. Twice.). And it was some time since Motorola sold their Silicon division to India. The consequences were already being felt.

We concluded that they (Indians) are not exactly technically weak - they were unpracticed. Too much books and studying, too few grease and dirty hands. And they were somewhat submissive (not sure if this is the right choice of words for English). They did exactly what the "boss" tells him, not matter the consequences (including for their own!).

Using a metaphor, if an American were driving you and you command him to drive into a broken bridge, he would stop the car, offend you and just go away cursing your stupidity. Even before igniting the engine.

If an Indian were driving, they would obey silently and would jump out the car some meters before falling. Without a word. Have a nice fall.

Edited June 11, 2018 by Lisias
Typo

[General Apocalypse]

Another problem is that now the upper management is a bunch of empty husks , there is no trained support just a bunch of minimum 3^rd world payed minimum trained poor souls.
The "mobile first" mantra died last year and the quality of Windows 10 is atrocious. It's basically Google Search , it was good , they removed search in results and now it's terrible but there are no good alternatives.

Right now they are busy killing Office via the 365 zero security & zero privacy "cloud" and once more there is no viable alternatives for pro users and businesses. Microsoft failed multiple times in the past 5 years to prove they are committed to a product or that they have any kind of company vision. Just like Bill Gates they are wasting money in 1001 different places with little results and can't stop praising India.

I fully expect them to kill GitHub in a few years after failing to implement some "innovative" features to help with monetization . The only reason they bought GitHub is due to the fact that they miserably failed to design and improve a better version control software for their internal use. Instead of squeezing 2B less in profits and creating that software from the grounds up Apple style they went and bought the system everyone is talking about.

Good thing that GitLab exists when they decide to pull the plug on it as they did with countless other projects in the last years.

Edited June 11, 2018 by General Apocalypse

[kerbiloid]

Can we now expect Open Windows 1.0 under dual GPL/LGPL license?