4 ms·

Ask HN: Who is moving away from GitHub, recently acquired by Microsoft and why?

25 points by deadcoder0904 8y ago

thehoneybadger 8y ago
The well deserved bad rap for MS is waning. They made some changes in the last few years that seem to be a step in the right direction. I will give them the benefit of the doubt. For now.
seba_dos1 8y ago
I wanted to do that for a long time already, because getting trapped in closed "ecosystem" is never good, but being able to jump the bandwagon made it so much easier :P
Spooky23 8y ago
Has Github really done anything innovative lately? Usually you see a slowdown in changes when a big company acquires a company like Github and the existing staff leaves or is purged. I wouldn’t be surprised if a more “managed” approach by Microsoft produces a lot more features/improvements.
- deadcoder0904 8y ago
  The foundation of the most popular text editor right now, VSCode, is based upon Electron & Atom. So yeah GitHub really paved a way for all the Electron apps. Also, GitHub really works perfectly for me & I don't frankly need any new features as I am perfectly fine with what's given. There is less likely that I miss something on GitHub or need some new feature :)
grillorafael 8y ago
Not me
guessmyname 8y ago
My employer, with +6,000 employees, is not moving away from GitHub. We have an enterprise instance and depend on a lot of integrations.
- dogma1138 8y ago
  I’ll be very surprised if enterprise customers would move away form GitHub because of this move if anything it might be a plus now. I suspect some of the more Stallmanist FOSS projects might move away (although I’m not sure why aren’t they on GitLab already) and there will be #MeToo migration of personal repos of people who need something new to post to their Tweeter feed which will last about a news cycle or so.
  - himom 8y ago
    aren't they already on savanna, CVS, Fossil, Subversion and git email patch lists?
    - seba_dos1 8y ago
      Not necessarily.
BjoernKW 8y ago
So far I won't and I personally haven't heard of anyone who does. Then again, maybe it's still too early to tell for sure. I'll certainly wait how this works out and not make any rash decisions. Apart from that (and admittedly apart from Skype), Microsoft in recent years has gained quite some credibility from my point of view.
- romanovcode 8y ago
  I seriously hope they won't fuck it up like they did Skype.
CyberFonic 8y ago
Judging by how MS damaged Skype and LinkedIn I certainly won't be using GitHub for future projects.
- miguelrochefort 8y ago
  See Minecraft and Xamarin.
- romanovcode 8y ago
  I can see Skype being completely destroyed, but what happened to LinkedIn? It feels totally the same to me.
geoah 8y ago
We really need to give github some credit. They have had our backs for the longest time and I don't think they will just give up on its community now. Microsoft is getting better all the time, they are an important OS contributor, and they seem to be doing pretty ok by devs. Let's just give both of them some time to tell and show us what their plans are. There is no reason to burn this relationship from day -1. ps. Github was and is pretty much pretty walled up, I'll keep hoping that at some point they'll allow to add external remotes to github repos, or at least collaborate with gitlab to allow PR/MRs between the two.
himom 8y ago
There’s no need to panic. Just backup/export to 2+ other services like any DR/BCP best-practices.
famnazar 8y ago
not me
rambojazz 8y ago
I'm not moving away now, because I already moved away years ago.
krageon 8y ago
I'll be mirroring my stuff to gitlab (an instance that I control). The reason for that is fairly simple: I have never seen an acquisition by Microsoft be a positive development for the software. On a more ideological level, I think the company is fundamentally reprehensible in it's business practices and has been for the entire time that I've known they exist. I do not think they will ever change and I do not think they came from a good place that they could return to. It wouldn't be right to support them any more than I have to (for example, things I need to do my job).
bausshf 8y ago
Not moving away from Github, mostly because I have no reason to, even if Microsoft acquires it.
bjourne 8y ago
I don't believe Microsoft is necessarily "evil." But the amount of consolidation that is going on in the tech is really scary. Five American (yes it matters that they are all US-based, given the jingoistic direction the world is taking) companies; Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon, wields an insane amount of power over the rest of the world. I think we techies need to come up with democratic, free alternatives for these services. Something like GitHub but federated so that not a single party has to pay for all the bandwidth and server costs.
Tom200 8y ago
@Those that say Micro$oft is getting better.. remember they are a business and sure they seem to be "credible" now, but in reality the past CEO was blunt about his moves and the new CEO is sly. Gitlab all the way!
slipwalker 8y ago
well, all this noise at least made me aware of https://allura.apache.org/ https://allura.apache.org/ ( i know, was i living under a rock ?! ). I would try it on a container sometime...
gesman 8y ago
I wonder if source code repositories and sensible IP of some customers would be in direct conflict of interest with MSFT.
meiraleal 8y ago
Not leaving but I'm going to first create my repos in gitlab and then syndicate it to github from time to time.
recruitjp 8y ago
Yes, we are moving out our enterprise account from github to bitbucket. Actually it is already done. Right now we are in the migration phase where we are updating all the links in legacy install base to bitbucket.

