24 ms·

Hello, GitHub

• Nullabillity 8y ago
  Bye, GitHub.
  • nitrix 8y ago
    GitHub is dead, long live GitHub.
• hartator 8y ago
  He seems very reasonable, have a better feeling about this now. Maybe GitHub will be able to be a VSCode.
  • pknopf 8y ago
    > Maybe GitHub will be able to be a VSCode. The question is, what will happen to Atom? What will happen to the X-Ray research project?
    • thiagocsf 8y ago
      I don’t understand why I keep reading “what about attom”. Atom is irrelevant to all of this, as far as I can tell. Can someone please educate me?
      • pavelbr 8y ago
        GitHub owns and maintains Atom, and it's biggest competitor is VS Code.
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
  • deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
• pkfrank 8y ago
  While the submitted link resolves: https://natfriedman.github.io/hello/ https://natfriedman.github.io/hello/ This doesn't: https://natfriedman.github.io/ https://natfriedman.github.io/ Might be worth redirecting...
  • deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  • pknopf 8y ago
    > https://natfriedman.github.io/hello/ https://natfriedman.github.io/hello/ Wait, is that a one-off custom landing page? Something that normal users can't do? I don't see a "hello" repo in his list of repositories: https://natfriedman.github.io/hello/ https://natfriedman.github.io/hello/ Can private repos have publicly accessible pages?
    • WorldMaker 8y ago
      Yes, private repos can have publicly accessible pages.
    • Shank 8y ago
      I think it’s the gh-pages branch on a private repository. If you look at Nat’s account right now [0], he doesn’t even have the telltale “GitHub Staff” badge, probably because his hiring is contingent upon the deal closing. So he’s definitely not an admin at the system level, which just makes him a normal account. https://github.com/natfriedman https://github.com/natfriedman Edit: I’m on a roll today. No, I’m mistaken — it’s not gh-pages. This is the repo: https://github.com/natfriedman/hello https://github.com/natfriedman/hello By all measures I don’t see how this is a pages repo at all.
• ericabiz 8y ago
  I’m going to be a bit contrarian to “the sky is falling” posts on HN and say: I think Microsoft is handling this really well. 1) They’ve acknowledged the skepticism around the acquisition. 2) They’ve expressed their commitment to keep GitHub an independent platform (like they did with LinkedIn.) 3) Nat Friedman, although I was not familiar with him prior to this, seems like an ideal candidate to run GitHub. This, overall, is giving me a more positive impression of Microsoft. Now what remains to be seen: Will they follow through on these commitments? Will they continue to listen to the community?
  • giancarlostoro 8y ago
    I'm glad they're doing this. If anything the only ones misbehaving are the skeptics making claims they'll likely be disproved over. Also has been noted if they had issues with this happening they should of never used GitHub to begin with. I guess devs are religious about git hosting platforms aside from text editors and programming languages.
    • fundamental 8y ago
      > if they had issues with this happening they should of never used GitHub to begin with. I think it's reasonable to say that people understood that there were tradeoffs in hosting code on a site like github. Since it had become a popular site, the gains from the network effect outweighed the more theoretical risks, at least for the short term...
      • tjoff 8y ago
        Then they should own up to that decision and realize that what they did not only helped github to be so dominant but it also actively worked against viable alternatives. Choose more carefully next time? Maybe firefox instead of chrome? etc.
    • craftyguy 8y ago
      > If anything the only ones misbehaving are the skeptics Well, it's not like the skeptics' skepticism is not unfounded. Microsoft has a long, bloody history when it comes to open source software and this "don't worry about the past, trust us, we'll be different this time" position by Microsoft isn't enough to convince us. I could be convinced, but it will take a LOT of time and good behavior by microsoft. Action speak louder than words. There has been nothing but words up to this point.
• jumbopapa 8y ago
  I understand that Microsoft has handled some software they've acquired badly (Skype), but is the Microsoft of today not vastly different from the Microsoft of that day? I don't think this will be the downward spiral that some people think it will be. Time will tell though.
  • da_chicken 8y ago
    My primary concern is that I worry about an inevitable merging or linking with LinkedIn. As positive as my experience has been interacting with GitHub, it's been equally as negative interacting with LinkedIn. I worry that MS will see GitHub as the code management platform, and LinkedIn as the customer management platform. It's important to me that my GitHub account and my LinkedIn account are allowed to be 100% separate. I don't want people able to hunt me down like that.
    • justadudeama 8y ago
      What is so negative about LinkedIn?
      • dlisboa 8y ago
        Almost everything? Aside from keeping an updated resume I've never had a single job come from it, nor anyone I know. As far as networking it's useless too. It's just recruiter spam and people you never met adding you to their network. They also did the whole MITM attack on your e-mail's contacts a few years back. None of that is Microsoft's fault though, it's been useless for a while.
        • luckydata 8y ago
          That's, like, your opinion man. Most of my jobs and most of my friends jobs have come through (or discovered thanks to) Linkedin. Before becoming an employee I used the site to find cofounders, people to interview for product feedback, check the background of possible hires... You don't use it or like it, fine. Linkedin has created economic opportunity for so many, it's kinda ridiculous to dismiss it out of hand.
• ggregoire 8y ago
  Best of luck Nat! Hoping to see all the improvements the community has been asking for very long. And maybe a new pricing model?
• mevile 8y ago
  I hope GitHub doesn't change much. It works well. It does basically one thing and they've never tried to do more than what they are. Microsoft used to have their own code repo and they shut it down. It was mostly used for .NET projects if I recall correctly. Microsoft to be honest has done a lot of good lately. I love VS Code. It's the best editor I've ever used. So I'm hopeful, but changes like this are always scary. Announcements are usually full of promises that seem to be shortly broken.
• bad_user 8y ago
  So I’m kind of depressed about this. I loved GitHub enough that I paid for a subscription without needing it and have all of my public work on it and my investment in OSS is quite significant. People saying that it is easy to migrate don’t know what they are talking about. GitHub isn’t just Git hosting, but a social network of open source developers and projects. You can’t migrate stars, issues with comments and the history of PRs, all linked to the profiles of their authors. And sure you can self-host GitLab, I pushed for it at my previous employer and works great for on premises deployments, but it’s not the same for OSS if the community you care about isn’t there. That said I am glad to see Nat Friedman as the new CEO. This gives me some hope for its future.
  • sarreph 8y ago
    You make a good point about the just-move-to-Git[whatever] being the entrenched social aspect of many repos! I can't imagine if, say the day comes when developers flee GH en-masse, it will be at all easy to retain the discussion history behind repos.
    • mitochondrion 8y ago
      Why not just scrape the site? I don’t see what the problem is.
    • pmontra 8y ago
      There is an API https://developer.github.com/v3/issues/ https://developer.github.com/v3/issues/ It could be not trivial to map those data into the new destination, especially if they don't have an API too. This is how to programmatically create a new issue on GitLab https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/api/issues.html#new-issue https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/api/issues.html#new-issue and in Bitbucket https://developer.atlassian.com/bitbucket/api/2/reference/resource/repositories/%7Busername%7D/%7Brepo_slug%7D/issues#post https://developer.atlassian.com/bitbucket/api/2/reference/re...
      • JetSpiegel 8y ago
        Gitlab already support this, no need to go with home grown bit banging. https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/import/github.html https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/import/github.html
• CaliforniaKarl 8y ago
  +1 for the outreach. They definitely lost control of the announcement, since it got out yesterday. The nice thing about it is, everyone who keeps their Git repo up-to-date (and who has the transfer.fsckobjects setting set to true) has a complete copy of the Git repo. And GitHub provides APIs to pull other stuff. I think the hardest thing to move would be sites on GitHub Pages. So, since I can pull out relatively easily, I'm gonna give them the benefit of the doubt.
