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Microsoft Buys GitHub: The Linux Foundation's Reaction
- sytse 8y agoFrom the OP: "Whether it’s an established company or startup that’s gained mass appeal like GitHub, GitLab or Stack Overflow" Thanks for the recognition for GitLab! We hope that for many people that switched https://twitter.com/develosysadmine/status/1005061323405873152 https://twitter.com/develosysadmine/status/10050613234058731... was the case: "For me, I already knew GitLab was better than GitHub in a variety of ways. Microsoft just gave me the slightest nudge to actually make the switch."
- davelnewton 8y agoAh, a voice of reason. I'm no MS lover; I've been off their products both at home and work for over 15+ years, at home since basically forever except for some apps that only ran on Windows. The MS of now is a far difference MS a decade ago, even five years ago. Things change--sometimes people don't.
- some_account 8y agoThey are wrong and this is absolutely not good for open source. Voice of reason? More like voice of ignorance.
- jjuel 8y agoHow is it bad for open source? Open source existed before GitHub and will certainly remain after.
- davelnewton 8y agoIMO calling a wide swath of people "ignorant" with zero content is just noise that does nothing to elevate the conversation. Most of us moved past name-calling in grade school.
- josteink 8y agoFirst off a disclaimer: Personally I'm not vehemently against this takeover, like others are. That said, I'm not super enthusiastic about it either. I've seen MS acquisitions go both good and bad before, so I'll simply wait and see how it turns out before passing judgement. Consider me neutral[1] at this point. > Ah, a voice of reason I'm not going to argue "reason" or not, but the Linux foundation is not impartial in these matters: Microsoft is a platinum Linux Foundation partner. They're obviously going to be biased. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk1dd1D2Kts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk1dd1D2Kts
- davelnewton 8y agoA claim of bias requires more than "there's money involved", though. You're assuming bias. There may or may not be bias in this statement.
- syshum 8y agoSomeone might want to inform MS Legal dept that they work for a "far far far different" company than a decade ago, the MS legal team seems to have missed that memo
- v178kl 8y agoThe Linux foundation is on the take from MSFT.
- monoid 8y agoWell, Microsoft is a Platinum Member of the Linux Foundation. It would be really weird to see anything but a positive reaction from a consortium which receives a substantial amount of money from Microsoft.
- erikb 8y agoThat is a very interesting point actually. That Microsoft is a sponsor of the Linux foundation is not just a plus point in this discussion, but also a motivator for the Foundation to report positively.
- skc 8y agoThis would imply the Linux Foundation are greedy shills. I somehow doubt that.
- throwaway2048 8y agoWhy? They have other members that are pretty openly hostile to open source, and specificly linux itself. Such as vmware and allwinner who refuse to release kernel sourcecode for their products.
- organsnyder 8y agoI've worked for a non-profit in a controversial space (interaction of faith and science). While my colleagues always strived to tell what they saw as truth, there was always an acknowledgement—unstated—that donors' reactions informed our approaches to addressing issues. Not that we compromised our values, but we couldn't operate in a vacuum.
- craftyguy 8y agoThe Linux Foundation is a joke. Hell, even Oracle is a 'platinum member', and there's no company on earth as aggressively hostile towards FLOSS than Oracle.
- kabacha 8y ago
- Insanity 8y agoCan't really write something on the Linux foundation that'd annoy a platinum partner though, can you? :) Though I'm in the middle on this, I'll see what microsoft does with github. The company has shown a different approach to the 'old microsoft' but it's still a company with the aim of making a profit. Github was losing money IIRC and MSFT has a lot of data on people as it is. Github might be a good way to target devs for advertisements :)
- Kipters 8y agoNat Friedman (future CEO of GitHub) has stated on his Reddit AMA that there will be not any advertisement on GitHub
- fred_is_fred 8y agoGithub's aim was also making money.
- jjuel 8y agoYeah Github wasn't a non-profit. It was a company that wanted to make money. They weren't giving everything they offered away for free. In fact the main reason I used Gitlab was for free private repositories. But no use arguing I guess since people will never change their mind no matter what Microsoft does.
