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While the technical side of the news is interesting, the organisational repercussions worry me. Microsoft (who owns GitHub) is already one of the largest tech c

While the technical side of the news is interesting, the organisational repercussions worry me. Microsoft (who owns GitHub) is already one of the largest tech companies, and I would not be surprised if this move was intended to weaken NPM and Docker in an attempt to acquire them. I fear a future where everything one requires to develop "socially" depends on a single super-entity. GitHub and VSCode were the first steps in that direction, and now package management. My guess would be for CI/CD to be next on their list, with more integration of Azure somehow (potentially under the hood).

tkahnoski 7y ago
Microsoft has been in this game for a while with Visual Studio, TFS, and other tools. The same strategy is just now catching up to a larget set of better tools. IBM I believe tried to do this with their 'Rational' tool line and they're still buying into the game (UrbanCode).
memmcgee 7y ago
That would make sense as a worst case scenario but I'm not sure the evidence suggests that's the route they're going. If they wanted to acquire a CI/CD product, they would've bought Travis when it was being shopped around for a buyout.
- vn-ki 7y ago
  But they already have CI. See azure pipelines.
keytarsolo 7y ago
I'm glad you brought up Docker, but I think this is a move against GitLab, more than it is against NPM or Docker. Lots of us use GitLab at work because it's such a complete product. Source code, container registry, CI/CD, Issues (via GitLab or Jira), Maven repository, NPM repository, etc. etc. Microsoft is trying to build out GitHub so that they can more effectively compete for GitLab's corporate customers. Since buying GitHub they've added many of GitLab's key features to GitHub and these are some of the biggest adds so far. You might be right that this hurts NPM and Docker, but I think it'll hurt GitLab more.
- orthoxerox 7y ago
  The price of self-hosted GitHub was so high the last time I checked that you could buy the whole Atlassian stack or the highest tier of GitLab instead and still have enough money left for Artifactory.
  - gmueckl 7y ago
    I guess that's their way of telling your bean counters that you don't want self-hosted and instead want to put everything on their servers (<Jedi mind trick wave>). That way, they can increase lock in.
- GordonS 7y ago
  Microsoft's Azure DevOps already has everything corporate customers could want though - AD integration, CI/CD (even hosted MacOS build agents!), choice of TFVC or Git, task boards, testing stuff...

tkahnoski 7y ago

Microsoft has been in this game for a while with Visual Studio, TFS, and other tools. The same strategy is just now catching up to a larget set of better tools. IBM I believe tried to do this with their 'Rational' tool line and they're still buying into the game (UrbanCode).

memmcgee 7y ago

That would make sense as a worst case scenario but I'm not sure the evidence suggests that's the route they're going. If they wanted to acquire a CI/CD product, they would've bought Travis when it was being shopped around for a buyout.

vn-ki 7y ago
But they already have CI. See azure pipelines.

keytarsolo 7y ago

I'm glad you brought up Docker, but I think this is a move against GitLab, more than it is against NPM or Docker. Lots of us use GitLab at work because it's such a complete product. Source code, container registry, CI/CD, Issues (via GitLab or Jira), Maven repository, NPM repository, etc. etc. Microsoft is trying to build out GitHub so that they can more effectively compete for GitLab's corporate customers. Since buying GitHub they've added many of GitLab's key features to GitHub and these are some of the biggest adds so far. You might be right that this hurts NPM and Docker, but I think it'll hurt GitLab more.

orthoxerox 7y ago
The price of self-hosted GitHub was so high the last time I checked that you could buy the whole Atlassian stack or the highest tier of GitLab instead and still have enough money left for Artifactory.
- gmueckl 7y ago
  I guess that's their way of telling your bean counters that you don't want self-hosted and instead want to put everything on their servers (<Jedi mind trick wave>). That way, they can increase lock in.
GordonS 7y ago
Microsoft's Azure DevOps already has everything corporate customers could want though - AD integration, CI/CD (even hosted MacOS build agents!), choice of TFVC or Git, task boards, testing stuff...