  • cma 8y ago
    What's missing without transfer.fsckobjects ?
    • bacongobbler 8y ago
      https://git-scm.com/docs/git-config/1.7.9.3#git-config-fetchfsckObjects https://git-scm.com/docs/git-config/1.7.9.3#git-config-fetch... My interpretation is that transfer.fsckObjects just checks that all of the fetched objects are properly formed and contain no broken links. I cannot confirm whether or not this fetches any extra objects from the remote; this is the first time I've heard about this feature.
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• hlmencken 8y ago
  It was a pleasure but gitlab and bitbucket have continued to improve and I've expected some sort of exit for a while. I appreciate everything the Github team has done, but barring some crazy improvements from Microsoft I think my feet are firmly planted on the GitLab train.
  • leg100 8y ago
    How has gitlab "continued to improve"? They are getting worse. Do you have statistics on their uptime or their performance? Because in my own experience, gitlab.com is going from bad to worse. Their API increasingly returns 503s and timeouts. Their UI is increasingly returning a stale state. One pushes a branch and they say it doesn't exist. One does a git pull and it takes so long one is used to going off and putting the bloody kettle on. They don't know what they're doing. I don't have the time or inclination is to collect demonstrative evidence, but it'll take something to say they are "continuing to improve"!
    • mitochondrion 8y ago
      Do you not self-host?
      • leg100 8y ago
        No sir, I do not. And I'd rather not have to.
        • mitochondrion 8y ago
          I'm sometimes amazed at how afraid otherwise competent software dudes are of a bit of sysadministration.
          • inostia 8y ago
            You don't even have to self-host it now. You can host it on pretty much any cloud service.
          • 8y ago
• BigChiefSmokem 8y ago
  GitLab servers are very, very slow today.
  • leg100 8y ago
    Today? Rest assured, they have been very, oh very slow, for a long time. Their Twitter status feed and post mortem dialogue ad infinitum is proof enougb. GitHub has nothing to worry about just yet.
    • pritambaral 8y ago
      > they have been very, oh very slow, for a long time. From a regular ($DAYJOB) GitLab.com user: this is hyperbole. GitLab.com is slower than GitHub.com, in general, but not "very, oh very" slow.
  • Cofike 8y ago
    Sounds like GitLab when I used it two or three years ago is the same as today. Downtime all the time where we lost access to code, slow browsing, etc.
    • pritambaral 8y ago
      To be fair, they're experiencing an exodus from GitHub right now. Such events are not the norm.
  • pritambaral 8y ago
    GitLab.com*. Self-hosted GitLab is unaffected, of course.
• bauerd 8y ago
  >My name is Nat and I’ve been a developer since I was six Oh come on give me a break
  • vonseel 8y ago
    What? You didn’t code when you were three?
    • jstarfish 8y ago
      I cut my teeth on blockchain... (...a string of wooden blocks I teethed on.)
      • RankingMember 8y ago
        I started with Rust...I had to get a tetanus shot at a very young age.
    • myf01d 8y ago
      > he didn't code since he was 1 week old explain yourself
  • PunchTornado 8y ago
    Exactly, that phrase is so used right now. Meaningless and douchey.
  • castis 8y ago
    Instead of hollow frustration, you should try explaining what your actual issue with that is.
    • PunchTornado 8y ago
      The issue is that I've been hearing that phrase at every interview from every candidate, on a lot of blogposts and presentations. It's a cheap and uncreative way to get under someone's skin.
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• Aissen 8y ago
  I was in the room at the Paris Solutions Linux when Nat did one of the first demos of compiz and XGL. It was a weird feeling because it started as a demo of benign desktop features, and it slowly transitioned to the awesome window transitions we've all come to know. Like many technological advancements, its effect on the short term had been largely overestimated (the fancy animation, transparent windows and cube desktop are almost forgotten), while in the long term, it was the first of many steps in the modernizing of the Linux graphics stack. I have nothing relevant to add, since I don't really know Nat or how good he'd be leading Github (but I'd guess pretty good), I just thought it was a fun anectdote.
  • terwilliger 8y ago
    Those were some heady days in the Linux desktop world and I remember them fondly. I remember seeing those demos and being blown away, and then furiously trying to get it set up on my box to blow the minds of my buddies. I think we were all trying to be first!
• partycoder 8y ago
  The main platform where open source takes place is now owned by a company that thought of open source as a form of cancer, vocally talked against it in a disrespectful manner for no reason, promoted fear/uncertainty/doubt campaigns, and even to this day continues to troll companies with patents. That is not a great place to be in. Personally, I think everyone should just move their projects somewhere else before Microsoft starts forcibly herding developers their way.
  • pknopf 8y ago
    > thought of open source as a form of cancer, vocally talked against it Not that I deny it, because can you point me to some examples of this?
    • detaro 8y ago
      https://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_cancer/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_...
      • pknopf 8y ago
        Ahaha! Him today: "I may have called Linux a cancer but now I love it" https://www.zdnet.com/article/ballmer-i-may-have-called-linux-a-cancer-but-now-i-love-it/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/ballmer-i-may-have-called-linu... If you can't beat them, join them. Honestly though, Microsoft was beat into submission here. Developers and applications (in general) are moving to Linux. Microsoft has no leverage. Sure, buying GitHub may be seen as obtaining leverage, but I think it's clear that you can't strong-arm FOSS sustainably. Free and open is built in.
        • partycoder 8y ago
          You are right. Right now Microsoft sounds the same as a politician after losing the primaries, forced to endorse the candidate they competed with and criticized. We know well though, that when there's a new election, all that happy friendship BS will be over and we will see their true colors again.
• Gepsens 8y ago
  "Linux, Git, node and Kubernetes" putting Kubernetes at the same level as Linux and Git... Not a pre-crafted commercial message from M$ at all guyze lul
  • e1ven 8y ago
    Maybe it isn’t in the area you work in, but for many companies I’ve worked with, it’s a critical component. I’d say it would probably be easier to replace git with hg or something than to pull out and redo the k8s infrastructure.
• PunchTornado 8y ago
  > I’m not asking for your trust, but I’m committed to earning it. Corporate bullshit.
  • oaiey 8y ago
    Honestly, yes. But honestly, the same statement as everyone here is writing: "They have not[ yet] earned my trust".
• peterwwillis 8y ago
  What I really love about this is that M$ realize the product's users are tightly wound to the brand's identity, and are hostile to M$'s. They know they're buying a "lifestyle brand" and that they have to keep it hip and unencumbered by a corporate behemoth or it'll become worthless. When the new CEO has to make a public personal appeal to the users to keep them from jumping ship, that says something (though I'm not sure what that is).
  • gilrain 8y ago
    > M$ Really?
    • mitochondrion 8y ago
      Long live the Gates?
    • peterwwillis 8y ago
      Yes, I am still at heart a poor idealistic 15 year old open source hacker with an axe to grind, g3t 0ff /\/\y 14wn
  • ry_ry 8y ago
    I feel the same way about people who unironically write M$ to be honest. It's a counter-brand they've elected to champion, and more power to them. That said, it feels lazy and deeply mired in a Browser Wars-era IRC discussion about wether Netscape Navigator or Lynx is the way forward. Or any other, equally tedious, period of paeolithic tech history. Microdollaroft have been pretty well behaved recently, especially with regards to their developer stuff. Heck, I'd even argue forced updates to a desktop os used by huge swaths of non technical users may not quite be up there with Hanz Fritzel in terms of taking people's freedom away. But then I generally don't have an ideological standpoint on which operating system, text editor or source control I'm using as long as I can get work done, so perhaps I'm just a bit of a weirdo. In the end as long as companies people traditionally dislike try to make money, there will be people who traditionally dislike them there to remind everybody about the time a previous CEO said something egregious or they attempted to build a monopoly of some description (aka being a very successful business)
• hjek 8y ago
  @: It looks like you're starting a git repository.