- fred_is_fred 8y agoFree private teams were the reason I first used gitlab also, but I found that I liked their CI system too.
- walterbell 8y ago(previously asked and unanswered) 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). Can someone clarify if Windows 10 will be a hard requirement to use the Microsoft Azure Sphere Linux SDK for IoT/embedded boards?
- Insanity 8y agoDoes feel a bit off-topic for the discussion at hand. Unfortunately, I can't help clarify, sorry
- walterbell 8y agoA question about mandating Microsoft Windows to develop Microsoft Linux apps is off-topic on a Linux Foundation article about Microsoft?
- Insanity 8y agoWell, if anything it's more 'meta' than the content of the article. But I suppose you just wanted to highlight it rather than pose it as a question :)
- walterbell 8y agoIt’s a real question. It makes no sense that Microsoft would impose a hard requirement, they only need to make Visual Studio more convenient for open-source Linux developers, which should be trivially easy in comparison to any Linux embedded CLI toolchain. If you’re Microsoft courting the open-source community to the the tune of $7.5B purchase of Github, and you are releasing the first Microsoft Linux kernel, why would you unnecessarily mandate the tying of Linux to a Windows toolchain, when you’re already going to win/earn a voluntary tie by competing on usability? What you want is developers voluntarily porting their Github embedded Linux open-source projects to Visual Studio. New Microsoft should have a chat with vestiges of Old Microsoft.
- kragniz 8y agoNot disclosed in this post: Microsoft is a platinum sponsor of the Linux Foundation, which has a price tag of at least $500k per year.
- d3sandoval 8y ago> ...and they are backers of The Linux Foundation, the Apache Software Foundation, the Open Source Initiative and many similar efforts. Looks like disclosure to me
- kragniz 8y agoI guess so, but it downplays the amount of cash they're giving to the organization that employs the author of this post.
- andrewmcwatters 8y agoEnough to pay for less than 5 engineers a year? Okay.
- ConceptJunkie 8y agoYeah, Microsoft can find $500,000 in the couch cushions. It's not even a rounding error for them. It doesn't mean it's not a good thing they're doing it, but it's not like that's a huge contribution.
- dragonwriter 8y agoIt's not huge to Microsoft, sure, but it's signficant enough to the Linux Foundation that it effects the independence of any LF reaction to Microsoft (especially since their stance toward Platinum members affects the attractiveness of the membership in general, not just for the member they respond to.)
- seeekr 8y agoI believe it is quite clear to many of us familiar with the space that Microsoft is not some small-time backer of the Linux Foundation and other, related organizations. I certainly did not feel the least bit of an attempt to downplay MS' financial contribution in light of the subject of the conversation.
- syshum 8y agoAhh yes, Jim Zemlin the man that famously Attends Linux conference using a apple mac Computer and not Linux.... (am sure that will soon be replaced with the Surface running Windows 10 with the "Linux Subsystem" ...) The Linux Foundation... the Business Organization that rejected the individuals of the community and focus solely on its corporate sponsors one of the largest being Microsoft It is not shocking that the Linux Foundation supports their Corporate Master Microsoft in their acquisition of Github.. To do otherwise would cost them many many thousands of dollars
- netsharc 8y agoOpen-source developers: "Microsoft should embrace open source, it's the one true way!" Microsoft: embraces open source Open-source developers: "They're trying to control us! They're trying to control us!".
- Sylos 8y agoYou don't embrace open-source by buying a major code hosting platform.
- cupofjoakim 8y agoThat does depend on the situation. We know that google wanted to buy Github, so a (very unlikely) motivation could be that microsoft bought github to "protect it" from google, or in case of no deal happening, financial instability. That being said, we have no way of knowing what the true motive of the move is - being sceptical/critical is indeed the correct reaction.
- ggregoire 8y agoMS is the biggest open source contributor on GitHub.
