8 ms·

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 di

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 8y ago
> I hope they don't discontinue Atom Hadn't crossed my mind that they might drop Atom for VS Code before...
- nielsbot 8y ago
  I thought VS Code was Atom? (well, a fork of)
  - spicyj 8y ago
    It’s not. They are both web-based but otherwise unrelated.
  - gschier 8y ago
    No, not at all. The only common component (I think) is Electron (Atom shell).
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - ezekg 8y ago
    VSCode is built on top of the same framework as Atom, Electron, which was previously called Atom-shell.
    - frutiger 8y ago
      It's worth noting that the core contributors to Electron are Github employees.
      - toyg 8y ago
        That gives the acquisition a very different perspective. What if MS is really buying Electron? It’s something they’ve been using a lot in all their recent products, and it’s a key technology in the contemporary development landscape. Making it more Windows-friendly would definitely help them.
        statictype 8y ago
        Improving Electron can be done far cheaper and easier than acquiring a company. The only thing GitHub has that Microsoft can't easily get on their own is the user base. That's what this acquisition will be about.
        H4CK3RM4N 8y ago
        But controlling a leading platform so completely isn't cheap.
        Rapzid 8y ago
        They can also ensure the next electronconf isn't cancelled. Everyone wins!
  - rhencke 8y ago
    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 8y ago
      Wasn't Electron created for Atom? If so, VSCode is at least using a part of Atom.
      - Gaelan 8y ago
        I mean, by that argument Windows uses Unix because C was written for Unix.
        johannes1234321 8y ago
        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.
      - rhencke 8y ago
        That doesn't make Electron _a part_ of Atom. If I build my application on top of Linux, my application is not _a part_ of Linux. Electron is its own application framework, that Atom builds itself on top of. Electron is not a text editor framework, no more than QT or Cocoa is. It is _very_ fair to say VSCode is using Electron - heavily, in fact! But saying VSCode is using part of Atom is just not true, and implies VSCode is building atop the Atom editor, which it does not.
  - nielsbot 8y ago
    Well, answering myself... Looks like it uses the Electron Shell project which was part of Atom https://thenextweb.com/apps/2015/04/30/microsofts-cross-platform-visual-studio-code-app-is-based-on-githubs-atom-editor/ https://thenextweb.com/apps/2015/04/30/microsofts-cross-plat...
- Iv 8y ago
  Atom is open source though. One company can not decide to kill it. https://github.com/atom/atom https://github.com/atom/atom
  - emilsedgh 8y ago
    In my experience, open source projects that are primarily backed by companies fail to create a real community of developers. Therefore when the company dies, development stalls. RethinkDB was something that I though would still go strong without the backing. I never used it and was never involved, so I'd love to hear what happened when the company died. (One exemption is Xfree86 though, which was forked successfully by to community to Xorg if I recall correctly)
    - undseg 8y ago
      That's true, and I want to add that usually it's the company's fault for not guiding the project into the hands of the community (be it intentionally or because of incompetence). Rust is a great example of a "company's project" that reached (or is reaching) a nice spot in autonomy.
    - Iv 8y ago
      I agree but I think Github and Atom are special cases. A light IDE is not rocket science and this project is known (and loved) by many open source developers.
    - egeozcan 8y ago
      It's not going very well for RethinkDB, sadly: https://github.com/rethinkdb/rethinkdb/issues/6659 https://github.com/rethinkdb/rethinkdb/issues/6659
  - 2_listerine_pls 8y ago
    Someone has to maintain it.
  - bengotow 8y ago
    Sure they can't "kill" it, but a huge fraction of the work on Atom comes from full-time people employed by GitHub. They can handicap it to the point that VSCode becomes the better editor.
baddox 8y ago
If it’s any consolation, Apple Music is terrible on iOS and MacOS as well.
- rbanffy 8y ago
  True, but Windows users would find it odd if an app didn't suck. It has to match the overall Windows experience. Note: I'm working on making Chef code work for Windows deployments of an application that runs under Node. I have strong opinions on Windows right now.
  - gsich 8y ago
    What. Windows apps are far from sucking. There is still no OSS match for Windows Explorer.
    - PascLeRasc 8y ago
      OS X and every major Linux DE have tabbed file explorers, Windows still doesn't. I've never even heard of a third-party file explorer for any OS.
      - gsich 8y ago
        Never missed them. Total Commander for example.
      - jackson1way 8y ago
        I find the file exporers on linux a huge joke, and Finder on OSX is too simple for me. On Windows I have found XYplorer [1] to be extremly powerful. Its not OSS and its not free, but I happily paid for it once I discovered it. The project is like 20 years old. I have looked for a free replacement for years and always ignored it, which was a mistake. XYplorer is very well maintained, 0% CPU cost, 1% RAM cost, highly-configurable, has very nice features. Someone really put some thoughts into the UI and UX. I really like the Ghost filter. Ctrl+P is great. Oh and it remembers all opened tree views after restart, so your workspace is exactly the same after a reboot. [1] https://www.xyplorer.com/ https://www.xyplorer.com/
AndrewKemendo 8y ago
We'll eventually see what happened to Skype happen to GitHub. Not sure how it will manifest itself, but the bloat will find its way in somehow.