• solutionyogi 8y ago
  > I’m not asking for your trust, but I’m committed to earning it. Love this line. I had followed Xamarin when it was independent and I get a strong feeling that Nat wrote this himself and it's not just a PR speak. I am cautiously optimistic about GitHub going forward.
• bitL 8y ago
  "Hey everyone, I am Nat. I joined the dark side, now I am being rewarded for it as a future CEO, woohoo! I hope you are as happy as I am! See ya later!" Many of us were given a choice to join MS but didn't.
  • jpeg_hero 8y ago
    I like that there are still hardline cold warriors out there from the '90's. I was there too, but the war is over. Come in from the cold.
    • bitL 8y ago
      Come on, I still see the deformations in our industry caused by MS, Oracle and similar companies and nothing of the bad deeds was undone (nobody is going to resurrect progressive businesses/ideas they killed off). Instead we have Bill playing a philanthrope and getting admiration by outsiders and Satya being the jobesque face of "new MS", with Windows 10 fun. I worked for their main competitor and another company that was eaten alive by MS, and they tried to poach me as well.
    • themusicgod1 8y ago
      The war is definitely not over. This is just the latest of the fronts to fight over, there will be more where that came from.
• jmartrican 8y ago
  Maybe they can bundle free private GitHub repos with their Office360 offering.
  • TillE 8y ago
    I fully expect them to just make private repos free for everyone, a la Bitbucket and Gitlab.
• aculver 8y ago
  Honestly, can you think of a smarter move on the part of Microsoft than making Nat Friedman (a veteran of the Open Source community) CEO of Github? I completely trust this guy to do as good a job as can be done of guiding Github forward as a product and a platform, now that the venture capitalists are no longer in the picture.
  • stblack 8y ago
    I just checked. Nat Friedman hasn't made a public commit on Github since August 2015. And if you care to look deeper, since 2010, not much at all. https://github.com/natfriedman https://github.com/natfriedman
    • jameshart 8y ago
      You have no idea who Nat Friedman is, do you?
  • swayvil 8y ago
    Hi, we'd like to use your reputation to sell our product. Here's a bunch of money.
• viseztrance 8y ago
  I'm using another service for my private repos, as github's pricing structure for a single dev is seriously uncompetitive. I wanted to move my public / open source repos for a long time. Now I finally I have the opportunity to do so without getting into discussions at an interview on why am I not using github. For people such as myself, I don't know what Microsoft / Github can do or say to convince otherwise.
  • dangrossman 8y ago
    > pricing structure for a single dev is seriously uncompetitive $7/month is a burden? What's it competing with except a fancy coffee or two?
    • viseztrance 8y ago
      Remember, these costs add up quite easy. Why bother if I can get the same features for free? But it really depends on how you view it. I felt I got better value by supporting an open source project I like on patreon (Godot) than spending my money on this subscription.
      • dangrossman 8y ago
        > Remember, these costs add up quite easy. Some single developers are perhaps a bit spoiled. Other professions need offices, stores, work trucks, thousands of dollars in physical tools that they'll need to maintain and replace as they wear out. We need a computer and have the option of a $7/month subscription to perpetually-updated professional tools. $7/month doesn't cover the printer paper most professionals go through in a month. Software developers need a computer and that's about it, and some apparently find $7/month "uncompetitive" because that fee didn't come with sufficient feel-good about charitable giving or something. All the software and professional services I subscribe to as a single developer don't add up to the cost of maintaining and fueling the van my A/C repair guy shows up in, so I have to disagree that they add up quite easy.
• bgongfu 8y ago
  I'm split on this one. I lived through Microsoft's dark ages, when the victory of open source was still hanging by a thread. The reason we're seeing a softer Microsoft is that they lost, they were forced to change. And the open question is what they learned in the process. On the other hand, they're producing pretty decent software these days; dotNet Core, TypeScript & VSCode just to name a few solid projects. Open source, no less; imagine that back when monkey boy was running the show, literally. But then I keep hearing about shady Linux licensing deals and endless privacy intrusions over in Windows land. Tricky indeed, I think I'm going to leave my code in there for now and give them a chance to redeem themselves.
  • mkirklions 8y ago
    >I think I'm going to leave my code in there for now and give them a chance to redeem themselves. Why would you do that? I mean, at least import the code to other repos
    • kristiandupont 8y ago
      Do you think they are going to just delete it?
    • bgongfu 8y ago
      I wouldn't trust any corporation with something I couldn't afford to loose, Microsoft or not. Corporations, by definition; have no souls.
  • ptx 8y ago
    Your positives are more closely linked to your negatives than you might think: Microsoft's open source projects are actually working to bring those endless privacy intrusions over from Windows so you can enjoy them on other systems as well – .NET Core and VS Code will collect and send your data to Microsoft by default, without bothering to ask for your permission.
    • alkonaut 8y ago
      Core tells me very clearly right on the command line that it collects usage stats, and which env var to set to disable that. The only identifiable data it sends is a Mac hash. The whole thing is developed in the open. I really fail to see why people are (that) upset about it.
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• freedomben 8y ago
  I recognize this isn't an opinion that will resonate with many, but I find it offensive that Github praises and benefits so much from open source, yet is not open source itself. This has bothered me for many years. Now this post from Nat, talking about how open source literally changed his life and made all things possible (which I agree with), bothers me even more. How can you say such things when your actions are so completely opposite? The hypocrisy is appalling to me. Don't misunderstand, I do think Github has done great things for open source. However, it's time for them to either practice what they preach (open the code) or else we need to move to gitlab of gitea or something else. I'm actually a bit optimistic that MS might open source github in the long run. It's a long shot, but they have really been incredible with how much they have opened up. I'm more optimistic now with MS at the reins.
  • dodyg 8y ago
    This is silly. They have been providing free services for open source projects. Why should they open up their source code.
  • maxbrunsfeld 8y ago
    GitHub has helped to maintain git itself for years, in addition to creating and open-sourcing libgit2, a massive engineering effort, which ironically, GitLab is built on.
    • pritambaral 8y ago
      > a massive engineering effort, which ironically, GitLab is built on. Perfectly normal use of FOSS; I'd say, not ironic. If GitHub wanted, they could have kept the work to themselves and avoided others benefiting from it. FOSS is like people coming together with their own bricks and building a cathedral for everyone. There's little point in participating if you either don't want others to pitch in or don't want others to benefit from it.
• jason_slack 8y ago
  I feel a bit better knowing Nat Friedman will be CEO. He does have a history with OSS software projects and also running such companies. I hope that things don't change. I have come to rely on GitHub and I don't want to go investing in another solution.
  • freedomben 8y ago
    I agree, and MS also has some pretty good OSS chops these days. But Github itself is closed source. This is something that I think needs to change, or Github needs to disappear. There are good OSS solutions now that we need to make grow. I also rely a lot on Github and don't want to move, but I'm going to bite the bullet if they don't open up. I don't like the hypocrisy, and I don't want to be an enabler anymore.
• waydowntogo 8y ago
  It looks like they were expecting everything but mass panic. Well developers aren't skype's users.
• galeforcewinds 8y ago
  https://twitter.com/githubclippy/status/1003630360008253441 https://twitter.com/githubclippy/status/1003630360008253441
• martinald 8y ago
  Congrats Nat! Best of luck for this future endeavor :).
