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I think it's blindingly naive to think that, on any meaningful timeline, a company like GitHub wouldn't be mining their userbase for trends and capitalising on

I think it's blindingly naive to think that, on any meaningful timeline, a company like GitHub wouldn't be mining their userbase for trends and capitalising on them by selling it to third parties... There's nothing shady about using corporate information and user metadata to provide value to others, but you have to imagine that MS owning that data set is highly similar to MS buying it from GitHub. Up to the minute analysis of a meaningful percentage of the development ecosphere is highly valuable. Selling reports, analysis, or monitoring is a natural expansion of GitHubs business model. Maybe having this dataset go into the same warehouse as LinkedIn strikes some as scary, but I think one actor who is less reliant on direct revenue will have less incentive to push boundaries and spread that info to as many other actors as possible... So whatever privacy issue people feel has arisen here, it's likely just refined itself a little to be much narrower but only a little deeper. Fundamentally, if you don't trust MS with your goodies you shouldn't trust GitHub with your data at all. GitHub Enterprise might be a better solution ;)

ggg9990 8y ago
Except that selling data to third parties has never been Microsoft’s MO. It’s always been about getting fat checks from the worlds largest companies’ IT departments.
- mjw1007 8y ago
  The whole github purchase is premised on the idea that Microsoft have changed their ways in the last few years. So it isn't safe to assume they aren't changing to a more Facebook/Google-like data-selling business model.
  - bobbytherobot 8y ago
    Fair point. I'll counter that with if we are using history as an indication of future actions, then selling off personal data has not been Microsoft's course of evil action. Suppressing competitors, sure, selling personal data, no. Having dipped my toe briefly into the world of collecting and selling personal data, it is a rat-race way to try to make large sums of money. It is an absolute grind. I personally have a hard time seeing why Apple or Microsoft would decide to move away from making windfalls of money through direct purchases. Many startups fall into selling personal data because they can't crack the nut of getting people to pay them.
- bonesss 8y ago
  Exactly :) My point was that EvilCorps using the metadata from GitHub was an unavoidable eventuality IMO [and honestly, it would probably be a Good Thing for developers, but whatevs...]. As it stands, that dataset is now going to be owned be a single EvilCorp. One who has a distinct mercantile incentive to exploit, instead of resell, that data. If the concern is corporate exploitation MS ownership is more likely to reduce the number of exploitative partners to 1. Ironically a net win, for those sensitive to metadata reuse.

ggg9990 8y ago

Except that selling data to third parties has never been Microsoft’s MO. It’s always been about getting fat checks from the worlds largest companies’ IT departments.

mjw1007 8y ago
The whole github purchase is premised on the idea that Microsoft have changed their ways in the last few years. So it isn't safe to assume they aren't changing to a more Facebook/Google-like data-selling business model.
- bobbytherobot 8y ago
  Fair point. I'll counter that with if we are using history as an indication of future actions, then selling off personal data has not been Microsoft's course of evil action. Suppressing competitors, sure, selling personal data, no. Having dipped my toe briefly into the world of collecting and selling personal data, it is a rat-race way to try to make large sums of money. It is an absolute grind. I personally have a hard time seeing why Apple or Microsoft would decide to move away from making windfalls of money through direct purchases. Many startups fall into selling personal data because they can't crack the nut of getting people to pay them.
bonesss 8y ago
Exactly :) My point was that EvilCorps using the metadata from GitHub was an unavoidable eventuality IMO [and honestly, it would probably be a Good Thing for developers, but whatevs...]. As it stands, that dataset is now going to be owned be a single EvilCorp. One who has a distinct mercantile incentive to exploit, instead of resell, that data. If the concern is corporate exploitation MS ownership is more likely to reduce the number of exploitative partners to 1. Ironically a net win, for those sensitive to metadata reuse.