- tehbeard 8y ago
  Were it a consumer product I'd agree. But this is a developer tool and MS have been doing fairly well in that regard the last few years with azure and vscode. Not happy as others have stated of pretty much the largest neutral party in development being absorbed.
  - AndrewKemendo 8y ago
    I dunno, as an Azure user, they've launched good products like Azure Insights, that were really good, which they deprecated or merged with PowerBI etc... that totally tanked them. So I'm not super hopeful.
objclxt 8y ago
> I hope they don't discontinue Atom Atom is MIT licensed, GitHub can't "discontinue" Atom so much as stop paying their engineers to contribute to the project. After that it's whether there's enough impetus outside the company to continue the work (I suspect there probably is, Facebook are heavily invested in Atom).
- bdcravens 8y ago
  How many build from source as opposed to downloading binaries from atom.io?
  - ReverseCold 8y ago
    Someone can just make `libreatom` and start distributing binaries. The MIT license is nice like that.
jabits 8y ago
"because Github was a neutral third-party without any priorities"...what are you talking about? They are a company with a purpose to make money. And when I think about some of the other possible buyers, I am fine with Microsoft.
- habitue 8y ago
  The GP means they were neutral with respect to the tech giants' ecosystems. They didn't favor Amazon or Microsoft or Google's tech. Consider that Apple, Google, and Microsoft all had GitHub organizations and hosted code there. That's what they're talking about
  - ebcode 8y ago
    yeah, I'm curious if those other big companies will now move their repos off of GitHub because of this. I guess these two will be the ones to watch: https://github.com/google https://github.com/google https://github.com/apple https://github.com/apple
jacksmith21006 8y ago
It sucks. We had as you said a neutral site everyone used. Now the big guys will move their code. Hopefully we will get a new common GitHub that is neutral and they will use. Sounds like it might be gitlab. Just wish MS could have left alone. They just do not help move things forward. Now wasted cycles have to be spent to deal with this thanks to MS.
- skinnymuch 8y ago
  Do you think Gitlab will stay independent? They’re burning money. They’ll in all likelihood be acquired in the coming decade as well. Or do you think GitHub didn’t want this? Microsoft didn’t force anyone here. GitHub received hundreds of millions in funding. They couldn’t just stay put as a money losing entity.
  - jacksmith21006 8y ago
    Hopefully. The problem is the site has to be neutral. Might end up we just have the big tech companies like Google host their own which sucks but you can't blame them. Right now looks like GitLab will just become the new GitHub. We were just so lucky we had basically a single site with GitHub and now that will not be true any longer. We really did not have a single site for very long. Really just wish this news was not true. But I am sure MS just could not resist. What bothers me is I really like how the newer tech companies are all about moving the entire industry forward while helping themselves. So Google shared Map/Reduce, K8s, TF and open source just about everything. They spend tons of money finding all the vulnerabilities and then tell their competitors when they have a problem and even help mitigate. They do it all for free and expect nothing from the companies. What Google did for Cloudflare for example with Cloudbleed is how I love it being. I am old and remember the old days. But as MS has become less relevant those old ways have been dying. But then it is like MS sticking in their head in the fun of the new way and mess it up. They should just do their own thing and leave the new culture alone.
mickronome 8y ago
I'm sure they'll try to 'Microsoft' it. They could never keep their hands off any UI in any product, no matter if it works or not, and especially lately, leaving a rather spectacular trail of destruction in their wake.
- acjohnson55 8y ago
  LinkedIn still feels like it's old self to me. Not that that really matters one way another to me.
  - harshgupta 8y ago
    Just after acquisition, Linkedin started systematically shutting down available API resources, and removing CRM support. Microsoft reigns in eventually. source:https://www.fullcontact.com/blog/linkedin-state-of-crm-2014/ https://www.fullcontact.com/blog/linkedin-state-of-crm-2014/ redacted: i mistook the acquisition date
    - luctor_ad_astra 8y ago
      MSFT announced the acquisition of LNKD in June 2016. Your article is from March 2014.
    - skinnymuch 8y ago
      That link says March 2014. LinkedIn was a public independent company for all of 2014.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
tootie 8y ago
GitHub has had more ethics fails in the past few years than MS.
- dean177 8y ago
  Care to elaborate?
  - superflyguy 8y ago
    I remember reading that they employ some muppet to check that nobody uses "hate language" and their naive "check all words in text files against this list" spotted the word "retard" as in "fire retardant" and locked the project. Appealing for common sense, or even escalating the problem to someone with a functional grasp of English didn't succeed.
  - tootie 8y ago
    You don't remember when the co-founder had to step down over harassment issues? This was all over HN a few years ago. A female developer claimed she sexually harassed and discriminated against and the company then conspired to push her with the founders' wife (not an employee) leading the charge. That guy is a billionaire now. https://www.wired.com/2014/04/tom-pw/ https://www.wired.com/2014/04/tom-pw/ https://www.buzzfeed.com/carolineodonovan/an-executive-departure-at-github-reignites-employee https://www.buzzfeed.com/carolineodonovan/an-executive-depar...