• pow_pp_-1_v 8y ago
  A nice, safe introduction. There's a lot of talk about people leaving github for other platforms. If there are actually doing it, it seems like a short-sighted move. I understand why people who lived through the earlier years of Microsoft are skeptical. Microsoft did a very good job of earning a lot of ill will. But things have changed. Microsoft's primary focus seems to be is Azure and everything they do needs to be looked through that lens. They need developers of all stripes using Azure. So they will do everything to attract all developers. It's in their business interest.
  • justadudeama 8y ago
    Because it is the business interest to get people using Azure, how do you think this will effect Github?
    • pow_pp_-1_v 8y ago
      I would guess that the acquisition will not affect Github in any detrimental way. I would argue that developer good-will is a more valuable commodity to Microsoft now than in the years past. More happy users of Github => more happy developers using a MS product => more developer good-will => more developers/decision-influencers that might consider a MS cloud product (like Azure).
• martinlev2 8y ago
  https://github.com/natfriedman https://github.com/natfriedman 0 contribution. Sad.
  • earenndil 8y ago
    To be fair, his job is ceo, not programmer.
• l5870uoo9y 8y ago
  > GitHub will operate independently as a community, platform, and business. Had Github been bought by an foundation operating outside the confides of the market, then such statement would have been believable. Microsoft will naturally use Github maximise its wealth, thus when disagreements arise then Microsoft will put its will through. It is of course easy to imagine ways Github could be used by Microsoft, fore instance mere access to valuable user data, strategic focus on integration with Microsoft products or sigle sign on with Azure, Github, LinkedIn and Skype.
  • sremani 8y ago
    For the last 20 years or so, Microsoft lost a lot of mind-share. They are good at developer tools and GitHub provides them with the venue for the community. Unless Microsoft sees amazing value on the Community platform of GitHub they would not have spent $7.5 Billion on it. They do realize developer brain-trust is the long game they need to win, and GitHub fits that strategy.
    • lstodd 8y ago
      > They do realize developer brain-trust is the long game they need to win, and GitHub fits that strategy. Only problem is that this move was net-negative wrt developer trust.
  • luckydata 8y ago
    I work for Linkedin, MS is very respectful of our independence (sometimes in puzzling ways). It's kinda painful and annoying to read about all the negativity and tinfoil hat theories but that's the price to pay (I guess) and we'll see what happens. Microsoft has every interest in playing nice with the community and everything to lose from trying to do anything hostile to it.
    • DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
      > It's kinda painful and annoying to read about all the negativity I can imagine. You may wish to switch employers. > and tinfoil hat theories Are you saying that all complaints about MS conduct are delusional? > Microsoft has every interest in playing nice with the community and everything to lose from trying to do anything hostile to it. So let's have a candid discussion about telemetry. Or sneaky Windows 10 upgrades. Or vague patent threats. I'm sorry, but few software developers who follow Microsoft's actions will accept you crying martyr.
• mindcrash 8y ago
  I have been familiar with Miguel's work since the good old GNOME and Mono days (pre-Microsoft and even pre-Xamarin) and familiar with Miguel and Nat's work since the Xamarin and Microsoft days and I really must say that GitHub could have got somebody far far worse on the executive level than Nat (and ScottGu above him, ofcourse, due to the same kind of personality). Nat can be best described as a OSS geek gone CEO, and thus I can't imagine a better executive within Microsoft to lead GitHub besides him. In fact, when I heard the first rumors and Chris not wanting to run operations anymore I immediately thought of Nat to run GitHub when Microsoft was crazy enough to buy it. Seems I was right :)
• danielovichdk 8y ago
  Looking forward to this. Great story and good for all developers.
• waydowntogo 8y ago
  Btw If Microsoft would mean that seriously (supporting open source) the new owner would be some foundation (something like mozilla).
  • oaiey 8y ago
    7 billion dollars? And how should they explain that to the shareholders. What they will hopefully do: run it like it but do not make it official.
    • waydowntogo 8y ago
      Honestly I'm thinking they'll have to explain why they bought empty box for $ 7bln.
• eruci 8y ago
  Software developers to companies: - don’t charge me money! - don’t raise your prices! - don’t raise money! - don’t sell your company! - don’t shutdown! ... Me, I don't care. I work for myself.
• nicodjimenez 8y ago
  What nobody is really commenting on is how huge of an opportunity this is for Microsoft to reinvent itself in the eyes of the developer community. If Microsoft can somehow manage to gain trust from Github users, which is very possible and desirable for them, it will make Azure more compelling in many ways than Amazon as a cloud computing platform. After Amazon's acquisition of Cloud9, Microsoft is the first big company to try something really bold and inventive in cloud computing. Github can prioritize making code deploy to all clouds AND make it especially appealing for customers to choose Azure, as there will exist amazing opportunities for end to end product optimizations here. Seems really smart for me, and given that Microsoft is really hell bent on changing people's negative opinions about them, they have all the right incentives to make Github even more awesome than it already is.
  • oaiey 8y ago
    The Microsoft bashing is painful. I also wonder about outcomes like that, positive ones for Microsoft, GitHub the platform and GitHub the community. So much negativity!
    • meddlepal 8y ago
      Agree a lot of negativity here. I don't really use any of the MS stack at all but I really want to see where they take things from here. The last few years have been very positive for Microsoft in my eyes from an outsider perspective. They're saying and doing the right things.
    • thiagocsf 8y ago
      Painful... for you. On a serious note though, they deserve all the skepticism coming to them. I know they’ve been working in the last few years to revert their status as OSS public enemy #1 but remember, this is the company that said the GPL is cancer. Let them earn our trust. Keep the pressure, stay vigilant and be ready to change vendors.
      • sequoia 8y ago
        > remember, this is the company that said the GPL is cancer. You must greatly mistrust the StartupNews community as well, as "gpl is cancer" gets said here almost daily as well. d:o)
• catchmeifyoucan 8y ago
  +1 for Nat heading this. ( Worked at Xamarin as an intern before the MS acquisition. So not too long, but enough to get a coffee downstairs with Nat at the coffee van. I also joined his all-hands. Great guy who has a great attitude towards open-source and has a positive leadership style. I was skeptical of the Xamarin acquisition, but MS open-sourced and made the platform free for everyone. Nat knows how this MS stuff goes, and I think he's a perfect fit to preserve the core of Github.
• michaelmior 8y ago
  > The Octocat is out of the bag Why didn't I see that coming? Brilliant.
• satai 8y ago
  How is MS expected to make money on this?
  • oaiey 8y ago
    I think they shrink it a bit down and cut administrative overhead (synergy) and some engineering (eg atom (buuh)). The later they can also reorganize. For them it just does not need to lose too much money.
    • satai 8y ago
      They spent 7GUSD+ on it. It is dozens of years of GitHub revenue...
      • oaiey 8y ago
        The investment .. forget that. That does not need to refinance itself (unofficially)
• icc97 8y ago
  Anybody else think that StackOverflow would be Microsoft's next purchase? A profitable, developer focussed business built using Microsoft stack. I don't know how much sense it makes for Microsoft to be making money through selling job ads, but if they're gonna take over all the tools that developers use then SO and the SE network seems a good fit.
  • luckydata 8y ago
    I'm not sure it would make sense. While it's built on the MS stack, it's a somewhat toxic community with no clear business value. Even as a Q&A site has too much history and too much baggage.
• bluenose69 8y ago
  The blue banner area at the top of GH pages tells me to click on a blog posting to learn more. So I do. And then I get to a microsoft page that has as its banner area an information box telling me that merely browsing this site means that I agree to the use of cookies for analytics, personalized content and ads. Really, GH? Do you really want to direct your users to a page with that warning? Were you doing the same thing to me already, without warning? And will GH be doing similar harvesting of information? And what about gitlab ...? Maybe they want my money more than GH does...
