5 ms·

I really can't think of a better large tech company to buy GitHub (Which has been closed sourced since creation and I don't know why people are so scared). Now

I really can't think of a better large tech company to buy GitHub (Which has been closed sourced since creation and I don't know why people are so scared). Now Oracle would make me put on my tin foil hat on immediately and deleting of my account.

dorfsmay 8y ago
Because people with closed source, the paying customers, now have to trust their potential biggest competitor with their source code ‽
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- zulrah 8y ago
  So you tell that people trust private company which was loosing money since the creation better than Microsoft with all of its reputation at stake?
  - phamilton 8y ago
    It would seem Github had $7.5B at stake.
  - TuringNYC 8y ago
    Is it unfair that I keep thinking of the SCO–Linux dispute at the moment? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO%E2%80%93Linux_disputes#Microsoft_funding_of_SCO_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO%E2%80%93Linux_disputes#Mic...
    - CodeCube 8y ago
      yes :)
    - gardnr 8y ago
      That's the overarching style of business that I associate with the Microsoft brand
    - baldfat 8y ago
      That's comparing oranges with a monkey. How do they relate?
  - wpietri 8y ago
    Yes. 100% yes. Microsoft didn't care about their reputation for a long time. They currently do, at least a little, but that could change back. Github was losing money, but that's pretty typical for SaaS businesses. I have no reason to think they couldn't have gotten to break-even. And if the can't get to break even, I have no reason to think Microsoft will subsidize them indefinitely.
    - baldfat 8y ago
      I still think Microsoft had the lion share of the programmers mind with Virtual Studio? I am guessing it really has more to do with emotional response to the name MS then anything MS has done in the past 5 years. I use Bit Bucket because I knew they were making money and were solvent and I knew GitHub was just waiting for a big pay day. BOY was I wrong with the timing and the amount. > And if the can't get to break even, I have no reason to think Microsoft will subsidize them indefinitely. This fits perfectly with their developer system with Virtual Studio, VS Code and Azure. I can't see how this isn't a great buy for them and their ecco-system.
    - hannasanarion 8y ago
      That's not just a scummy breach of trust though, that's a blatantly illegal breach of trust. Source code is a trade secret. Copying it without permission is corporate espionage. People would go to jail if they tried. You are asserting that Microsoft's intentions are criminal.
      - dorfsmay 8y ago
        I'm 100% sure that this is not their intention... But can you guarantee that this is not going to happen in the future? All it takes is one rogue employee, and it could have devastating irreversible effects on a small startup. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A9r%C3%B4me_Kerviel#Unauthorized_trading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A9r%C3%B4me_Kerviel#Unaut... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Leeson#Downfall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Leeson#Downfall
  - flud 8y ago
    În a word, YES. Profitability <> quality. I would argue that the case here is quite the opposite. Github is loved for a variety of reasons, small & large decisions that are influenced by how profit-oriented the company is. And how willing they are to annoy their users to squeeze some more "profit" and/or data out of them.
  - dorfsmay 8y ago
    Yes. Financial stability and conflict of interest are two orthogonal issues. The worst case scenario with Github closing the door, assuming no heads up, is that you'd lose your issues and PR. You have your git history on a bunch of machines (your devs + you should really have a dedicated backup). The worst case scenario with Microsoft having visibility of your "closed" source code is that they take a peek at it and implement a better faster more integrated version of them in their own product competing with you, or heck even copy/paste your code. What can you do about it? How could you prove it? Remember, they can afford orders of magnitude more number of lawyer hours than you.
  - civilitty 8y ago
    What's the evidence that Github was loosing money? Their first (and only, AFAIK) round was with Andreesen Horowitz for $100 million, many years after they had already become the go-to host for open source projects. Before that round the company was bootstrapped with personal funds.
- sequoia 8y ago
  Are you suggesting MSFT is going to _steal people's code_ from private github repositories? This strikes me as a bit fantastical. What software hosting platform is not also itself a software company? Atlassian, Gitlab...?
  - jonny_eh 8y ago
    What if you run a recruitment web app that competes with LinkedIn?
    - sequoia 8y ago
      What if? What if I run an operating system project, IDE project, email client, etc.? MSFT is going to steal or shutdown every type of software that competes with one of their products? Doesn't add up to me.
      - damieng 8y ago
        The amount Microsoft would have to lose - in courts and public trust - if they were to abuse the private sensitive data held in their systems - would massively outweigh any benefit they could hope to achieve from that information.
        nickpsecurity 8y ago
        That's already been tested: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-... They're still in business. Numbers look good. They also have advertising and telemetry on paid stuff that people would usually assume doesn't sell them out like free, ad-driven services. Windows, Office, and Xbox are valuable enough that customers will tolerate quite a lot before leaving.
      - aphextron 8y ago
        >"What if? What if I run an operating system project, IDE project, email client, etc.? MSFT is going to steal or shutdown every type of software that competes with one of their products?" Doesn't add up to me. It doesn't matter. The "what if?" is enough to cause a chilling effect. This will be the effective death of GitHub. I'm certain projects that are all-in on the platform will stick around out of momentum. But yesterday was the last day anyone would ever consider starting a new major project on GitHub.
- jenscow 8y ago
  Any company who is small enough to not host their own code repo are of little interest to Microsoft.
- edanm 8y ago
  This is not a concern that many real people have, just people on HN. In the real world, people trust companies and context contracts with companyies to protect them. Eg all the people using clouds like azure.
dannyw 8y ago
Google or Amazon?
- baldfat 8y ago
  I don't see how their reputations would be even garner half the trust.