hobofan 8y ago

> I hope they don't discontinue Atom Hadn't crossed my mind that they might drop Atom for VS Code before...

nielsbot 8y ago
I thought VS Code was Atom? (well, a fork of)
- spicyj 8y ago
  It’s not. They are both web-based but otherwise unrelated.
- gschier 8y ago
  No, not at all. The only common component (I think) is Electron (Atom shell).
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- ezekg 8y ago
  VSCode is built on top of the same framework as Atom, Electron, which was previously called Atom-shell.
  - frutiger 8y ago
    It's worth noting that the core contributors to Electron are Github employees.
    - toyg 8y ago
      That gives the acquisition a very different perspective. What if MS is really buying Electron? It’s something they’ve been using a lot in all their recent products, and it’s a key technology in the contemporary development landscape. Making it more Windows-friendly would definitely help them.
      - statictype 8y ago
        Improving Electron can be done far cheaper and easier than acquiring a company. The only thing GitHub has that Microsoft can't easily get on their own is the user base. That's what this acquisition will be about.
        H4CK3RM4N 8y ago
        But controlling a leading platform so completely isn't cheap.
      - Rapzid 8y ago
        They can also ensure the next electronconf isn't cancelled. Everyone wins!
- rhencke 8y ago
  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 8y ago
    Wasn't Electron created for Atom? If so, VSCode is at least using a part of Atom.
    - Gaelan 8y ago
      I mean, by that argument Windows uses Unix because C was written for Unix.
      - johannes1234321 8y ago
        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.
    - rhencke 8y ago
      That doesn't make Electron _a part_ of Atom. If I build my application on top of Linux, my application is not _a part_ of Linux. Electron is its own application framework, that Atom builds itself on top of. Electron is not a text editor framework, no more than QT or Cocoa is. It is _very_ fair to say VSCode is using Electron - heavily, in fact! But saying VSCode is using part of Atom is just not true, and implies VSCode is building atop the Atom editor, which it does not.
- nielsbot 8y ago
  Well, answering myself... Looks like it uses the Electron Shell project which was part of Atom https://thenextweb.com/apps/2015/04/30/microsofts-cross-platform-visual-studio-code-app-is-based-on-githubs-atom-editor/ https://thenextweb.com/apps/2015/04/30/microsofts-cross-plat...
Iv 8y ago
Atom is open source though. One company can not decide to kill it. https://github.com/atom/atom https://github.com/atom/atom
- emilsedgh 8y ago
  In my experience, open source projects that are primarily backed by companies fail to create a real community of developers. Therefore when the company dies, development stalls. RethinkDB was something that I though would still go strong without the backing. I never used it and was never involved, so I'd love to hear what happened when the company died. (One exemption is Xfree86 though, which was forked successfully by to community to Xorg if I recall correctly)
  - undseg 8y ago
    That's true, and I want to add that usually it's the company's fault for not guiding the project into the hands of the community (be it intentionally or because of incompetence). Rust is a great example of a "company's project" that reached (or is reaching) a nice spot in autonomy.
  - Iv 8y ago
    I agree but I think Github and Atom are special cases. A light IDE is not rocket science and this project is known (and loved) by many open source developers.
  - egeozcan 8y ago
    It's not going very well for RethinkDB, sadly: https://github.com/rethinkdb/rethinkdb/issues/6659 https://github.com/rethinkdb/rethinkdb/issues/6659
- 2_listerine_pls 8y ago
  Someone has to maintain it.
- bengotow 8y ago
  Sure they can't "kill" it, but a huge fraction of the work on Atom comes from full-time people employed by GitHub. They can handicap it to the point that VSCode becomes the better editor.