• dang 8y ago
  Since this is the newest big thread, it can take the front-page slot for now. The big previous discussions are: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17221527 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17221527 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17227286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17227286
• chillingeffect 8y ago
  The emphasis I've seen on "still be able to code in your choice of language," leads me to think there will be some caveat to doing so. E.g. they'll put the windows ad spyware into peoples' code repositories like sourceforge or something else...
• brian-armstrong 8y ago
  Hopefully MS can reign in Github's ridiculous remote work policy. Github's product velocity has been effectively zero for the past few years, and remote work is likely part of why.
• dh-g 8y ago
  Nat Friedman as CEO has mostly placated my knee jerk reaction of RUN! Really happy with how this is going so far.
• merinowool 8y ago
  Can you promise that Microsoft employees will not browse and otherwise process private repositories?
  • oaiey 8y ago
    They have some dozen different kind of SaaS platforms (think of Office, Azure, ...). When they do that in an ill-defined way, they are done. And with "done" I mean the whole company. The financial lose would be dramatic.
    • deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
• walterbell 8y ago
  Looking for answers to these questions from previous threads: 1. If you want to develop software for Microsoft’s Linux distro/kernel (Azure Sphere for IoT), it appears you must use Windows 10 + Visual Studio, https://seeedstudio.com/productDetail/3052 https://seeedstudio.com/productDetail/3052 & https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/developing-an-azure-sphere-experience-with-visual-studio/ https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/developing-an-azure-s... > To use MT3620 Dev Board for Azure Sphere, you’ll need a Windows 10 PC with the latest Windows Updates, along with the Visual Studio Tools for Azure Sphere (which will be available for download from Microsoft). These tools will include application templates, development tools and the Azure Sphere software development kit (SDK). Terms: This development board can be only used for prototyping, it cannot be built into a product for commercial distribution. It cannot be re-sold or used as part of a production environment. Since IoT is one of the “next big things”, it would be nice to use Microsoft Linux ARM kernel with open hardware (no terms of service for hardware resale) and open software (e.g. use open-source Linux dev tools with the Azure SDK. Will this be an option? 2. What is Microsoft’s position on EU upload filters for copyright screening of code uploaded to Github? Has Microsoft taken a public position on this issue? Does Microsoft currently use upload filters for open source code screening? https://blog.github.com/2018-03-14-eu-proposal-upload-filters-code/ https://blog.github.com/2018-03-14-eu-proposal-upload-filter...
• 0x03 8y ago
  I think my main concern going forward would be a diaspora of open source projects. One of the neat things about Github is that a ton of open-source projects can be found there. Regardless of how Github operates going forward for individual users, I would be surprised if projects like Facebook's React or Google's Angular remained on a platform controlled by Microsoft. Those are only two examples in a sea of OSS projects, so maybe the impact will be smaller than I think.
• g0dg0d 8y ago
  Goodbye Github. No way I trust Microsoft with my private code. Hello Gitlab.
  • jlisam13 8y ago
    Let's trust a startup that accidentally blew up their database and lost all sorts of data, as opposed to Microsoft. At least the other complaints about the acquisition make sense.
  • grenran 8y ago
    $ whois $(dig +short gitlab.com A) | grep OrgName OrgName: Microsoft Corporation
• kolpa 8y ago
  > PS: I’ll be doing an AMA on Reddit in the next few days, I hope to see you there! It's a bit of shame that that's the location of choice for hosting an AMA. The AMA subreddit is good, but it's trapped in the toxic cesspool that is Reddit overall.
  • ryan-allen 8y ago
    That depends on what subs your subscribed to, or filter from /r/all, there's a lot of positive, creative stuff on Reddit. Here's my filtered list from /r/all (most of the awful crap is USA politics, and all the anti-Trump subreddits, at least the pro-Trump people stick to the one sub): https://gist.github.com/ryan-allen/18e0e0ccbe34e81b7a0b96d11803ac16 https://gist.github.com/ryan-allen/18e0e0ccbe34e81b7a0b96d11...
  • thiagocsf 8y ago
    What would you suggest instead?
• moonstruck 8y ago
  Make Github Great Again!
• mariogintili 8y ago
  developing when you were six? fuck off
  • stunthamsterio 8y ago
    Why not? I was programming on a Commodore Plus/4 at the age of five. I got my teeth into this industry by hand typing from magazine articles programs that done nothing more then making the sound of bird tweets, but it taught me A: the basics of how a programming language works, and B: how to debug to get around the inevitable typo in the magazine.
• mailjenil 8y ago
  I am not asking for you trust, I am committed to earning it. That’s some badass line.
• Gys 8y ago
  Good to hear. Still, I have these memories of Facebook buying Whatsapp for too much money and first saying it will be impossible to integrate both platforms. Surprise, surprise, later they did find a way to integrate. Microsoft paying 7.5B for something that looses money every year ? And not having any problems with that ? What will the shareholders say ?
  • gkoberger 8y ago
    Well, I think that's the point. They want to monetize the enterprise edition better. Combining GitHub's product with Microsoft's cabal of credit-card-ready existing purchasers. Microsoft has built a community of developers that expect to pay for dev tools, which is rare. So, they can have the existing product operate as-is, and Microsoft can make money by moving their legacy high-paying consumers to something better.
  • oculusthrift 8y ago
    the stock price just went over 100. i think the shareholders are fine
    • Gys 8y ago
      The shareholders see potential. I also think there are many ways for Microsoft to make money from Github. But that means changes the general Github user will not like (ads ? higher fees ? tracking ? killing atom ?). My point is that the 'Hello, Github' implies nothing will change.
• gazarullz 8y ago
  I really like what Microsoft did in the past 2-3 years on the open source side and I keep my fingers crossed hopin they will do a good job with github too :)
• thesz 8y ago
  I guess he started with wrong note. He is developer since six - since 1983. This means his family was wealthy one. He also survived two years of Microsoft. Now even sceptical and lazy me thinks I have to move out of github. ;)
  • Voloskaya 8y ago
    His family was wealthy, and he worked at Microsoft for two years, so you have to move out from GitHub? What are you even trying to say?
    • thesz 8y ago
      He is not representative of most developers, first (wealthy and corporate-politics resistant), and tries to present himself as one, second (how he introduced himself). This means Github will be handled by non-developer who tries to pretend to be a developer. This means he lies, conspicuously or not. In both cases I cannot see him as smart enough and self-aware enough. Given that, I think github will be mishandled and I also think I would be better off somewhere else.
      • Voloskaya 8y ago
        Nat Friedman is not a developer? Did you do the most basic google research before bashing him? If Nat is not a developer, then not a lot of people are, this has to be one of the stupidest comments I have read.
        • thesz 8y ago
          Yes, I did my research and verified it just now (looked at his github). I was not and am not impressed.
          • Voloskaya 8y ago
            Ah I see. You want a CEO that also has a developer role at the same time. You are one of those that think running a company is a BS job and anyone could actually do it, so in your would it would make sense to take someone that was shipping code during the last sprint and just give him the CEO role of a 1 thousand, 300M$ revenue company. In my world that would be completely stupid and reckless. Nat was coding full-time just a few years ago and move to leadership roles recently, so that's exactly what we need to run GitHub: someone that actually knows how to handle large organisation, and someone who knows what being a developer means so he can make sure GitHub is going in the right direction. I don't even know why I am arguing with you though, you are clearly just doing some level condescending gate keeping, so it's not like anything I say has any impact. Have fun being toxic.