25 points by deadcoder0904 8y ago

The well deserved bad rap for MS is waning. They made some changes in the last few years that seem to be a step in the right direction. I will give them the benefit of the doubt. For now.

seba_dos1 8y ago

I wanted to do that for a long time already, because getting trapped in closed "ecosystem" is never good, but being able to jump the bandwagon made it so much easier :P

Spooky23 8y ago

Has Github really done anything innovative lately? Usually you see a slowdown in changes when a big company acquires a company like Github and the existing staff leaves or is purged. I wouldn’t be surprised if a more “managed” approach by Microsoft produces a lot more features/improvements.

deadcoder0904 8y ago
The foundation of the most popular text editor right now, VSCode, is based upon Electron & Atom. So yeah GitHub really paved a way for all the Electron apps. Also, GitHub really works perfectly for me & I don't frankly need any new features as I am perfectly fine with what's given. There is less likely that I miss something on GitHub or need some new feature :)

grillorafael 8y ago

Not me

guessmyname 8y ago

My employer, with +6,000 employees, is not moving away from GitHub. We have an enterprise instance and depend on a lot of integrations.

dogma1138 8y ago
I’ll be very surprised if enterprise customers would move away form GitHub because of this move if anything it might be a plus now. I suspect some of the more Stallmanist FOSS projects might move away (although I’m not sure why aren’t they on GitLab already) and there will be #MeToo migration of personal repos of people who need something new to post to their Tweeter feed which will last about a news cycle or so.
- himom 8y ago
  aren't they already on savanna, CVS, Fossil, Subversion and git email patch lists?
  - seba_dos1 8y ago
    Not necessarily.

BjoernKW 8y ago

So far I won't and I personally haven't heard of anyone who does. Then again, maybe it's still too early to tell for sure. I'll certainly wait how this works out and not make any rash decisions. Apart from that (and admittedly apart from Skype), Microsoft in recent years has gained quite some credibility from my point of view.

romanovcode 8y ago
I seriously hope they won't fuck it up like they did Skype.

CyberFonic 8y ago

Judging by how MS damaged Skype and LinkedIn I certainly won't be using GitHub for future projects.

miguelrochefort 8y ago
See Minecraft and Xamarin.
romanovcode 8y ago
I can see Skype being completely destroyed, but what happened to LinkedIn? It feels totally the same to me.

geoah 8y ago

We really need to give github some credit. They have had our backs for the longest time and I don't think they will just give up on its community now. Microsoft is getting better all the time, they are an important OS contributor, and they seem to be doing pretty ok by devs. Let's just give both of them some time to tell and show us what their plans are. There is no reason to burn this relationship from day -1. ps. Github was and is pretty much pretty walled up, I'll keep hoping that at some point they'll allow to add external remotes to github repos, or at least collaborate with gitlab to allow PR/MRs between the two.

himom 8y ago

There’s no need to panic. Just backup/export to 2+ other services like any DR/BCP best-practices.

famnazar 8y ago

not me

rambojazz 8y ago

I'm not moving away now, because I already moved away years ago.

krageon 8y ago

I'll be mirroring my stuff to gitlab (an instance that I control). The reason for that is fairly simple: I have never seen an acquisition by Microsoft be a positive development for the software. On a more ideological level, I think the company is fundamentally reprehensible in it's business practices and has been for the entire time that I've known they exist. I do not think they will ever change and I do not think they came from a good place that they could return to. It wouldn't be right to support them any more than I have to (for example, things I need to do my job).

bausshf 8y ago

Not moving away from Github, mostly because I have no reason to, even if Microsoft acquires it.

bjourne 8y ago

I don't believe Microsoft is necessarily "evil." But the amount of consolidation that is going on in the tech is really scary. Five American (yes it matters that they are all US-based, given the jingoistic direction the world is taking) companies; Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon, wields an insane amount of power over the rest of the world. I think we techies need to come up with democratic, free alternatives for these services. Something like GitHub but federated so that not a single party has to pay for all the bandwidth and server costs.

Tom200 8y ago

@Those that say Micro$oft is getting better.. remember they are a business and sure they seem to be "credible" now, but in reality the past CEO was blunt about his moves and the new CEO is sly. Gitlab all the way!

slipwalker 8y ago

well, all this noise at least made me aware of https://allura.apache.org/ https://allura.apache.org/ ( i know, was i living under a rock ?! ). I would try it on a container sometime...

gesman 8y ago

I wonder if source code repositories and sensible IP of some customers would be in direct conflict of interest with MSFT.

meiraleal 8y ago

Not leaving but I'm going to first create my repos in gitlab and then syndicate it to github from time to time.

recruitjp 8y ago

Yes, we are moving out our enterprise account from github to bitbucket. Actually it is already done. Right now we are in the migration phase where we are updating all the links in legacy install base to bitbucket.