baddox 8y ago

If it’s any consolation, Apple Music is terrible on iOS and MacOS as well.

rbanffy 8y ago
True, but Windows users would find it odd if an app didn't suck. It has to match the overall Windows experience. Note: I'm working on making Chef code work for Windows deployments of an application that runs under Node. I have strong opinions on Windows right now.
- gsich 8y ago
  What. Windows apps are far from sucking. There is still no OSS match for Windows Explorer.
  - PascLeRasc 8y ago
    OS X and every major Linux DE have tabbed file explorers, Windows still doesn't. I've never even heard of a third-party file explorer for any OS.
    - gsich 8y ago
      Never missed them. Total Commander for example.
    - jackson1way 8y ago
      I find the file exporers on linux a huge joke, and Finder on OSX is too simple for me. On Windows I have found XYplorer [1] to be extremly powerful. Its not OSS and its not free, but I happily paid for it once I discovered it. The project is like 20 years old. I have looked for a free replacement for years and always ignored it, which was a mistake. XYplorer is very well maintained, 0% CPU cost, 1% RAM cost, highly-configurable, has very nice features. Someone really put some thoughts into the UI and UX. I really like the Ghost filter. Ctrl+P is great. Oh and it remembers all opened tree views after restart, so your workspace is exactly the same after a reboot. [1] https://www.xyplorer.com/ https://www.xyplorer.com/

AndrewKemendo 8y ago

We'll eventually see what happened to Skype happen to GitHub. Not sure how it will manifest itself, but the bloat will find its way in somehow.

tehbeard 8y ago
Were it a consumer product I'd agree. But this is a developer tool and MS have been doing fairly well in that regard the last few years with azure and vscode. Not happy as others have stated of pretty much the largest neutral party in development being absorbed.
- AndrewKemendo 8y ago
  I dunno, as an Azure user, they've launched good products like Azure Insights, that were really good, which they deprecated or merged with PowerBI etc... that totally tanked them. So I'm not super hopeful.

objclxt 8y ago

> I hope they don't discontinue Atom Atom is MIT licensed, GitHub can't "discontinue" Atom so much as stop paying their engineers to contribute to the project. After that it's whether there's enough impetus outside the company to continue the work (I suspect there probably is, Facebook are heavily invested in Atom).

bdcravens 8y ago
How many build from source as opposed to downloading binaries from atom.io?
- ReverseCold 8y ago
  Someone can just make `libreatom` and start distributing binaries. The MIT license is nice like that.