• sixdimensional 8y ago
  I'm pleased that Microsoft has opened up, changed and grown so much in recent years. Congratulations to the entire GitHub team for making such a wonderful community and set of tools easily available, and for their successful acquisition. It will be fascinating to see where this goes - who would have imagined that a former heavyweight of proprietary software would achieve such a transformation? I must ask the question now, though - is it time for a non-profit Github-like open source community with integrated source control / tools? Could that even exist due to the costs of running such a thing, and is it necessary? For example, it would be like if The Apache Foundation ran GitHub. Or should we look into things like git over IPFS (or something similar) and try to go decentralized? I have wrestled with the for-profit / not-for-profit conundrum my whole life, and I still do. Obviously, running such a utility / community costs money, so it is good to have one or more healthy companies supporting it. It should mean good things. But ultimately, both GitHub and Microsoft are primarily for-profit entities (although I know they both do a tremendous amount to support the not-for-profit space). Perhaps Microsoft could even be the one to set up such a non-profit... like.. "The Microsoft Foundation for Open Source" or something similar. Knowing that the organization owning and managing such a utility and community is a non-profit - good or bad? EDIT: ..perhaps like they have done with the .NET Foundation?
• dclowd9901 8y ago
  I think what bothers me about this announcement is that _anyone_ owns Github; that is, a tech giant with a lot of influence in the software world owning the largest repository of code in history. Something feels wrong about it. I'd be as uncomfortable with it if Google or Facebook or Apple owned it.
• i386 8y ago
  I’m happy it’s Nat.
• CodeSheikh 8y ago
  "I’ve been a developer since I was six". I would love to learn what sort of projects were kids working on this early back in the 80s.
  • zer00eyz 8y ago
    I'll second this. I often tell the story about the first program I wrote (at 8) and how I got beaten by good old flesh and blood. I don't tell people I was a developer at six... I wrote a program... semantics matter here. The photo got me... The fake over done smile, the "I had a professional take this" pose. The Hoodie. It just smacks of being over produced to try to fit in. > I’m not asking for your trust, but I’m committed to earning it. I can’t wait to help make the GitHub platform and community that’s special to all of us even greater. Im not calling you a liar but I already don't believe you.
    • swayvil 8y ago
      Agreed.
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• iddqd 8y ago
  I wonder if they timed this announcement with the Apple keynote.
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• Fiahil 8y ago
  He seems nice.
• annyui 8y ago
  I'm happy that at least Google doesn't own GitHub. Microsoft seems like the best company to buy GitHub out of all the major tech companies.
• trhway 8y ago
  its good as it will spur a bunch of new GitHubs and innovation in that space. It is like a business case validation for investors. For example like Cruise acquisition spurred more self-driving startups. The times have changes and it isn't 90ies anymore when MS could buy/develop some soft and extinguish all competition in the related area.
• amarraja 8y ago
  I remember watching the "screencasts" (they were gifs back in those days), of Nat working on Beagle [1]. Sadly it's a dead project now, however, it shaped my attitude as a developer - how can I write software that _helps_ people. I am really excited to see what Nat and team bring to the table [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beagle_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beagle_(software)
• mariopt 8y ago
  Nothing against the CEO but we all know who the stakeholders are.
• swayvil 8y ago
  What does M$ bring to the table other than a giant pile of money? How does this giant pile of money serve the users of github?
  • luckydata 8y ago
    Other than being the biggest developer-focused company in the world? Having an extremely complete set of developer tools that can integrate with github? A cloud computing service to deploy apps? I guess nothing, it brings nothing to the table.
    • swayvil 8y ago
      I think that Microsoft is money-focused, not developer-focused. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the mass of open-source developers vastly outweighs Microsoft. These "developer tools" are the property of Microsoft. Which suggests an obvious and worrying path in Github's future. Tell me that I'm wrong. Everybody and his dog has a cloud computing service these days.
      • luckydata 8y ago
        Do you think Github wasn't "money focused"? I'm sure you felt mighty smart making that comment, but businesses are by default focused on making money. HOW you make the money varies, but the final goal doesn't.
  • recharged96 8y ago
    (1) MS brings a huge team of engineers that will exploit the IP in github. (2) MS brings a huge team of lawyers that will exploit the licensing of FOSS (all favors), that will enable #1 Give MS credit, they are one of the smart guys in the room, and I see the tcpip stack fiasco all over again. Github was about meritocracy? Right. It was just social coding, merits got pushed to the wayside when the VCs came in.
• xmr2saturn 8y ago
  nice
• TomK32 8y ago
  ha! my github user id is way smaller than his. noob. https://caius.github.io/github_id/ https://caius.github.io/github_id/
• lucb1e 8y ago
  Right, make it about the person instead of the company. Put someone in charge who will turn the public (just look at te top posts in this thread vs earlier threads). Nice move, Microsoft. People in an organization are usually not evil. It's the organization as a whole. And I'm pretty sure that this CEO has someone and their business with priorities in his neck. It's scary how easily it seems people here move on after seeing a face with a good reputation and a CEO sticker even though they'll still have to dance to another's wishes.
• oneplane 8y ago
  I wonder what is in it for MS if "GitHub will operate independently as a community, platform, and business." and "GitHub will retain its product philosophy." stay true. Do they make money off of it? Get information (that turns into money) out of it?
• oculusthrift 8y ago
  Are there actually people dumb enough to think microsoft employees will be browsing their private repos?
  • prewett 8y ago
    This was the company that would (allegedly) start acquisition talks and then after they learned what they needed during due diligence they would back out of the deal and create a competing product. (Unfortunately, I don't know the words to search for any articles.) So, while I, personally don't think they would, I also wouldn't take the risk. FB employees looked at people's private details; if you can, someone will do it at some time.
• hitekker 8y ago
  > I’m not asking for your trust, but I’m committed to earning it. A choice line. Let’s see if he means it.
• joshbaptiste 8y ago
  C:\GITHUB> git clone https://github.com/my/repository Cloning into repository... remote: Counting objects: 57583, done. remote: Compressing objects: 100% (36/36), done. .................. Resolving deltas: 100% (42949/42949), done. Install Bing Toolbar? (Y/n):
• jenscow 8y ago
  Great news for open source. Perhaps now all the companies in the MS silo are going to learn how OSS is something that can be taken seriously. I've worked in enterprise where using open source tends to be frowned upon. This was mostly due to the FUD from Microsoft.
• glorbol 8y ago
  While Microsoft has a lot of nice marketing and really good PR, they are still a corporation that makes money off selling SQL server licenses and office suite and increasingly by harvesting your user data. Microsoft is addicted to your data. They siphon it off whenever they get the chance, often times by default and without your knowledge or consent. Even their cli Linux tools have """analytics""". This will never change, no matter what slick marketing materials they produce, what PR fluff they have, or shills that shill for them. The simple fact is I cannot trust Microsoft, especially to not touch code in my private repositories. I am sure they just want some "metrics" and to do some "analytics" on all the private data held in GitHub. To use GitHub now, is to trust the same company who works hand in hand with the government and the NSA to make sure you stay insecure and known to agencies who just want to run some "metrics" and do some "analytics" on you. No thanks.
  • chemicalcrux 8y ago
    Where is the profit in the """analytics""" you're speaking of? I do not forsee a marketing firm being that interested in all of the ways I can fat-finger shell commands.
  • foolfoolz 8y ago
    just a friendly reminder most cli tools you use today that run primarily against a cloud service publish analytics explicitly or implicitly. you can’t trust MS to not read your code? do you trust amazon to host your binaries? or database? or google cloud? or do you trust no one and rent your own cage and keep it locked? aws has an entire cloud for US gvoice. they work hand in hand with government requests. google is very tightly coupled as well. do you host entirely on foreign providers?