- mikece 8y agoUsually you buy something in order to make a profit from it. In the case of GitHub, Microsoft is committed to losing money from now until they cease to exist to continue GitHub as a going concern, that will never implode for lack of funds, as a place where open source projects can be freely hosted and open source developers can find a sense of community. This is more magnanimous than anything Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Twitter have done -- COMBINED!
- IncRnd 8y ago> Microsoft is committed to losing money from now until they cease to exist to continue GitHub as a going concern Is that your belief, or do you know that to be true?
- erikb 8y agoI like his good vibe about all of it, and I agree I love to see that MS is doing more moves into the right direction. However I feel we should not trust him too quickly. Every big company tries to claim they have changed, will change and are currently in a process of change. But in reality most companies stay stuck at exactly that point in time where they were most successful. that means Microsoft is likely stuck ~10 years go, where Windows XP was at its peak. It's not just a CEO who can change that. It needs all kinds of changes on all kinds of levels. For instance if department leader's KPIs and bonus structure hasn't changed, they will continue to actively fight open source. Even if there is now a new, fancy department with even big names from open source communities, that doesn't mean all the other departments changed. Also what happens to the devs who are there for 20+ years now, probably quite a few of them in senior dev and architect roles. Will they drop all that they've grown up with? Can Microsoft afford to let them go for big money and hire new, unknown people instead? If they manage to get this github integration right, I may start to think about them in a positive fashion but until now there's too much doubt and too many things that might go wrong. Compared to the size of a huge corp we've only seen fluff up till now.
- whatever_dude 8y ago> Microsoft is likely stuck ~10 years go, where Windows XP was at its peak I feel that they were like this during the Windows 8 era. But I like to believe they had their wake-up call (the failure of Windows RT, of Windows Phone, the rise of macOS and iOS) to a point where they were ready to try something radical, and what we're seeing now is the result of those efforts.
- Teckla 8y agoEvery big company tries to claim they have changed, will change and are currently in a process of change. This is insightful, and in addition to this, culture change can and does happen at companies. Just because they're evil today, doesn't mean they'll be evil tomorrow. Similarly, just because they're good today, doesn't mean they'll be good tomorrow. We should always look with suspicion at megacorps acting with what appears to be outrageous altruism. Companies don't throw around $7.5 billion without expecting to profit from it.
- 8y ago
- _RPM 8y agoQuestion: Who works on Windows NT / low level hardware / kernel at Microsoft? Is this something they still hire for?
- xamarinthrw 8y agoTalk to the wsl team on guthub, they are part of the larger kernel team
- mikece 8y agoI wonder how many companies have considered selecting GitHub as the place for their source code, wikis, process, issue tracking, etc but hesitated or went with another vendor simply because the financial future of GitHub was an open question. Now, with Microsoft making that question a moot point, I think a lot of companies will now make the move to GitHub knowing it will not go away. Ironically... having Microsoft behind GitHub and being willing to lose money on the company forever could actually be the reasons it has a hope to turn a profit some day.
- kyleperik 8y agoI wonder what would have happened to Microsoft's Diamond level sponsorship for the Linux Foundation if they said something different.
- tvirelli 8y agoJust don't make me use a damn Microsoft live account to login!
- petilon 8y agoPretty sure this will be the first change after the acquisition. Microsoft has to ease the path from checking in code to Github to building and deploying it on Azure.
- Voloskaya 8y agoAs stated, no. It will likely be the other way around: Use your GitHub account to login to Azure.
- sethgecko 8y agoIt's going to be the other way around. You will log in to Azure etc with a GitHub account.
- Voloskaya 8y agoNat Friedman, Future CEO of GitHub clearly stated that this wouldn't happen because GitHub's identity management is far superior to MS one. However the opposite might very well happen: Use your GitHub account to sign into MS other services.
- petilon 8y agoFar superior in what way?
- Voloskaya 8y agoUsers actually like it for a start :) You don't have to go through 3 redirections to login, handling of 3rd party apps authorization is well thought out, and GitHub is already used an auth provider for many dev servcies, Microsoft accounts are not.