jabits 8y ago

"because Github was a neutral third-party without any priorities"...what are you talking about? They are a company with a purpose to make money. And when I think about some of the other possible buyers, I am fine with Microsoft.

habitue 8y ago
The GP means they were neutral with respect to the tech giants' ecosystems. They didn't favor Amazon or Microsoft or Google's tech. Consider that Apple, Google, and Microsoft all had GitHub organizations and hosted code there. That's what they're talking about
- ebcode 8y ago
  yeah, I'm curious if those other big companies will now move their repos off of GitHub because of this. I guess these two will be the ones to watch: https://github.com/google https://github.com/google https://github.com/apple https://github.com/apple

jacksmith21006 8y ago

It sucks. We had as you said a neutral site everyone used. Now the big guys will move their code. Hopefully we will get a new common GitHub that is neutral and they will use. Sounds like it might be gitlab. Just wish MS could have left alone. They just do not help move things forward. Now wasted cycles have to be spent to deal with this thanks to MS.

skinnymuch 8y ago
Do you think Gitlab will stay independent? They’re burning money. They’ll in all likelihood be acquired in the coming decade as well. Or do you think GitHub didn’t want this? Microsoft didn’t force anyone here. GitHub received hundreds of millions in funding. They couldn’t just stay put as a money losing entity.
- jacksmith21006 8y ago
  Hopefully. The problem is the site has to be neutral. Might end up we just have the big tech companies like Google host their own which sucks but you can't blame them. Right now looks like GitLab will just become the new GitHub. We were just so lucky we had basically a single site with GitHub and now that will not be true any longer. We really did not have a single site for very long. Really just wish this news was not true. But I am sure MS just could not resist. What bothers me is I really like how the newer tech companies are all about moving the entire industry forward while helping themselves. So Google shared Map/Reduce, K8s, TF and open source just about everything. They spend tons of money finding all the vulnerabilities and then tell their competitors when they have a problem and even help mitigate. They do it all for free and expect nothing from the companies. What Google did for Cloudflare for example with Cloudbleed is how I love it being. I am old and remember the old days. But as MS has become less relevant those old ways have been dying. But then it is like MS sticking in their head in the fun of the new way and mess it up. They should just do their own thing and leave the new culture alone.

mickronome 8y ago

I'm sure they'll try to 'Microsoft' it. They could never keep their hands off any UI in any product, no matter if it works or not, and especially lately, leaving a rather spectacular trail of destruction in their wake.

acjohnson55 8y ago
LinkedIn still feels like it's old self to me. Not that that really matters one way another to me.
- harshgupta 8y ago
  Just after acquisition, Linkedin started systematically shutting down available API resources, and removing CRM support. Microsoft reigns in eventually. source:https://www.fullcontact.com/blog/linkedin-state-of-crm-2014/ https://www.fullcontact.com/blog/linkedin-state-of-crm-2014/ redacted: i mistook the acquisition date
  - luctor_ad_astra 8y ago
    MSFT announced the acquisition of LNKD in June 2016. Your article is from March 2014.
  - skinnymuch 8y ago
    That link says March 2014. LinkedIn was a public independent company for all of 2014.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

tootie 8y ago

GitHub has had more ethics fails in the past few years than MS.

dean177 8y ago
Care to elaborate?
- superflyguy 8y ago
  I remember reading that they employ some muppet to check that nobody uses "hate language" and their naive "check all words in text files against this list" spotted the word "retard" as in "fire retardant" and locked the project. Appealing for common sense, or even escalating the problem to someone with a functional grasp of English didn't succeed.
- tootie 8y ago
  You don't remember when the co-founder had to step down over harassment issues? This was all over HN a few years ago. A female developer claimed she sexually harassed and discriminated against and the company then conspired to push her with the founders' wife (not an employee) leading the charge. That guy is a billionaire now. https://www.wired.com/2014/04/tom-pw/ https://www.wired.com/2014/04/tom-pw/ https://www.buzzfeed.com/carolineodonovan/an-executive-departure-at-github-reignites-employee https://www.buzzfeed.com/carolineodonovan/an-executive-depar...