• mcolyer 8y ago
  I'm a GitHub employee (previously a founder of Easel S12 and Flagr W06) and work now in the Product group on the Marketplace. I'm excited to see Nat's commitment to developers and our community. This news doesn't change our resolve towards building a platform that allows our Ecosystem to thrive. We launched Marketplace just over a year ago and continue to heavily invest in it. We want it to become the place that any entrepreneur in the software space is able able to grow their own successful business. We're just at the beginning of that journey. Looking forward to what's to come and to seeing more developer tools thrive on our Marketplace.
• funwie 8y ago
  Congratulations to Microsoft. I’ve heard it all after this acquisition was announced. Microsoft is evil, Microsoft will never change, Microsoft is that and this, Microsoft will destroy GitHub. There are people who see a monster when they hear Microsoft but I bet ask them how they’ve been hurt by Microsoft and nothing will come up. Is our bias towards Microsoft stoping us from seeing the great work they’ve done in embracing Linux and open source software. Tell me it’s not a big change, and departure from the old Microsoft.
• rwhitman 8y ago
  I'm curious if there are any unforeseen legal implications in having the world's largest software company acquiring the private repositories of a massive number of smaller software companies, including independent competitors to MS. MS now has the capability to not only snoop on smaller competitors' IP but gain visibility into their dev team composition, work habits, pipeline etc. This acquisition smells like something that could get litigated to hell and back, though I'd assume they've already prepared for that
• bengrunfeld 8y ago
  Github always felt like holy ground - neutral territory. But now that’s out the window. Google cannot host their software with Microsoft. Neither can Amazon or Facebook. It’s too much power for one company to hold. I understand the Mergers and Acquisitions have shredded the US economy, creating oligolopolies in every industry, but it hurts to see it happen to the one place I truly cared about - to have that option of neutrality stripped from you. What absolute A-holes they are for doing this.
• smsm42 8y ago
  This all sounds good and nice. The question is how much real power he has in Microsoft hierarchy? I mean, if some Microsoft VP decides to violate any of the promises Nat Friedman makes, what would be his options (besides the obvious one of resigning)? How much power he has if Microsoft decides to change direction and force GitHub to do something they didn't want to do?
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• HugoDaniel 8y ago
  Just copy paste from here: "Please remove all data you have on me. I do not consent with your privacy policy. I don't give permission for your organization to use any kind of information you have about me." https://github.com/contact/privacy https://github.com/contact/privacy
• naiveai 8y ago
  Wow, a bunch of words, with no real promises worth a damn. I'm so impressed.
• goofballlogic 8y ago
  I do hope that this works. One major concern I have is being badly burned by using Xamarin when it was a couple of years (4?) old. I hope they don't do that to github. Xamarin wasn't very elegant back then when those guys started it - it was a horrid hack. That makes me worried.
• hapnin 8y ago
  The concepts of "bought for $7.5 billion" and "independent" strike me as mutually exclusive.
• paul7986 8y ago
  Microsoft destroyed Skype something I used for ten years but don’t anymore. I.e. I forgot my password and mistakenly chose a fake birthday in my first attempt to reset my ten year old Skype account. Well doing that triggered authenticate your age by giving us your credit card number... what? Horrible consumer UX it’s all about milking Skype for all it’s worth and was worth. Facebook voice messenger works just as well and no credit card needed.
• cutler 8y ago
  There are a lot of users on here who either don't remember Microsoft's hostility to Linux and open source or who want to bury their head in the sand. 3 words are all you need to know about Microsft - Linux patent racket: https://www.infoworld.com/article/3042699/open-source-tools/microsoft-loves-open-source-only-when-its-convenient.html https://www.infoworld.com/article/3042699/open-source-tools/... . As far as I'm aware nothing has changed. A leopard never changes its spots.
• cutler 8y ago
  Repeat after me: L-I-N-U-X P-A-T-E-N-T R-A-C-K-E-T
• tguther 8y ago
  Microsoft might contribute to open source now and again, but their business model is actually worse than it was when everyone hated them. Now Microsoft is a surveillance machine like Google and Facebook, but they've also got enterprise captive audiences using their telemetry packed cloud and OS. All this good will because they developed a telemetry packed browser-based text editor or finally started providing a not-dog-crap shell environment is stupid. Their binary editor is licensed like Chrome, who builds VSCode from source? Both Google and Microsoft are doing a hell of a lot of embrace and extinguishing and I think that pattern will continue unnoticed as long as they keep devs happy with silly gimmicky pro-developer products.
• xtat 8y ago
  Nat's a good guy- built stuff with him back in the 90s
• jmainusch 8y ago
  Though the idea of it makes my skin crawl, I am cautiously optimistic.
• pheon 8y ago
  Am seriously pissed at this. MS has been slowly acquiring all the tools used for my business, its like surround and siege warfare. Skype, Linkedin, now GitHub.. The time horizons on these kinds of acquisitions are 5 years out. In that time you`ll log into Windows 20, single sign in to Skype, Linkedin, Github all re-branded, all re-written code, with messed up ELUA and a shitty product. Dont believe todays fluff and BS, the end game is many years out.
• tmsldd 8y ago
  @natfriedman, thanks to come public and sharing with us. To summarize in one word: transparency. That’s what GitHub community expects from the platform and you are the key person to drive it. Microsoft has been increasingly open to the whole open-source idea, which is great. But coming to the point, please, understand the following concerns: 1 - There is without doubt a conflict of interest and trust issues on Microsoft hosting thousands of private repositories, where some potentially compete with Microsoft commercial interests; 2 - There are concerns that the platform would become a exclusive marketing weapon in the hands of Microsoft, eventually killing the spirit of openness and free competition. 3 - The developer community fears that Microsoft see them as “potential clients” and therefore as target to its products. The developer community doesn’t want to be monetizing neither be bombarded with Microsoft products ads. 4 - GitHub has always been a community driven and community centered platform. What will be the role of Microsoft as it changes from “one more user” to the owner of the platform? 5 - What is now business model of GitHub and how entangled is it with Microsoft? More than ever, and more than anything else transparency will be the key for the success of GitHub. I wish you lucky on the new task.
• thelastidiot 8y ago
  Who wants their pull request comments to be used as metadata for Microsoft to benefit from knowing what each software developer under the sun is working on at any time? Didn't we just face the same abuse of leverage personal data from facebook? I will privilege my communication either private or professional by refraining to use both github and facebook.
  • balls187 8y ago
    I never really lumped Microsoft in the "abuse your personal data" space. Abuse their market position, yes, abuse TOS to screw companies out of money, yes, but abuse privacy, unsure that's fair.
• foo101 8y ago
  Done in true GitHub style with the source code of this post at https://github.com/natfriedman/hello https://github.com/natfriedman/hello rendered with GitHub pages. :-)
• Iv 8y ago
  I wonder if MS went all the way to pay people to comment and vote on HN stories and comment. It would make a lot of sense for them to do. I wonder if HN has any protection against this?
• coldseattle 8y ago
  Will he fix these sorts of problems: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9966118 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9966118 and also issues of people being removed from projects _by GitHub Management_ because of political or personal opinions expressed in other forums that were unrelated to the open source project? This is why I don't use GitHub
• reilly3000 8y ago
  Minecraft is evidence in my mind of Microsoft being a reasonable corporate overlord. They could have fought modders and killed off java, but instead have been continuing development on it. I think they have gotten to understand the value of existing communities and maybe how not to accidentally destroy them. For all these companies with the free time to migrate repo hosts on the same day, get back to work and make something worth your focus.