- forgottenpass 8y ago
- mistrial9 8y agothis has a huge spin/politics feel to it, when you get to "it used to be easy to make fun of Microsoft, but.. I have grown up" I call BS -- it was very grown-up of Microsoft to abuse repeatedly their clients and partners, and it is just and right to call them out on it.. that one statement is obsequious whiteash, plain and simple.
- Teckla 8y agoThis is insightful. The author implies that if you have a healthy skepticism when megacorps throw around billions of dollars, you're not "grown up."
- OptionX 8y agoPeople relax. If M$ really does go Weyland-Yutani on us with GitHub we'll just move to another git hosting service and they'll be out 7.5B. Unfortunately for them as a company they need costumers to exist, and we are those costumers, so, we just have to keep an eye out for shady stuff and act on them. Like always.
- DannyB2 8y agoI seem to recall earlier, in 2016 I think, that Microsoft already acquired The Linux Foundation. Acquired might be replaced with other euphemisms like "joined" or "became a member of".
- nickpsecurity 8y ago" I will own responsibility for some of that as I spent a good part of my career at the Linux Foundation poking fun at Microsoft (which, at times, prior management made way too easy). But times have changed and it’s time to recognize that we have all grown up – the industry, the open source community, even me." What is this guy talking about? Maybe he's changed but Microsoft hasn't: they're still a company doing evil things on a large scale that simply sees more value (for them) increased FOSS support. I'll especially highlight the patent suits with them pulling billions of dollars from Android vendors despite them not contributing anything to Android. They were working on displacing it with Windows Phone. Yet, they use legal threats to pull hundreds of millions a year for their "inventions" on paper from those actually building things we want to buy. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2015/11/01/microsoft-android-patent-income/#74d9f7195c6c https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2015/11/01/microsoft... Both stevelord and I had a few more examples at the link below where we last discussed it: https://lobste.rs/s/zknzmj/microsoft_acquire_github_for_7_5_billion#c_yskzgz https://lobste.rs/s/zknzmj/microsoft_acquire_github_for_7_5_... EDIT: In case anyone wonders, I was hoping a company like Red Hat acquired them. One that is a bit less evil with more incentive to keep high investments in FOSS. Given the numbers involved, one can't hope for much more.
- shmerl 8y ago> Most of the important projects on GitHub are licensed under an open source license, which addresses intellectual property ownership. This can be tricky in a legally messed up environment. In US, courts sided with Oracle about copyrightability of APIs. And guess who supported Oracle in that dispute? Microsoft. So how should open source projects feel about it, especially when they let's say implement MS own APIs?
- jeandejean 8y agoIt's not for sure but highly likely that Microsoft will do some things that are not desirable. From now on, should you believe trending repos are not filtered by Microsoft? Don't you think they might put some advertisement for their own projects / products? What will they do with the massive amount of data they have now access to, including private repositories? Those saying there is no reason to worry are just hoping for big amount of luck. Yeah I hope so too, but let's face it, it's very unlikely they're not gonna do anything undesirable and only improve the platform.
- ablutop 8y agoSomething is missing from this reaction: AI. MS is buying a privileged access to billions lines of code with their history and corrections. In 5-10Y times most code will be produced by AI and the simplest way to train a AI system is to to have access to data. That's what they bought, data. Unfortunately this is another step towards more concentration in IT...
- linuxftw 8y agoMicrosoft is on the board of the Linux Foundation and a Platinum sponsor. Nothing the Linux Foundation says about Microsoft can be truly objective. I find this article distasteful and lacking integrity.
- damm 8y agoI think what I don't appreciate is how many people are trying to calm peoples fears about the acquisition. Feels like a parent chiding a kid I guess Github was in worse shape than they looked like on the outside. Happens; the fact that the 3 founders made a fortune off of this is unfortunate. One of those founders stepped down and yet he still won. It's just a game; wether you play blackjack or poker or big stakes with companies.