dorfsmay 8y ago

Because people with closed source, the paying customers, now have to trust their potential biggest competitor with their source code ‽

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
zulrah 8y ago
So you tell that people trust private company which was loosing money since the creation better than Microsoft with all of its reputation at stake?
- phamilton 8y ago
  It would seem Github had $7.5B at stake.
- TuringNYC 8y ago
  Is it unfair that I keep thinking of the SCO–Linux dispute at the moment? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO%E2%80%93Linux_disputes#Microsoft_funding_of_SCO_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO%E2%80%93Linux_disputes#Mic...
  - CodeCube 8y ago
    yes :)
  - gardnr 8y ago
    That's the overarching style of business that I associate with the Microsoft brand
  - baldfat 8y ago
    That's comparing oranges with a monkey. How do they relate?
- wpietri 8y ago
  Yes. 100% yes. Microsoft didn't care about their reputation for a long time. They currently do, at least a little, but that could change back. Github was losing money, but that's pretty typical for SaaS businesses. I have no reason to think they couldn't have gotten to break-even. And if the can't get to break even, I have no reason to think Microsoft will subsidize them indefinitely.
  - baldfat 8y ago
    I still think Microsoft had the lion share of the programmers mind with Virtual Studio? I am guessing it really has more to do with emotional response to the name MS then anything MS has done in the past 5 years. I use Bit Bucket because I knew they were making money and were solvent and I knew GitHub was just waiting for a big pay day. BOY was I wrong with the timing and the amount. > And if the can't get to break even, I have no reason to think Microsoft will subsidize them indefinitely. This fits perfectly with their developer system with Virtual Studio, VS Code and Azure. I can't see how this isn't a great buy for them and their ecco-system.
  - hannasanarion 8y ago
    That's not just a scummy breach of trust though, that's a blatantly illegal breach of trust. Source code is a trade secret. Copying it without permission is corporate espionage. People would go to jail if they tried. You are asserting that Microsoft's intentions are criminal.
    - dorfsmay 8y ago
      I'm 100% sure that this is not their intention... But can you guarantee that this is not going to happen in the future? All it takes is one rogue employee, and it could have devastating irreversible effects on a small startup. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A9r%C3%B4me_Kerviel#Unauthorized_trading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A9r%C3%B4me_Kerviel#Unaut... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Leeson#Downfall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Leeson#Downfall
- flud 8y ago
  În a word, YES. Profitability <> quality. I would argue that the case here is quite the opposite. Github is loved for a variety of reasons, small & large decisions that are influenced by how profit-oriented the company is. And how willing they are to annoy their users to squeeze some more "profit" and/or data out of them.
- dorfsmay 8y ago
  Yes. Financial stability and conflict of interest are two orthogonal issues. The worst case scenario with Github closing the door, assuming no heads up, is that you'd lose your issues and PR. You have your git history on a bunch of machines (your devs + you should really have a dedicated backup). The worst case scenario with Microsoft having visibility of your "closed" source code is that they take a peek at it and implement a better faster more integrated version of them in their own product competing with you, or heck even copy/paste your code. What can you do about it? How could you prove it? Remember, they can afford orders of magnitude more number of lawyer hours than you.
- civilitty 8y ago
  What's the evidence that Github was loosing money? Their first (and only, AFAIK) round was with Andreesen Horowitz for $100 million, many years after they had already become the go-to host for open source projects. Before that round the company was bootstrapped with personal funds.
sequoia 8y ago
Are you suggesting MSFT is going to _steal people's code_ from private github repositories? This strikes me as a bit fantastical. What software hosting platform is not also itself a software company? Atlassian, Gitlab...?
- jonny_eh 8y ago
  What if you run a recruitment web app that competes with LinkedIn?
  - sequoia 8y ago
    What if? What if I run an operating system project, IDE project, email client, etc.? MSFT is going to steal or shutdown every type of software that competes with one of their products? Doesn't add up to me.
    - damieng 8y ago
      The amount Microsoft would have to lose - in courts and public trust - if they were to abuse the private sensitive data held in their systems - would massively outweigh any benefit they could hope to achieve from that information.
      - nickpsecurity 8y ago
        That's already been tested: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-... They're still in business. Numbers look good. They also have advertising and telemetry on paid stuff that people would usually assume doesn't sell them out like free, ad-driven services. Windows, Office, and Xbox are valuable enough that customers will tolerate quite a lot before leaving.
    - aphextron 8y ago
      >"What if? What if I run an operating system project, IDE project, email client, etc.? MSFT is going to steal or shutdown every type of software that competes with one of their products?" Doesn't add up to me. It doesn't matter. The "what if?" is enough to cause a chilling effect. This will be the effective death of GitHub. I'm certain projects that are all-in on the platform will stick around out of momentum. But yesterday was the last day anyone would ever consider starting a new major project on GitHub.
jenscow 8y ago
Any company who is small enough to not host their own code repo are of little interest to Microsoft.
edanm 8y ago
This is not a concern that many real people have, just people on HN. In the real world, people trust companies and context contracts with companyies to protect them. Eg all the people using clouds like azure.

dannyw 8y ago

Google or Amazon?

baldfat 8y ago
I don't see how their reputations would be even garner half the trust.