• fagnerbrack 8y ago
  Can somebody change the title to "GitHub is joining Microsoft and a former GNOME developer will become the new CEO" or something like that? "Hello, Github" doesn't say anything...
  • recharged96 8y ago
    title should be: "SCM/CM is not free as in beer" Really want git? Hire a CM mgr/team to manage your code. Been that way before 2010 (yes, it did suck). Doesn't matter if it's done in-house or out-house.
• kenshinji 8y ago
  Please please keep GitHub a neutral place for hosting code, resource and everything as always.
• jas- 8y ago
  Skeptical, but not without cause. 1. Late 90's/Early 2000's, Microsoft's implementation and inclusion of CDRW/DVDRW functionality native to the OS eliminating competition from smaller companies that had pioneered the technology and was selling their software to Windows desktop users. 2. Late 90's/Early 2000's, Microsoft's implementation and development of Active Directory which not only rivaled Novell's Netware flagship product but also went against RFC's put forth by the larger community that rivaled OpenLDAP. Because of the desktop shares and users already on the Windows NT platform put thousands out of work and nearly put Novell out of business. 3. Early to mid 2000's, Microsoft moves away from already found vulnerable MSCHAP, MSCHAPV2 authentication protocols in favor of the MIT Kerberos protocol for all network authentication of users and systems in Active Directory. Not only did this put those companies out to pasture and eliminate a large amount of revenue but the idea of stealing and idea is very bad tact. Reverse engineering code to gain a larger market share is not only dishonest but plagarism and illegal in schools. Why should the free economy play by a different set of rules? People wonder why Microsoft has a bad reputation, the three things I have witnessed over the years in conjunction with the snatching up smaller companies and parting them out make me and I am sure many others very skeptical of their desire to snatch up the worlds largest source code repository.
• daly 8y ago
  I read a lot of comments claiming that MS "used to be a bad actor" but, of course, they now "care about developers and open source". Developers, they say, are the very lifeblood of the new Microsoft. "We respect developers." I work on Windows 10. It is normal for me to have many programs open while I do development along with dozens of web pages containing information I need. Days worth of "state" are stacked on the screen. Every few days Microsoft reaches out and REBOOTS MY MACHINE, losing my work. My various linux boxes all have uptimes listed in YEARS. So next time you think Microsoft cares about your work be sure to thank them for random reboots. After all, a Microsoft 'update' is MUCH more important than your work. You're "just a developer". Microsoft cares about Microsoft, not your work. Expect the same attitude to slowly, eventually, take over Github. You'll need a Microsoft login. You'll be hosted on its server farm, requiring a login. You'll see Microsoft-branded forks of software, prioritized in github searches. You'll see a "Microsoft Git GUI" as the required interface for push/pull. The Microsoft Git will use incompatible hashing from the open source version (it's called "embrace and extend"). Microsoft Git repository communications (e.g. git://github.com) will only work with a Microsoft Git GUI over a Microsoft-login connection.
  • codingdave 8y ago
    Settings -> Windows Update -> Restart Options: Off
    • daly 8y ago
      Yes. I know. The point is their attitude. Someone, somewhere decided that the default reboot policy would be good for Microsoft. Apparently the effect on developers was not worth considering. They didn't seem to care that you would wake up some morning and find that 4 days worth of work disappeared and that your virtual machines won't boot because they changed your hardware settings. Ubuntu pops up a window telling me that updates are available. Apple does the same thing. You don't have to be destructive "by default". You can be certain that Microsoft will "just know" that a Microsoft login "adds value", that cloud-hosting Github "adds value", that SHA-256 is better than SHA-1 for git hashes, that a Microsoft GIT GUI is better than a command line, and that a Microsoft protocol is better than a git:// protocol. Slowly, but surely, the Microsoft attitude will make github into a Microsoft "product". If Microsoft REALLY wanted to help developers they would fix the money problem. Open source needs a way to get grants so people can attend conferences, pay for servers, pay for bandwidth, etc. (not salaries). But grants require accounting. Accounting requires accountants. Somebody, somewhere has to "manage the money", keep the books, and clear the receipts. Otherwise grant organizations and the federal government won't give grants. So if Microsoft REALLY wanted to help open source developers they would hire a few people to manage grant applications and grant money management. Then we could apply for a grant, the money would be held by this non-profit. We're programmers. If you can think of it, we can do it. But it takes someone who has the motivation and the time. Motivation is easy to find but time is not. Because Time is Money (as I'm sure you've heard). So the real issue is open source funding. I've spent the last 18 years trying to get Axiom funded. I tried the NSF. They will not fund Axiom because there is a "competing commercial product" (aka Mathematica). I tried the Air Force (AFOSR). They cannot give grants to open source work because it requires financial tracking. Somebody has to managed the funds and the receipts. When I was at City College I did get a grant but they have a Provost (who took 55% for "support"). In order to handle accounting open source needs an "accounting office" with professional, certified accountants. I approached several companies (e.g. IBM, TI, etc.) with the idea of "donating a certified accountant or two" to an organization that would "manage open source grants" with services like funds management, receipt clearance, taxes, etc. That way an open source project could accept grant money. So far, nobody wants to donate people. I think such an office could completely change the whole open source funding issue. I've tried setting up donations for Axiom. The idea was not to pay people to work on Axiom, just to support things like setting up a conference or paying to attend a conference. I was the only donor. Open source is not free. I estimate that I spent about $3000 per year on things like travel to attend a conference and paying for hosting services. I now have the Axiom server under my desk on a $1200 dollar computer. In order to ensure Axiom runs everywhere I have to buy computers like the Apple (used to be a non-Intel processor), the PowerPC, a Windows machine, a Linux machine, etc. It all adds up to a lot of money.... not to mention the cost of books to keep up. Oh, yeah, and my time is written off as "free".
• jadedhacker 8y ago
  Heh, the United States of Github got invaded and occupied. http://www.businessinsider.com/githubs-oval-office-2013-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/githubs-oval-office-2013-9
• bpanon 8y ago
  Very well said. I predict this will work out.
• ta2354235ff 8y ago
  I'll now use Github like I'd rub salt into my slashed wrists from dealing with Microsoft's bullshit over the years. They can burn in hell.
• dagaci 8y ago
  This might be interesting, the audio of the conference call with Nadella, Friedman, Wanstrath, & CFO https://edge.media-server.com/m6/p/eudfciq3 https://edge.media-server.com/m6/p/eudfciq3
• brownbat 8y ago
  Most people are thinking of this from the GitHub perspective, but MS Office is bigger, and random document editors could benefit a lot from smarter, easier version control. That's just one example, but I'm honestly most curious if any ideas will go from GitHub to other products.
• g-b-r 8y ago
  I hope this will slow down git's adoption and push more people towards Mercurial
• ChankeyPathak 8y ago
  In case you're looking for alternatives, this thread might be of some help: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17241487 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17241487
• TrailingDots 8y ago
  Skype was a great app before Microsoft got its hooks into and ruined it. Now MickeySoft will ruin github with its idea of making it "better". Good luck with that! Here comes the Blue Screen of Death again.
• TrailingDots 8y ago
  Now Microsoft has unfettered access to all your private code. Now MickeySoft does not have to purchase companies, they simply take to code they want. How can you trust the new github to keep your private code private? The Chinese Communist Party has it own stooge at every major company. This "representative" has complete oversight of that company and can overrule decisions that are contrary to the CCP. They demand complete control of all citizens with facial engineering and social engineering. How is Nat different? When push comes to shove, who do you think will win? Nat has a smiley face now, and likely has good intentions, but that facade can easily be transformed into whatever MS really wants. Promises don't mean anything to MS, it's a simple matter of $$$.